This isn't an excellent game by any stretch, but it's a decent bargain bin purchase for all hack-and-slash fans
The game has you playing as Skarin, who is a viking on a mission to reclaim his land that has been taken over by evil goddess Hel and her legion. It's as cliched as anything I've ever seen, but the point of these kinds of games has never been about story - people play hack-and-slashers for the adrenaline pumping violence, and that's exactly what Viking provides. It's an epic quest with lots of bad guys to turn into bloody piles of mush, and since the gameplay is solid across the board, the result is a competent and playable action game.
It doesn't do very much to exceed the 'average' mark, though, and Viking: Battle for Asgard feels like a game that was made to be a 'bargain bin' type of release. Viking has some serious framerate issues during the more hectic battles, the map is occasionally misleading, the controls feel clunky at times, and the game also suffers from seemingly random spikes in difficulty. A good chunk of the game is almost insultingly easy, but it does occasionally decide to absolutely kick your ass and frustrate the hell out of you. The final boss battle against Hel, for example, will lead to quite a bit of 'raging' from many gamers. Part of this is due to the rather clunky and imprecise controls, but this still isn't a game-breaking flaw in my opinion.
These flaws aside, though, Viking: Battle for Asgard is an underrated and pretty fun hack-and-slash game. The mediocre graphics and surprisingly sparse sound design may also annoy some gamers, but as a person who considers himself a 'retro gamer', these two issues don't really bug me. All in all, this isn't an essential game by any stretch, but fans of the genre may want to check this one out nonetheless.