Loki (PC)

The graphics are big and bold, they're good looking and beautiful in places. The models are also pretty good; the designers have some good ideas when it comes to armour and weapons, although the weird shoulder pads and the strange wings on the Egyptian character took some getting used to when I first saw them.

Very odd, very epic in a way. You certainly don't think the heroes are anything but when you see them kitted out in the menu screen with their most powerful items. Again it reminds me of an MMO in a way.

The light and shadow effects in the game are used well enough (it has a day night cycle) and for those who happen to be conscious about blood and gore, there's a little, not a lot. The blood stains the ground and fades away after a time but it's all done in a fantasy violence way and it's not over the top. Not as though that bothers me, but it might bother some parents.

The AI in the game is typical of this kind of hack and slasher, it's not very bright. It often gets caught up on edges or objects, sandwiched between trees and stuck on rocks. This allowed us to sneak around the edge of the rock and get some clean hits in without fear of reprisal.

Sound and music is decent, there's some nice fantasy music as the main score for the game and its epic in the scope and feel. The combat sounds are Ok for the most part; some of them sound a little flat, especially when you're being hit in battle. The voice acting (the bane of games like this) is actually fairly well done, it doesn't often sound stilted or contrived and the dialogue is overall fairly well written, it's not up there with some of the better fare, but it's not down there with the likes of Two Worlds.

For those of you who like to play with friends, the game supports online and LAN play. You can tackle the SP story with some buddies or you can play a variety of game modes that are similar to death matches, duels and the like. I didn't really bother with those. I set up a LAN game quickly enough and my fellow reviewer: Serpent helped me run the MP through its paces.

Overall it was pretty good, there were some lag issues and a few times where we'd seem out of sync. The game does have a nice MP feature where you can click on your buddy and then you'll follow them around, this however needs a bit of a fix since sometimes the pathfinding code has a fit and your pal runs off the opposite direction (often into a mob of monsters).

In both single and multi, there are some long load times between areas...so be warned.

The bottom line is that Loki is a fun and entertaining romp through a fantasy world as four separate characters. There's a lot of replay value and you can play the game at various difficulty levels with more of the story unfolding when you take the higher challenges, this is definitely going to extend the life of the game since people who want the whole story will play through every difficulty to get to the max items (there's a lot to collect) and see everything the game has to offer.