Expeditions: Viking - Hands-On

Gameinformer checked out Expeditions: Viking:

Expeditions: Viking

Hands-On With The Norse RPG

Expeditions: Viking is the successor to Expeditions: Conquistador. As the name suggests, this time it's all about hairy, axe-wielding vikings. Developer Logic Artists invited me to play through the opening segment of the game.

Expeditions starts mournfully. After creating your avatar in a solid character creator that lets you choose your gender, name, hairstyle, and skill sets, a brief intro cinematic plays. Your father, a chieftain, has died. Your clan and the clans under you are in turmoil. You're in charge now. Uh oh.

The game proper starts at the feast following your father's death. Your mother, Astridr, takes you aside and encourages you to speak with the other chieftains who are attending the feast and measure them up to see who is with you and who is planning to betray you for the throne. Speaking with all of them reveals that they all have complicated feelings about the whole matter. Some of them respected your father as chieftain, but doubt your ability to lead because you're unproven. Others are outright venomous toward both you and dear old dad but claim to be respectful of the traditions that form the hierarchy.

After speaking with everyone (and a few guests who later become party members), several drunkards raid the party, spitting on you and your father's name. Expeditions lets you choose how to handle the situation. I played it as calmly as I could, marching outside and asking them to break it up. The partycrashers wouldn't have it and refused any other outcome than a fight.

[…]

Thanks Eye!

More information.

meh, that site never works for me

Looks good! Didn't know we'll get some iso perspective. Is it used for the village/town interaction?

An instant buy, even an early access version. Had a lot of fun with Expeditions: Conquistador.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
meh, that site never works for me

It does not work for me as well.

Sounds pretty good. Some nice C&C there.

By Odin's beard, this sounds awesome!

Website works for myself; I am using chromium.

Looks good, will be getting this. I liked the first game even though I only played it a little then got distracted.

Same here, Saxon. I bought it, thought it looked nice when I loaded it up, but then something else shiny drew my attention away. I've played the first about an hour

Originally Posted by Morrandir
Looks good! Didn't know we'll get some iso perspective. Is it used for the village/town interaction?

In the linked article, it looks like one of the images is of a blacksmith, and that is iso. Not really clear in the image if your people walk around or you just click on the building you want to interact with, but it is iso. Looking at another of the screens with a "homestead" window open, I'm guessing you probably just click on the buildings.

I really liked the first game.

I'm certainly getting this. Not sure when I'll get the chance to play it though..

Anybody knows the gameplay differences with the first one? Other than the setting?

The first game was glorious, I'm hoping that this one is even better. I'm ready to get lost in just one game for a month or two and go viking.

Originally Posted by wolfing
Anybody knows the gameplay differences with the first one? Other than the setting?

One of the most important changes is thatin Vikings there's an actual main character.

Upgrading your village is done through the homestead menu. You'll be able to see the advantages of each upgrade and the cost from there and a lot of the upgrades have branches, so you'll have to chose some things over others.

As Morrandir mentioned, one of the main differences is that you now have your own character running around. The exploration layer has also been merged into the combat layer (Where they were separate before). You can run around, talk to people, find things, and if a fight breaks out, it'll do so right in the scene. The world map is now purely 2d. You also have actual equipment now (Where before it was just a abstract equipment resource), with stats.

TL;DR: More fallout 2, less heroes of might and magic III.

looking good