Viking Rage is a VR game that will have you defending the gates of Valhalla against a horde of mythical enemies. You will have nothing but nearby axes to throw and keep them at bay but will soon have access to the bow & arrow. It is all about long to mid ranged combat that will test your aim as you teleport around preset areas to kill off as many foes as you can before they get anywhere near the gates. Most will not attack you nor do you take any fatal damage but if they succeed in destroying what you must protect enough, it will result in defeat.
The closest genre to it would be Tower Defense where you are the sole turret to stop the ever marching horde. You will face wolves, wyverns and large fashionable ogres that love to wear a variety of clothing to name a few. They will all take considerably more damage if you manage to strike them in the head. Using a bow & arrow obviously has far better range & accuracy than chucking an axe but causes much less damage, and you have a limited number of arrows to boot. Your axe will be your primary weapon for fighting so learning how to throw them properly will be vital to your survival.
In the first two levels, the game will ease you in with simple layouts and forgiving enemy amounts though as soon as you hit the third level, it yanks off your training wheels. At the beginning of each level, you will be given as much time as you want to explore and burn into your skull the routes as well as the weapon placements. Once you are ready to battle, you only need to hit the giant practice dummy to begin. If you survive long enough in each level, you will earn stuff such as more arrows from the start, a blue flame that causes your arrow to freeze some enemies and a few bombs to for when your enemies are too numerous to handle.
Make use of any open flames you come across to light up your arrows or heat up your axe for extra damage. You must also light the bomb before you throw it for it to actually explode which nearly caused me to subconsciously facepalm with my Vive controller in hand, the first time I realized that. It is not a title where you have much time to relax, you are always under siege and must constantly be looking around the place least an enemy sneak past you. Scattered around the levels are explosive barrels for you to strike when the situation calls for it, and they do respawn at the same location after each wave.
Some levels have icicles that you can use against them as well. Your gates can take a fair amount of hits before they are breached though it is best not to get too confident. It will not always be gates that you are defending, at times it may be eggs or the very platform you stand on as you have nowhere to teleport to and are surrounded by enemies. Your trump card for when all seems lost is your rage meter that when activated will either give you two rapid firing crossbows or make your axes explosive for a limited time. This meter is filled by killing enemies and is activated by hitting the circular target that appears when it is full.
The graphics have a cartoonish vibe to them and a polygon art style very reminiscent of PS1 games. Every level is full of color with a large amount of verticality to them. It is not only the battlefield below that you must take note of but the skies as well. There will occasionally be balloons carrying bombs, enemies or if you are lucky extra arrows for you to use. Wyverns are the only enemy that attack you directly, and if they manage to hit you, your vision gets extremely blurry for a couple of seconds which can easily be fatal if any enemies get by you in your blinded state. The fireballs they breathe out at you are slow and easy to dodge but the battlefield is always so hectic it can be easy to get blind sighted if you were not astute enough.
In total there are five levels that will take only a few hours to complete, assuming you got your axe throwing skills down. One level stands above every other in my opinion as the sudden introduction of the game’s only boss makes its appearance. That creature is gargantuan and will not go down as easily as the rest of the foes you have faced since then. It is a shame there wasn’t another boss as the last area simply couldn’t hold a candle to the one that has it. Not to say the last one is easy mind you, I was frankly shocked that I managed to beat it by the skin of my teeth the first time around.
Beating a level seems to unlock secrets back in your hub-world. The ones I managed to find were a golf mini-game and one that allows you to spawn in enemies as well as play on a drum set. Golfing in this game is far stranger than you may be imagining. You are given a large axe to use as a club by a giant ogre while another one is happily dancing in the background. The balls you are using are in fact miniature wolves that you have to smack with your axe into a target for points. It is incredibly bizarre but seeing a wolf ragdoll across the field was oddly addicting. Before I knew it, I was the Tiger Woods of the dancing ogre’s world.
Okay, I am actually still terrible at any form of golfing, but I tried and will continue to try until that new found dream comes true. All joking aside, there are more than those two secrets activities to discover in the hub-world though I sadly couldn’t find them. In the hub, you will have a floating book nearby that teleports you to the bestiary to view the enemy models up close with their stats displayed as well. Overall, Viking Rage is an intense and enjoyable experience that will test both your throwing arm and your aim. Its main fault lies with how fast you will be able to get through its five levels though the wacky mini-games do make up for that somewhat. Nonetheless, there are few things more satisfying than nailing a goblin with your axe from across the map.
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