Lost vikings, the (1993) review for MS-DOS and SNES

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Lost vikings, the
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Platform games have been around since the beginning of computer games and altough the lost vikings looks like one at first glance you'll quickly realize that the platform action takes up only a minimum of the game. Instead most of the game is made up of puzzles that have to be solved by having the three vikings work together to reach the end of the level. At the start of each level you get a four letter code with which you can 'load' that level again.

The three vikings under your control each have unique abilities that will allow them to solve different puzzles. Erik the swift, the red one, can run fast and is the only one who can jump which is usefull for reaching platforms high up and for exploring certain areas. Olaf the stout, the big one with the shield, can stop arrows and other weapons with his shield but when he raises his shield above his head he can glide safely over gaps and spikes. Baleog the fierce, the warrior, is the only one who can attack using weapons and he can use his sword or his bow and arrow which is also usefull for pressing buttons in places you can't reach. If you view the intro you can see all of them working together and showing the skills.

You'll have to use all the unique abilities and combine them as well to create solutions to the puzzles. The first few levels are fairly simple and serve to teach you the basics of the game like using your abilities and switching between the characters. You can also pick up items like food and bombs to store them in your inventory, you'll need them to increase your energy and some items are needed to solve puzzles as well. Take care of your characters though because if any one of them is killed you'll not be able to finish the level and you have to restart. You don't get a set number of lives because you can retry an infinite number of times which enables you to concentrate on the puzzles.

The lost vikings is an excellent puzzle game and the pace is good enough that you can learn the basics in the beginning and the levels become progressively more difficult after that. Especially later levels will require you to be quite resourcefull using all three vikings to solve a single puzzle. The graphics and music, there are practically no sound effects, are good and what you would expect from a platform game. It's refeshing to see such a game as most platform games focus on action and split second timing but this game is so heavy on puzzles that I have put it under the puzzle genre and I can recommend it to any gamer.

Overal rating: 8.5/10

Erde Kaiser

Lost vikings, the was released for several different systems here are some notes:

DOS	Released in 1993. Game has been tested but not completed on a DOS PC. Doesn't seem to run on my windows machine but it does under dosbox. Remember to run setup.exe or the game will say something about a protection error. Press CTRL+X to return to DOS.
Super NES	Released in 1993 . Game has been tested but not completed with ZSNES win v1.36. I believe this was the original.
Others	These versions are not available. Amiga released in 1993. Game boy advance released in 2003. Genesis/megadrive released in 1993.

Date added

Apr-20-2005 21:16

Name

Lost vikings, the

Developer

Silicon & Synapse Inc.

Publisher

Interplay

First released

1993

Genre

Puzzle

Download

MS-DOS, filesize: 1249 Kb

Super NES, filesize: 754 Kb

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