Review by: William Abner

The developers at Arrowhead Games have seen Star Wars enough times to know that only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise. In fact, pick a popular fantasy/science-fiction film and Magicka has it covered—from “there can be only one” to “shrubberies!” This $10 game, which combines elements from classics like Gauntlet and Castle Crashers, has enough pop culture references to appease the geek in all of us while throwing enough co-op mayhem to salt away hour after hour…right before it crashes.

It’s a shame that Magicka shipped before it was ready. There really wasn’t any obvious pressure to release the game; with what was Magicka competing? Unfortunately, being cost conscious doesn’t excuse the fact that it shipped a couple of weeks before it needed to as the game has a tendency to suck you in right before it dies while battling a boss at the end of a chapter.

What makes this worse is that Magicka doesn’t come with a save anywhere option; because it uses checkpoints, when you die you are sent back to the latest save point, but if you quit outright – or more often than not the game decides to quit for you – you have to replay an entire chapter. It’s times like these when Monty Python jokes just don’t cut it. Magicka is terribly entertaining, which makes the crashes and bugs even more depressing. Who cares if a bad game is buggy?

You play the role of a wizard who is out to save the world. You look like a colorful Jawa. Everything in the game is undeniably cute in that retro gaming sort of way, although the death scenes, say when you cause a troll to explode from a beam attack spell, are surprisingly bloody

The tools of your trade are spells taken from eight magical areas: fire, water, electricity, stone, arcane, shield, cold, and life. Although you can cast specific spells after you find spellbooks containing their “formula” – spells such as meteor shower, haste, time warp, teleport and so on – you can also combine elements to do all sorts of neat things. Combine cold with arcane and your wizard shoots a beam of ice at an enemy. If you are playing co-op your buddy can also blast that same enemy with a water beam for some serious extra damage. You can douse an enemy with water then fry him extra crispy with electricity. Take a little stone and add some fire and you get a fireball. A dash of shield with some lightning casts a lightning field around your wizard that shocks any charging foes.