Recommended: Magicka

I admit when I first checked out Magicka over steam I thought... boring. Quickly went on to other games. I just looked at the film and saw something that looked like a mundane and unpersonalized setting with some seemingly narrow skillset and gameplay. I was unimpressed.

I was wrong. Im ashamed of being so wrong.

Luckily for me a friend of mine had checked it out and convinced me to try it out. I had missed out on all the charm and all the gameplay elements by looking at the video (without sound) and not bothering to read the text to peak my interest.

The game is lighthearted and entertaining. Swedish developer Arrowhead just seem to have had so much fun when making this game that the feeling really pops out on you, and the feeling of relief you get from playing this cute little game after a stressed out day can probably be chalked up next to Vicodin, without the grumpy sideeffects of Dr. House.
The gamedesign is simple yet advanced.. You have all your elements on QWERASDF, and to make some really nice magicks you combine the elements before you blast it off at your enemy, to fry, douse, bomb them or whatever your choice of pain is. Me, I like lightning. Why? Because my Co-Op friends don't. Mwahaha.

Anyway, most of these magicks you need to figure out yourself, and some (well, most) can harm yourself as well. Which means there's a lot of trial and error on what magicks are good to use. (Tip: ASF, and combine your laser with your co-op friends for bigger game.) This leads to some pretty great moments in co-op where you and your friends come to some ...painful realizations. Like how using lightning while it rains might not be a great idea. Or, you know... Meteor Showers.

......fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

I felt like an alchemist trying to make piss into gold and actually ending up doing it. Either that or ending up with piss all over myself, depending on how well you know the elements effect on each other, or the buttons that controls the elements. You'll often end up pressing the wrong key and that might just happen to be the death of you. But you're like a scientist. Its all for the sake of grand discovery! Aint it great! Alright, maybe it wasn't the best analogy.

Either way, this game is a little gem. Especially if you can speak Swedish.

We're all used to pretend babble from games. After all there's probably no gamer in the world that haven't heard (willingly or unwillingly) The Sims talk to each other. In Entropia we used to have these pretend babbling as well, which a lot of people from over the Atlantic used to ask if were supposed to be Swedish.

I didn't realize it at first, since Im a lousy norwegian, but a fun thing about the pretend-babble in Magicka is that it is Swedish. Well, parts of it anyway. Part Swedish, part English and part Hobo. I think the combination is supposed to sound like Old Norse? Either way it can really crack you up when you hear their tiny little voices talk about bananas or ...visetitters? and ost.
And then you kill them dead.

Oh yeah, be careful about that. It seems you can kill your questgivers. Whops.

The only major sad thing about Magicka is that online co-op's doesn't seem to save on neither host nor anyone else. So you'll have to restart your adventure if you don't finish it the same night. But still. I recommend it for some fun and lighthearted co-op goodtimes. Well worth 10€! Enjoy!