Zombie Vikings (PlayStation 4) Review

The story begins when Loki steals Odin's remaining eye, leaving him blind and defenceless. With the Gods of Valhalla busy doing more important things - like partying - Odin takes extreme measures and raises four of his best Vikings from beyond the grave, tasking them with the mission of retrieving his magic eye.

Caw-kaa is the first of the bunch, an annoying teenage girl with the ability to talk to crows and use them in combat. Gunborg is the tank of the group, with a ditzy personality to boot. Seagurd is just a regular Viking... entwined with a squid; he has the ability to shoot ink at enemies and throw them around using his tentacles. The last member of the posse is Hedgy, who is a small gremlin-like creature that can attack enemies with his spin attack and skull bombs.

Towards the end of the game, there is also a gun-wielding character that joins the quartet, so there is definitely a lot on offer in terms of character movesets and weapons.

One of the best elements in Zombie Vikings is the humour that shines throughout the various cut-scenes and dialogue sequences. Right from the beginning of the game, there's references to social media sites, and whilst it's quite odd hearing characters from Norse mythology talking about selfies and tweets, it definitely provides plenty of laughs.

Levels play similar to other games of its genre, with the objective being to run through and take out the different types of enemies on screen. However, what sets this apart from regular beat 'em ups is the addition of side-quests hidden in the levels.

These side-quests are fairly simple affairs, with the player usually being asked to obtain a certain item for an NPC or perform a basic task, such as escorting them to a certain spot in the level. Once each side-quest is completed, the zombie Vikings will be rewarded with a weapon or rune.

Each weapon has unique attributes, such as the ability to fire projectiles or stun enemies, with the runes offering additional skills for characters, like improved health or movement speed.

As well as being able to play through the game in single-player, it is also possible to team up with a group of three others using either online or local play, quite like The Behemoth's Castle Crashers. Some hidden areas are only reachable by playing in the multiplayer mode, so it's recommended to grab a few friends and do so.

When it first launched, Zombie Vikings was plagued by a variety of progression bugs and glitches that would lock up the game due to it being rushed to coincide with Sony's Vote to Play campaign. However, after subsequent patches, the majority of these have been ironed out to make for a smooth and enjoyable gameplay experience.