Magicka 2: Review

There is a third variety of success – popular recognition with restrained reviews of game journalists. That is how in 2011 an unusual action was accepted with a view of the top called Magicka. Most review authors put a game about wizards without an assessment of about 7 out of 10. Reduced points mainly due to malicious “amusing”. Simple keyboard and mouse users Magicka I fell in love, especially after the release of patches, correcting flaws.

Without any connection with all the above, the upcoming appearance of the sequel caused certain fears. In fairness, we note that fears always arise when the original project is transferred to the new team of developers. Arrowhead Game Studios nothing more is related to Magicka: the creation of the second part was engaged in small, but proud Pieces Interactive.

We were all taught not to stand in the fire. But in the case of Magicka 2, we will have to forget everything that we were taught at the school of game survival.

And no vampires

We are met by an old acquaintance-Vlad, nor-no-no-vampir, who in the first part acted as a certain plot-firing beginning for the nameless hero or team of heroes. According to him, since the first Magicka In the magical world, something is rotten and subsided. Mages unleashed a civil war, chopped each other, and the rare survivors became so strange that in a decent society they began to avoid them. The ancient castle of Aldheim, in which representatives of different spontaneous schools used to learn magical art, fell into decay. Against this background, a Prophet stands out by the name of Nostrir, who predicted the coming to Earth of the Great Sorcerer, capable of uniting all the elements

and generally restore order in the world called Midgard.

Our character was unlucky: it is he who must find a child from the prophecy in order to protect him from malicious … in general, all malicious all. The deliberately plain plot tie, of course, has a very indirect attitude to what we will do in Magicka 2. Because, in essence, we are talking about fun from the series “kill everything that moves, and die countless times yourself”.

We wish you pleasant death

Speaking of “countless times”, we are not too exaggerating too much. An attempt to pass the game alone, even at a normal level of complexity, will be a long, painful and low -contrast. The complexity grows from chapter to chapter, there are more and more enemies. The flocks of small goblins at the beginning of our journey easily go to the world other when selecting adequate combinations of elements. But already at some third level there, we begin to deal with such impressive colonies of various creatures at the same time that the process of passage turns into torture and a serious blow to self-esteem. Only support for comrades – that is, a cooperative – can save us from depression. Provided that we ourselves are not sewn, and associates can play.

At first, the giant crab seems difficult for the “boss”. This is then we find out that we will actually have to kill such crabs almost in packs.

In a sense Magicka 2 became a little less “piano” than her predecessor. If in the first part we could use any spell only using the key combination, sometimes quite non-obvious, then in the second we are allowed to hang up to four “magicians” on “hot keys” to use them a little faster and more convenient. This innovation could be called “upcoming” if the word “casual” and Magicka 2 generally wanted to stand in one row in one phrase. The developers could not selflessly simplify our lives and not to put a pig anywhere at the same time. All ready -made spells like fiery rain from heaven or “haste”, which allows you to run faster, now they should “cool” a little before reuse. While such a forced pause lasts, we may well play in a box. So no one canceled the good old combinations of elements – it is impossible to survive without them.

Small combinator

The main pleasure of the brain Magicka 2 still gives the widest possibilities a combination of natural elements. The mechanics have changed slightly in this regard: for example, now it is impossible to queue combined phenomena like a couple, as we did in the first Magicka. But there is still where to walk around.

We can collect up to five different elements in one sequence. Some solutions are very successful-as, for example, the wall-shchels from frost, lightning and death. Others work worse: say, fire balls are good only at a small distance. However, the game always leaves a lot of spaciousness for the experiment, all the more entertaining, that our own spells are able to excellently harm both ourselves and our unlucky allies.

In the gameplay, only the tactical uniformity of the battles is somewhat upset. Regardless of whether we are fighting the “boss” like a giant crab or with a cloud of small monsters, we have to cut circles on the ground, trying not to let the opponents go to ourselves, to be constantly treated and in breaks to try to kill someone there. The area we can run is very small. The operation of the next script not only causes the crowd of opponents to the life, but also closes the path to retreat for us, not allowing us to return to where we had just been. Mages are completely “rag”, they cannot withstand any damage for a long time – and this parameter cannot be “pumped”, because “pumping” in Magicka 2 Traditionally practically absent.

From time to time we are given some new weapons or a mantle-and some of these items may even be useful. The majority, however, are not only useless, but also harmful: they make us more vulnerable or inflicting more weak damage than a sword and staff that are issued at the start. Otherwise, the game does not offer any progress. The developers are hinting: for the “pumping” of the character and a tree of skills-somewhere in another place, please.

Two hundred percent of the comedy

In addition to useless weapons and stupid clothes, we open artifacts from time to time-usually they give them out after passing some chapter. Do not think that it is about real artifacts that improve the parameters of the character and add to him some dexterity, endurance or health there. These modifiers are created more in order to cause interest in repeated passage. They do not affect the hero, but on the entire gameplay as a whole. One adds health to enemies, the other teleports the magician to the death point of each monster, the third increases the comedian passage to two hundred percent.

Although, in good conscience, even with a miserable one hundred percent comedy, the game seems quite ironic and funny. The change of the development team did not at all affect the humor. Standard fantasy cliches are still ridiculed here. The local atmosphere is still involved in absurdity and exaggeration. The unfortunate peasants oppressed by goblins regret that they missed the lessons. At the entrance to the cave there is a wooden shield with the inscription: “We did not want to add a cave level, but the publishers insisted”. A characteristic exclamation mark above the head of NPC does not mean that we can get any quest here – and where could we record information about it, since we have neither a diary nor a magazine of tasks?

All this would be very pleasant and cute if life had not spoiled periodic bugs. Alas, along with the advantages of the original project Pieces Interactive grabbed its main drawback. In a number of scenes, the hero can easily fly over the whole area, which was normal to overcome, killing enemies. Bright and neat graphics would seem even more accurate if the resolution had not changed by itself periodically. At the same time, you can return everything only by rebooting the game.

The problem is not that there are a lot of crabs. The problem is that their flow does not stop if you do not do something that is not related to the murders.

We will be frank: Magicka 2 – All the same Magicka, only with a new figure, a new, very unpretentious plot and some cosmetic repair. As a rule, such innovations are not enough for the sequel to be good. However, in the case of Magicka Rules just don’t work. The second release turned out at least no worse than the first, and this is already very good.

Pros: original gameplay;cheerful cooperative;humor;wide opportunities for experimentation.
Cons: tactical monotony;bugs.