Magicka Review

Post by Steve Farrelly @ 12:57pm 07/02/11 | 14 Comments

The action-RPG is experiencing a popularity surge on the PC platform of late, as veterans and newcomers alike count down the days till Diablo III is finally dropped.

In the interim though, there are some great grass-roots studios putting together their own spins on the genre, and today we're brought here for Magicka, an isometric action-RPG hybrid that actually offers a slightly different approach to the combat of these games, as our very own Kosta Andreadis discovers with his review time.

Click here to see what makes Magicka stand-out in his full review.

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Latest Comments

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paveway
Posted 01:23pm 07/2/11

should we be counting down days, months or years until diablo 3?

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MoSFXx
Posted 01:35pm 07/2/11

Ugh I WAS going to pick this up last night glad I didn't.

D3 still another year away yet.

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Pirroh
Posted 01:41pm 07/2/11

Runs terribly on my PC, at least it has a demo so I didn't have to waste my money.

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Lithium
Posted 02:04pm 07/2/11

This deserves more then 6.5 and who gets charmed by games?

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Bah
Posted 03:00pm 07/2/11

Ran fine for me, but i quit at level 6 when i died near the end and the checkpoint sent me back too far and the game has no in level save, so i cbf going back and doing the whole level again, then the part before the end if i die on the final boss again.

The bunch of movie references were a bit funny, so ill have to google what i missed due to ragequitting.

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Mordecai
Posted 03:41pm 07/2/11

Yeah I ragequit as well. Check points should be autosaves not nothing. Also half the achievements didn't work for me then suddenly I had a lot of them pop up pretty much all at once (well spread over 5 minutes) including ones I hadn't got yet.

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Obes
Posted 03:48pm 07/2/11

I thought 6.5 was kind

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Lithium
Posted 04:28pm 07/2/11

I just think the combat system originality (it may not be, but its new to me) and the arena mode in multiplayer are really well done. Sure the single player is boring, but what single player isn't boring these days, I wouldn't touch it unless it had the co-op. No crashes or obvious bugs for me at all, though I have really only played the arena mode 4 player co-op with KB and 3 x 360 controllers.

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gamer
Posted 04:49pm 07/2/11

Don't cross the streams!

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parabol
Posted 04:55pm 07/2/11

Great game for the price, 6.5 is a bit low imho! I'd go for 7.5

Loving the combo of spherical shield + ESSSS bombs* placed just outside the shield wall. I had a 5 second boss fight on Stage 3 as he was blown off the map on the first touch haha. Tho my loss I guess since I didn't get any loot from that.

(* = or ESSSR bombs for frost slow-down as well on fast enemies)

last edited by parabol at 16:55:07 07/Feb/11

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icewyrm
Posted 05:35pm 07/2/11

I haven't been able to get past fafnir... keeps crashing every time I get there, then I have to play the entire level again. Have done it about 12 times now, I think? :/ Not counting the times I didn't make it through due to instachop death from flash dwarves or from yetis if I buggered up a teleport or such.

I had a blast of a time in co-op though, bugs aside.

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ACiDFiRE
Posted 06:18pm 07/2/11

Been playing Magicka now since release during any downtime. Not having to take the game seriously has been fantastic its very light hearted and likes to make fun of itself.

For $10.00 its well worth a look

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Brulath
Posted 06:49pm 07/2/11

The developers dug themselves a bit of a hole when they designed the spell-casting system so that there are no limitations placed upon the player outside of an interruption via damage; there are no resources (mana/energy), no spell cool-downs and no spell casting times*. The natural result of this is that every second enemy in the game (I'm serious) has an ability that knocks the player down / away, and getting hit in melee range interrupts spell casting (or removes your current spell cast).

The idea of unlimited spell-casting with foes that can incapacitate you is pretty cool in coop, with more players to spread the knock downs around and help you if you get knocked down, but in single-player it often becomes a frustrating series of consecutive spell interruptions as you face a large number of enemies at once. As long as you have at least one ally with you the knock-downs are much more forgiving and the game much more enjoyable.

It's a fun game and the waves-of-enemies coop arena is a blast to play with friends as you try to control and destroy dangerous foes. It's a good time coop and worth its $10 price, but just don't go into single player unless you have a good grasp on the overpowered spell combinations as the large number of knock-down chaining foes is annoying.

*Generally speaking; some boulder or ice shard attacks benefit significantly (more damage/smaller cone) from "charging" the spell, but it isn't required.

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d^
Posted 09:55am 08/2/11

I've enjoyed it thus far besides checkpoints doing absolutely nothing. I like some of the references to other games and things of that nature, was grinning when I found the master sword in the forest, great reference to Zelda.

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