11/29/2015 (1 of 1 found this helpful)

Save the World, Kill Your Friends

Magicka is an excellent example of how an indie studio can create something original and fun and should be one of the examples and up-and-coming game studio should pay attention to. Arrowhead, at the time comprised of nothing but university students, managed to create this gem. An inspiration for anyone out there.

Presentation: The top-down shooter (using magic - mostly) is presented in a bright, colorful way. Even when enemies explode into gibbets of blood, it's just so cheerful you can't help but smile. This world is partially a Scandinavian-based world but presents you with so many different fantasy elements thrown in (with Monty Python's Holy Grail and Tolkien's Middle Earth being just two examples) that the whole thing is a very real, but yet a parody at the same time. The color...

Rating of
4/5 

11/05/2015 (2 of 2 found this helpful)

Great Power, Great Irresponsibility

“Magicka” is the inaugural game development effort from Swedish Indie developer, Arrowhead Game Studios, an outfit consisting of – at the time “Magicka” was developed and released – university students. Not only is “Magicka” a PC exclusive game, but it is an incredibly unique concept the likes of which I have never seen before.

Presentation
“Magicka” takes place in a colorful, cartoony world that riffs on Norse mythology a little bit and standard High Fantasy tropes a lot. The game world and characters are fully polygonal and look incredibly vibrant and lively. The spell effects that arise out of “Magicka’s” central gameplay mechanic look nice as well, and generally give the player a good visual indication of the effect’s elemental attributes.

The...

Rating of
4/5 

04/03/2015 (2 of 2 found this helpful)

Bork bork wizard bork bork

People often talk about “easy to learn, difficult to master” video games. It’s a good ideal to strive for, because it indicates a combination of accessibility and depth at the same time.

Not as many people talk “difficult to learn, difficult to master” games. For obvious reasons. This generally just comes off as difficult and off-putting. To anything other than a masochist, it’s hard to make this sort of thing sound appealing.

Which, I guess, worked to my benefit. I had no idea what I was getting into with Magicka, and if someone had told me about it, I don’t know if I would have given it a shot. I’m going to try to toe the line between explaining the difficulty of the game to you without simultaneously turning you off from the game.

The essentials about Mag...

Rating of
4/5