Thor: Son of Asgard Review

With superhero movies making it big in Hollywood in the past couple of years, their counterparts in the gaming world have also gotten a boost. There’s been a flood of Marvel Comic book hero-based games hitting the iOS store recently. One of them is Thor: Son of Asgard, based on Stan Lee’s creation of the Norse god. Here’s our take on the third person iOS game that we tested on the Apple iPad 2.

Thor, as a comic book character, is one of those all-powerful heroes that you tend to associate with a rather large on-screen presence. In this third person iOS game, however, that profile is not really met too well. The cut scenes are formulated in a comic book-styled animation and are quite entertaining. The story starts with the Lady Sif, one of the Thunder God's companions, being captured by the Asgard and taken to their realm of Jotunheim. Thor follows suit to try and rescue the warrior maiden.

Battling the Frost Giants of Jotunheim

From Dark Elves to Trolls, Frost Giants and other enemies, the valiant Son of Odin has to battle endless hordes of creatures to reach his friends. The plot is simple enough to follow but has an interesting twist in the tale. You don’t need to overthink it though, as cut scenes are few and far between—at least the more interesting, animated versions are; those not associated with the storyline are a little “simple” in terms of writing. The “old” language spoken during the animated cut scenes is actually very interesting.

Psychedelic colours come alive in battles inside citadels

What we’re looking at is a new age version of Thor based on his recent film persona and costume. Not that it matters, but old school Thor always seemed more badass; I guess the beard gives him a sort of teddy-bear like look. Gameplay, although engaging at first, gets increasingly repetitive as the levels progress. It reaches a point where you’ve just bested 4-5 trolls and moved no more than a few yards ahead to re-encounter the same bunch. It has a rather repetitive Deja-Vu sort of feeling to it, which only gets very annoying later on. The Boss fights, if you can even call them that, could also have been designed a little better with a better sense of urgency and difficulty set in. Unleashing full power assaults, although engaging to watch the first few times, also got a bit tiresome later on. The worst part is there are no upgrades or collectibles you can find to boost or advance your armour or fighting skills.

Comic book style animation for some cut-scenes

Controls are easy, but on a rare occasion, your character can get away from you and it becomes a little hard to evade enemies if you can’t see them around pillars etc. They are nevertheless responsive enough to get you out of harm's way most of the time. Most of the landscapes are also quite barren and lacking in detail, making it seem like a rather low-budget game and not worthy of the Odinson’s legacy. The graphics are not as great as some of today’s high-end mobile games, as the characters don’t seem too defined and combat scenarios can get a bit messy when you’re overwhelmed with too many enemies. It won’t take too long to learn the combination moves that are part of Thor’s fighting fit skill set.

Face the evil troll Ulik

When it comes down to brass tacks, the game feels a bit old-fashioned in some ways, although the colours might be a little more vivid and the medium, quite modern. It feels a bit like one of those 16-bit games we played on the old media consoles.

The Bottom Line and Price in India

Thor: Son of Asgard is also a short game but not all too exciting after the first few minutes of gameplay. Although the hordes increase by number, the only challenge is battling your own annoyance at how painfully repetitive the game feels. It’s priced at Rs. 156 ($2,99) off the Apple App Store. For that price, I’d suggest opting for some other game even if you are a comic book fan. Save yourself the hours of endless, mindless whack-a-mole type combat and boxy movements unbefitting a son of the almighty Odin and just move on.

Thor: Son of Asgard is available on the App store for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.