Rune: Halls of Valhalla
Score: 60% ESRB: Mature Publisher: Gathering Developer: Human Head Studios Media: CD/1 Players: 1 - 16 Genre: Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: Rune: Halls of Valhalla uses the same engine as the original Rune, which itself uses the same engine as Unreal, so the graphics are much as you'd expect for the game. The arenas are generally dark and brown, with lots of stone and the occasional torch-lit passageway--nothing too terribly wild or fancy here, which befits the Viking motif. The game scales up nicely in resolution, and there's bound to be a setting that works fine for you in terms of graphical enjoyment and speed. The sound in the game is straight from Rune as well--a solid, if technically unimpressive soundtrack, and a large number of clanging sound effects. If you've played the original game, you know precisely what to expect here; the sound production is good, but since there's no single-player element to the game, you're not going to be hearing voice-overs or anything like that, just lots of grunts and slashes as you make your way through the multiplayer game.
Gameplay: Rune: Halls of Valhalla is both an expansion pack and a stand-alone title. It contains a large number of new Deathmatch, er, Runematch levels, two new online play modes and maps to go with them, and a number of new player models and skins to enjoy. Unfortunately, that's all that it offers--no adding to the single-player experience, which was by far the most enjoyable part of the original Rune, no large collection of new and crazy weaponry. Just new levels, playmodes, and skins. And since the game has no Unreal Tournament-style bots, you're stuck playing Halls of Valhalla online, or not at all. The two new playmodes are Headmatch and Arena. Headmatch is reminiscent of Capture the Flag, only in the Rune universe. Every player is on a team, and attempts to score goals for their team while keeping the others from scoring. The method of scoring goals is decidedly unique, however--you must lop your opponents' heads off, and then throw them into a sort of 'collector' to get points. It's a neat idea, and it actually makes for some entertaining gameplay, but it never really feels like a heavily team-based experience. You'll see people running around the maps like crazy, slashing at each other, occasionally scoring points, but there's no sense of attacking in a concerted effort--it's simply 'us versus them', and whoever gets the most points wins. While it's entertaining, I prefer my team-based mods to be a little more, well, team-based. The other play mode, Arena, is both more interesting--if you're playing it--and a lot less interesting, if you're waiting in line. Arena lets you go one-on-one (or two-on-two, or whatever) in an arena, fighting to see who are the superior combatants. The winners stay in the ring, whereas the losers are booted out. If there are enough people on the server, you go through something of a round-robin routine, where you have to wait your turn. While the battles themselves are fun, and more focused than the somewhat slapdash Headmatch mode, the wait for your turn can be interminable, and quite simply just isn't fun. Some maps have a number of things you can do while waiting, but it's still keeping you from actually playing the game, which is a definite no-no in online gaming. Another major problem with Halls of Valhalla--one that, unfortunately, will be self-perpetuating--is the fact that there are almost no servers online playing the game. At last glance, I saw three or four Headmatch servers and about ten Arena servers, nowhere near the numbers of a more established multiplayer game. Chances are good that you won't find very many opponents to play against, which is a shame.
Difficulty: You need to fully understand the mechanics of Rune to do good in these multiplayer matches--a versatile player can run circles around a newbie, and slash their head off consistently. There's no real difficulty per se, however, as there is no time in Halls that you fight against a non-human opponent. Be aware that most of the people playing Rune on the net are quite good, however, and a newbie is likely to get trounced on the first few times they play.
Game Mechanics: Halls of Valhalla uses the same control scheme as Rune, obviously, and it works surprisingly well for a third-person view game. You'll be swinging swords and axes and hammers with ease as you play, jumping around like a loon and in general having a good time. I felt that the multiplayer experience was a little too ping-dependent, even for a high-bandwidth connection, so you need to make sure that you play on a server that's close to you for the proper experience. The two new game modes are nice, mechanics-wise, although I really wish that Arena were more like, say, the various Rocket Arena titles--a single battle arena per map means quite a bit of waiting when the server's populated. Of course, most of the time the servers are empty, so it's not much of an issue . . . for the wrong reasons. Hardcore multiplayer Rune fans would do well to pick up Rune: Halls of Valhalla--and, indeed, probably already have. Those who thought that the single player experience in Rune was much more fun than the multiplayer probably won't find anything of merit here, as the gameplay is still as chaotic and unformed as possible. And while there is some good material here, it seems a little too small of a scope for a stand-alone game cum expansion pack. The Halls are empty, I'm afraid, and it's doubtful that most will find enough goodies here to fill them up.
-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications AKA Phil Bordelon
Minimum System Requirements: Win9x/ME/NT/2K, K6-2/P2/Celeron 300, 64MB RAM, 8MB video card, sound card, 88MB HD Space, 4x CD-ROM   Test System: Athlon 1.1GHz running Win98 SE, 512MB RAM, GeForce 2 GTS w/ 32MB RAM, SoundBlaster Live!, 8x DVD-ROM
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