Viking: The Adventure is a Windows Phone platform game where you guide one of three Viking explorers to uncharted lands in a quest to find fortunes in gold.
Available for low-memory devices and Windows 8 devices, the game has over thirty gaming levels full of monsters to battle and gold to collect. On-screen controls aren't too shabby and overall, Viking: The Adventure isn't a bad Windows Phone game to pass the time with but a few bugs hold this game back.
Three Vikings in search of gold
Viking: The Adventure's main menu is brief. You have the option to jump into game play and a help screen that plays a series of boards on the game's back-story.
You begin game play with the Viking Kare who is armed with a wooden sword. As you progress through the game two additional Vikings become available, Asta and Einar, along with six additional weapons that are much more effective than the wooden sword you start the game with.
The game map has over thirty levels scattered randomly across a series of islands. Each are progressively unlocked and re-playable. From the map page of Viking: The Adventure has options to visit the game's Facebook page, access the game's settings (sound/music on or off) and visit the game's shop where you can switch characters or weapons.
Game Play
The gaming screen for Viking: The Adventure has your gaming statistics displayed across the top of the screen that includes your health, gold and gems count, score and a pause button. Your controls are scattered across the bottom of the screen and include four directional controls, a jump button and an attack button.
Each level requires a set number of coins to be collected in order to advance to the next level. Dangers include giant turtles, spiders, giant snails, and what appears to be a mutated lobster.Levels have a wide range of platforms to discover with ladders, bridges, floating platforms, water dangers and spike pits to navigate across, through or over.
If you arrive at the toll station (end of the level) without enough gold you'll have to backtrack through the dangers to hunt for more hidden stashes of gold.
Overall Impressions
While Viking: The Adventure isn't a bad game to pass the time with there are several issues present that hold this game back. For starters, while the directional controls are responsive, they are tightly grouped and it can be a little tough distinguishing up or down from left or right.
Graphics aren't too bad either but the animations could have been better. The Viking attacks are more like pokes than slashes and the enemies death throws have them dissolving into a blob.
Lastly, to unlock additional Vikings and weapons you'll need to earn gold through game play. You also have gems that can be collected throughout each level. The gems I collected carried over to my game tally but I could not get the coins I collected to carry over. In other words, the game doesn't appear to give you credit for the coins you collect during game play. You can buy coins through in-app purchase but that should only be a fallback to earning coins during game play.
Overall, I see Viking: The Adventure being a Windows Phone platform game with slight potential. It's not a game that will knock your socks off but it's not a bad title to pick up and play from time to time. The bug on earning coins needs to be fixed and I wouldn't mind a little elbowroom with the directional controls though. Better animations would be nice as well but not a deal breaker.
Viking: The Adventure is pulling down a 4.5 Star rating in the Windows Phone Store. That's a little on the high side but if the coin bug can be fixed, you are looking at a game that probably should be rated in the 3.5 to 4 Star range.
- Viking: The Adventure - Windows Phone 8.x - 22MB - Free - Store Link
- Viking: The Adventure - Windows 8 - 28.1MB - Store Link
