Magicka

It's tough being a wizard and Magicka, the new low-price innovative-concept action adventure title from developer Arrowhead Games and publisher Paradox Interactive, is just the game to show off the plight of magic wielders to unsympathetic players that have been relying on spell support in their role-playing games since the days of the first Baldur's Gate.

[admark=1]The two companies decided to strip spell casting down to its core and have managed it with Magicka, but unfortunately, the finished product is mostly a let down because of its numerous multiplayer issues and because of the limited variety offered.

Gameplay

The bright, innovative idea of Magicka is to break spell casting and creation down to the smallest possible bits, the elements that power them and then trust the gamer to mix and match, create the actual spell and then hit the enemy in a variety of ways.

The idea is good and the implementation in Magicka simply works. Players have eight elements that form opposite pairs. The spell bar has five slots that can be occupied by each element and the effects combine to deliver a spell. The effects can be delivered as a beam which reaches out in a straight line and hits all those it is aimed at.

There's also the option to deliver the effect as field centered on the player or as a projectile, depending on the mix of elements. Effects can also be cast on the player himself, although some might have dire consequences when self experimenting.

Training ground

Area of effect

Keep in mind that some spells require more than five elements, with two combining inside the spell creation box to become a new one.

There are also preset recipes that are less intuitive but allow effects like Haste and Revival to be quickly delivered in game.

The systems is fun because it relies on the inspiration of the player and in experimentation that often results in death, sometimes because enemies fail to react favorably to some spells and die and sometimes because casting too much fire on one's self is not a good idea.

Here's how Magicka looks in action:

But even if its main concept is sound, Magicka is not a very good game in its current state. The levels in the campaign are repetitive, their design is uninspired, and all the enemies tend towards clichés. The checkpoints are too far away from each other, leading to needless replays of some areas. Hitpoints for the wizards are too low and even the best-prepared assault will fail at times because of the numbers the opposition can bring to bear. There are also some difficulty spikes in the last third that seem completely out of place.

The story is also attempting humor but only managing to reach it half of the time.

The control scheme is a bit too much at the beginning and for the first two levels I often mistook one element for another leading to death or unintended consequences, like delivering arcane earth domes when I was aiming for enhanced fireballs. After a while it all becomes more intuitive and the results can be spectacular, from ice spikes to earth boulders infused with arcane power.

Magicka uses the mouse for movements and that's the one drawback of the game, requiring players to hold down a button in order to move rather than adopt the Diablo concept of one click leading to movement to a certain location.

Graphics and audio

Arrowhead clearly did not intend Magicka to be a graphical powerhouse, but the looks of the video game match its theme and clearly communicate the information needed by players about enemies and the spells that would work best for each type. The characters could use a little more definition and a little variety, but this is not the emphasis for Magicka so it’s all serviceable if a little bland.

On the audio front the developers tried to do something a bit different, giving characters a made-up language and aiming for humor in their tonal delivery but the various actors, especially the one which embodies mentor Vlad can quickly become annoying, depending on the sensibilities of each gamer.

Battle bridge

Corner death

The music is soaring and linked to the fantasy theme but nothing very impressing, listen to the gameplay video provided to see how it meshes with your preferences.

Multiplayer

In a lot of ways, Magicka is designed with the multiplayer modes specifically in mind, allowing gamers to work together as mages both in the main single player chapters and in the arena, using their different takes on wizardry and their preferences in terms of elements to create parties that can tackle any challenge.

Cooperative play makes the campaign element of Magicka much easier than when just one player is involved, with one gamer taking the healer and support role and the others specializing in different offensive spells, changing setups in order to tackle the various enemy types.

The big deal is crossing the streams, something that movies like Ghostbusters have taught us never to do when the occasion arises, with the best possible result being the multiplication of spell powers, leading to the quick downfall of enemies, and the worst possible one being the death of the wizards involved in the combination.

Players need to make sure they know which elements are opposed to one another and how the arcane enhancements work in order to make a good team in multiplayer, but the possibilities are much greater than those in the single-player segment of Magicka.

Ghost battle

Line up for the kill

The problem with multiplayer is that, even after a lot of patching on the part of the developers, it can still be maddeningly hard to get into a game and actually play a multiplayer session.

For the first two days I tried playing with other people, I was repeatedly hit with “Authentication Failed” messages, mostly while trying to connect to games and sometimes shortly after managing to get an actual connection.

After that I managed to connect to games just fine, but after the first few spells were launched, I was dumped out of the game, which left me frustrated and made me return to the single-player campaign.

Now the game seems more stable, also a lot of players are still talking about being dropped with no warning, but the problems that existed have lead to the creation of closed gaming groups which lock their games in order to make sure that only those who can run a stable session of Magicka and know each other can log in.

There have been positive measures since the game was launched, but at the moment it's not clear whether Magicka will ever deliver a good game experience in multiplayer for most of its players.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion