Valhalla Hills: Two-Horned Helmet Edition

I cannot understand the very negative reviews this game receives. The game itself is a solid building game with focus on transport, somewhat a mix of Wiggles/Diggles and The Settlers 2, with some new ideas, too. There is no proper tutorial, but the game mechanics are not too hard. Regarding some issues/reviews: - to move your soldiers you have to build an Army Post, then move that building. - dwellings are only used by the vikings that work in range. But they also enjoy to sleep outside. - the colors marking good/bad spots on the ground are not based on resource, but obviously on building costs! - I did not have any game breaking bugs, and just one minor bug (fisherman not catching anything) in several hours of gameplay Overall this game does many things right. Your folk do not annoy you all the time, for example. There often is enough food growing at bushes for the early game. They pick up tools and work, where there is a need. There are no skills your Vikings gain, so there is no micromanaging them. You can assign carriers to buildings to improve their productivity or building speed, which is neat. The economy is quite complex and intertwined, compared to The Settlers 2. Having just finished S2:DNG Vikings Addon I have to say this game also offers more gameplay variety. Where in S2 you search for gold and then bbq the enemy in Valhalla Hills you can also zerg the portal, try to improve weapons supply, build outposts with courier networks and so on. There are different types of enemies, that sometimes require some swift action. But overall this is a very relaxing game and controls not designed for fast paced action. The random maps add variety, too. This game would be much more popular with a good campaign, but the unlocks system isn't bad. Compared to Wiggles it lacks heart quite badly, your Vikings do not grow on you. The camera position is somewhere between fancy and annoying, especially when the portal is behind a mountain top. Not perfect, but pretty good!

I purchased the game on Steam as it was released. Oh boy that was a big neatly packaged mass of disappointment! First of all the story somehow got streamlined into "You are in Valhalla, you have to keep going from Lv1 to Lv100 of Valhalla by entering the gate at the end of every level that looks exactly like the last level with an added biome of forest" from "Epic Saga and story of Viking Boy and Europeans and Sarrasin friends" Second of all, I have no clue how people are saying its a good release because aside from Graphics. ALL SYSTEMS OF THE PREVIOUS GAMES HAVE BEEN SIMPLIFIED AND DUMBED DOWN. Here's a list: 1. Making Food is completely streamline, I saw no need to make other production such as Bread over just massing Fishermen 2. The weapon system is completely gone, you will find yourselves making axes to rush the gate without anything else just to get it over with. 3. No marriage system, vikings JUST FALL DOWN FROM THE SKIES. So realistic 4. You will not be making Mead or any Extra industries because they were either removed or you can't see any utility for it Thirdly, instead of making their games better, the developer was busy trying to sell you A DWARVEN BIOME DLC FOR 12$ so no... They lost all my respects. The Culture and Settlers series have always been the most esteemed series of my gaming library... This left a very sour taste

But I can't. Why? Because the game has the rotate camera (rotate in all directions) glued to the mouse middle button without an option to use any other button or key or combination. Which means when the game starts with the camera at almost level angle, you are stuck there. You also can't centre the camera, but that's like small potatoes. I have problem with using the MMB in all games no matter what mouse or Windows I have been using for like the last 20 years, so it is nothing new for me. But to not give the option to at least use something else, makes the game basically unplayable for me so I have to rate it accordingly. Why there are still developers who don't allow to change the bindings is just crazy. You could do it in games back to the 80s, but in the 21st century there are still some who don't allow you to. Stupid stupid stupid. Otherwise the game might be good, I will never find out. What a waste of money. No, I can't ask for refund of my money as it has been a while since I bought it. I do know though that I won't buy another game from these developers.