Game Review: Avatar of the Dead

Hey all, between packing and moving house I've not had much time to review any books, films or games this last week so this is going to be a short one just to tie you over.

I have been playing Avatar of the Dead...or rather I played it twice and no more because it has no replay value. It is an indie zombie survival game you can get on the Xbox 360.

When you begin you get dumped in a dark map by a van with its lights on with no explanation as to how and why you got there. Armed with only your fists you are told to find weapons - which you will use to fight off zombies. I found a shovel and nothing else after that. The zombies come out of the dark but you can usually hear them coming and half of them look like crash test dummies. Then you hit them...again...and again...until they're dead.

This game wouldn't be so bad if the zombies took less than nine or ten hits to kill - yet yif you're hit more than three you die and have to start over (even though you're hitting them with a shovel).

Also the graphics are awful. If you try the punch attack it looks like you are swinging a pair of mannequin arms around. The shovel probably doesn't do much damage because when you swing it - and that term is being generous - it twitches and that's it. The map is very limited and the reason why it is so dark is not for atmosphere - it's to hide how bad the graphics are.

Avatar of the Dead gets 1/10.

Vikings: Season Three Review

One of my favourite historical dramas returned recently - Vikings. As recently as a year ago a lot of people had not heard of this show, despite having some big names attached to it and already being into its second series. 

Skipping forward to when the third season began two months ago, a lot of people I know were finally talking about it. 

Vikings follows the life of King Raynar Lodbrok and his people as they raid foreign lands. At least, that was the original premise. Series three starts with the Vikings returning to the kingdom of Merica (somewhere in England) to set up a colony following a truce with King Ecbert. 

While we knew this was coming, the show seems to spend way too much time on the Vikings settling in and doing farming, farming and more farming. It’s only really around episode three that the action starts to really pick up again. But, sadly, the best action doesn’t arrive until the last three episodes when the Vikings attack Paris. 

There are a few surprise twists along the way but nothing this series which really leaves you stunned. The only twist that really got me was the death of one of the main characters but even this you see coming from a mile off.

  

Set and atmosphere wise Vikings still delivers. The fighting scenes are fast, bloody and graphic as always and the sets - including Paris - are really well done. The acting is still top notch and there is that familiar injection of humour that only works with Ragnar’s character.

I wasn’t as impressed with this series as I was the first two because of the lack of action and a lack of major developments in the story. But the siege of Paris in the final episodes was a return to form - they definitely saved the best until last.