Magicka 2

Some features are difficult to appreciate until you actually get to experience them first hand. As we sat down to sample {Magicka 2} last year at Gamescom, associate producer Peter Cornelius talked about a new feature called Artefacts.

Similar to Halo's skulls they would remix the rules of the game. Sounded neat, but to be perfectly honest it felt a bit underwhelming. Perhaps it was undersold. Perhaps we didn't fully grasp its significance, but now that we've experienced the power of the Artefacts first hand we truly get it. This is a true game changer.

"Basically, it's new house rules,"says Cornelius after our most recent play session. "I kind of like that we don't tell you how to play our game. If you want to play in a different way then you're free to."

"If you want to put on 300% extra movement speed, be immune to fire, turn off healing elements, teleport on every kill you do so you just randomly teleport all over the place or teleport to the kill location. There's so much you can do, so much you can tweak in the campaign and the challenges, you can play your own game and enhance the part of {Magicka} you like the most," Cornelius continued.

"Whether you want it more hardcore, easier, or if you just want to make it weird, like hearing guardians laughing at you in the background, that's all up to you."

There are more than 50 Artefacts in total and some of them have multiple levels of severity. And you can stack up to six different Artefacts to create your special remix of the game. Perhaps you want to play around with making enemies have more health, but you want to balance that with more health of your own?

Maybe you're a masochist and want your enemies to regenerate health? We suggested randomised Artefacts as a bonus features and Cornelius said it was something they'd consider. Figuring out what Artefacts are in play would surely be a challenge in and of itself.

As we sat down to play a particular Challenge (twenty rounds of arena-based action) it became evident how much of the that while a Challenge modes and Artefacts sound like small, rather superficial additions to the concept they marry perfectly with the core strength of the combat system. The Challenges provides a more intense and combat focused experience that can be compared to a boss rush, and the Artefacts allows us to remix the experience ahead of each attempt.

Naturally it's not just about the Artefacts. They are really more of a catalyst to the great formula of the first game. The many ways in which you can cast your spells and combine the elements are as addictive and fun today as it was four years ago. Newcomers will stumble upon combinations they enjoy and feel comfortable with while veteran players will switch things up more. Ultimately not even the best of players will have full control at all times of whether or not enemies or friends are wet or on fire and in the heat of the battle things will go wrong.

But that's not a negative. {Magicka} became a phenomenon largely because of the hilarious outcomes the always on friendly fire produced. Naturally the Artefacts also play into to this. The severity of the friendly fire can be adjusted and for the most skilled players setting friendly fire to 1000% may provide that special challenge they've been looking for.

"The focus has always been to enhance what is great about {Magicka}," says Cornelius. "What people really like is that unique mixing of spells. You mix spells to make the spells. And we want to make that, since that is the core experience - remove it and and there's no {Magicka}."

"So we polished that to bits, make sure that is the best it can be," continued Cornelius. "And then with the Artefacts, of course it's the same thing. You can combine up to six different Artefacts and truth be told we don't know what happens with some combinations, cause there are just too many."

We played {Magicka 2} on PlayStation 4 with DualShock 4 controllers, and it worked like a charm. Not surprising as the {Magicka} system was always designed with controllers in mind, the first time we played the original we actually played it with Xbox 360 controllers. At its heart this is a game that is best played on the couch with three friends, even if a working netcode was first on Paradox's and Piece Interactive's list of improvements for the sequel.