Magicka

[Eat_Up_Martha]

Anyone else given this game a shot yet?
It's a top-down RPG-like game where you play a wizard and run about blasting monsters with an insane amount of spells. The real fun seems to be the multiplayer component, though. You can have up to four players in a game at once, all slinging fireballs and arcane lightning beams and whatnot - with friendly fire always on.
I have only played about an hour so far, and it's pretty great! Although I have to admit to having some serious technical issues with crashing.

Anyone else tried it? Bugs or crashes for you too?

It's only $10 on Steam.

 

[SuperJay]

Yeah, I downloaded the demo yesterday off Steam and played around with it for awhile. It did randomly crash out on me twice while playing the demo.

Short version: It's a cool concept and it has potential. Mixed feelings so far - it could evolve into a neat little game with some polishing, but it's currently a little glitchy and not compelling enough to motivate me to finish the demo. (Which isn't a good sign, but it's admittedly very subjective.)

Long version: My biggest problem so far is the checkpoint save system. There's no manual saving - you just have to keep playing until you hit a checkpoint. When you die (and I did die a few times), you have to start over back at the last checkpoint, and in the demo at least, they're few and far between. That resulted in having to re-do content that I'd already finished (in the tutorial, no less) and that got tedious really quickly.

The elemental spell-weaving system is probably the most innovative part about the game that I've seen so far, and it's pretty cool. I can see the experimentation with different elements being a big part of the fun. However, sometimes you just want to kill stuff quickly and easily, and having to press a couple keys in a row before right-clicking to fry that goblin got a bit annoying. I could definitely see this game benefitting from a macro / keybind system, so you could hotkey your arcane-lightning beam to a single button and just cast it instantly.

I like the humor and the writing so far, too. It's described as a "satirical" game, and that was fun. The NPC speech is hilarious. Also, wizards really cannot swim... beaches are just deadly.

All in all, it's worth a shot, and I'm hoping the glitches and bugs continue to get addressed (the forums have Paradox reps posting pretty regularly and the first patch was out within a matter of hours) so that this game can fulfill its potential.

 

[muxec]

It's a great game. There are many different ways to kill enemies, probably more than in any other game.

I had a few crashes though which is annoying cause there are no saves. Not too many crashes, just a few.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Need more reviews from All Other Games citizens. I see on my Steam that quite a few people here seem to have gotten the game.

 

[Till]

I basically had the same experience as SuperJay. Tinkering with the spell system is a lot of fun, but even 10 minutes into the demo i found myself looking for macro bindings. After getting killed a few times in the (fun) first big battle of the demo, i had enough of the stupid save point system.
Unless they fix that, i probably won't get the game. Didn't experience any crashes, however.

 

[Eat_Up_Martha]

I get the feeling that single-player was not the focus of the game. Multiplayer is where it's at; and also the most broken form of play at the moment. Paradox is releasing updates almost daily to combat the legion of bugs that are still present and things are getting better, but I'd recommend waiting a few weeks if you're on the fence about this.
Multiplayer (from the few minutes I've gotten) seems to be a blast. There's no real storyline, questing, or looting to entertain you in the single player mode but the constant action and 'assisted suicides' of multiplayer make it an amazing game to grab a few buddies and waste an afternoon with.
What I find odd was that the game was slated to be released in March, but they all of a sudden released it last week. I don't think there was much of a clamour for it, and they certainly could've used some extra time to get this game in working order. I wonder what the story there is?

 

[SuperJay]

What I find odd was that the game was slated to be released in March, but they all of a sudden released it last week. I don't think there was much of a clamour for it, and they certainly could've used some extra time to get this game in working order. I wonder what the story there is?

Yeah, that's a good question. Wonder if someone's fiscal year-end was suddenly looming and needed a quick boost?

As it stands, it could definitely have used a few more months to pre-emptively resolve many of the the bugs and glitches, especially in multiplayer, which is like the selling-point of the game!

 

[Maniacal]

Angry Joe reviewed the game, he liked it a lot despite the bugs, which he experienced a lot of when he played it through the first time. However it does seem like they are fixing it up quite and bit and I think I'll pick it up at some point this year for sure.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Bought it a few days ago - no crashes, but I've only played sp so far. I'm having a surprisingly good time with it. It's innovative and fun to play, and it's pretty humorous too. Games like this should come out more often, with focus on gameplay and letting the player experiment with some basic rules. 5/5.

 

[Tarkhan]

They have patched a ton of bugs. Most of the remaining bugs are in the multiplayer.

That being said this game is amazingly fun

 

[bigdog5994]

absolutely freaking love this game

 

[Luckymoose]

CFC co-op game? Calling Burgundy Wizard.

 

[Maniacal]

Link to video.

 

[remake20]

I bought it back when it was on a steam sale for the Vietnam DLC, which I also bought. It's very fun, however I have so many games right now I am still only on level 3.

 

[Tykinruoka]

I bought the magicka pack with few DLC's when it was on special offer. The singleplayer isn't all that interesting IMO, but the co-op is great fun. I haven't run into any bugs yet.

You get the most laughs in this game when all goes horribly wrong. It's much like when it happened in Worms II.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I don't think it's even meant to be played alone as it becomes quite hard a few levels in.

One cool thing is that it can be played coop on one computer. I use a gamepad and the other person uses keyboard and mouse. Gamepad is not great for quickly lining up spells but at least it's couch coop.