If you haven’t yet played Arrowhead Game Studios’ parody action-adventure romp, Magicka, then simply, where have you been? Off fighting with King Richard in the Crusades, no doubt!
If this line means nothing to you, then clearly you’ve never watched Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Luckily there are many other hilarious pop culture references you’re destined to run into in Magicka’s latest downloadable content, The Stars Are Left.
Our heroes have aged a little and sport totally spiffing grey beards. Vlad, who is still not a vampire, pops over to pay them a visit and announces that no-one has heard from the village of Outsmouth (Outsmouth being the antonym of Innsmouth, gettit Lovecraft fans?). Immediately our heroes set off to challenge tentacles, cults and wet things. Also inevitably asplode each other.
A special detective costume is included in the DLC that gives players the ability to discover hidden items throughout the new adventure and, with the aid of a large magnifying staff, zoom in to have a closer look. Try not to do that in the middle of combat though.
The Magicka engine was updated on the 16th of November and claims to give added stability, improved graphics and a number of bug fixes. A resurrection fairy was also introduced.
However, not a lot seems to have changed. Co-op still suffers from frequent disconnections when latency spikes higher than 100ms; there are still a number of frustrating crashes – especially during boss-fights – with weapons still managing to occasionally slip through the floor. Fortunately there’s a new tractor pull spell that helps deal with the latter dilemma so there’s little need to worry too much about losing your special items.
The gameplay has been ramped up to be far more challenging and in single-player it can become absolutely knickers knotting. This is especially true of the end-boss. Many of your most useful spells have been removed to add to the difficulty. You’d want to play this with at least one friend.
Magicka The Stars Are Left
The new campaign is also very, very short; it’s possible to finish its three chapters in less than an hour-and-a-half. You get the feeling that the difficulty was perhaps intended to add to its longevity.
A big selling point is that it’s not necessary that your friends buy it if you want them to play with you. As long as you host, anyone is able to join in.
Graphical detail remains pretty much the same so without a keen eye for detail and the patch notes, you’re unlikely to even realise that it has been running on a new engine for the last few weeks.
A couple of atmospheric new songs have been introduced to accompany your wizards on their adventure as they defeat the Lovecraftian creatures. Magicka’s trademark goofy voice-overs with their mispronunciations and bizarre words are, of course, still present and great fun to listen to.
Players are bound to get a good couple of snorts and giggles out of the pop culture references and the minor nostalgic changes that have occurred in the world since the first campaign. The demanding new gameplay is likely to be a nice challenge for the spell-casting reflexes of even hardened adepts of the series.
The only disappointment is that a year and multiple patches later, and with a new engine, the same bugs are present along with a couple of new ones that make co-op almost impossible.
Magicka managed to be a charming little gem that appeared out of the blue and crept into our hearts but the unfortunate persistence of annoying multiplayer bugs is bound to grate anyone’s sausage. By the time you’ve managed to get a successful connection to a friend it would’ve been possible to finish the game at least once.
But, for the $6 selling price on Steam, you can’t go too far wrong.
Magicka on Steam
Join the conversation