Magicka: Wizard Wars

There are many ways to have fun on the Internet, and a lot of them involve magic of some sorts. However, being able to quickly concoct your spells on the spot and calculate which one would best suit your current situation is a special kind of challenge, which is why Magicka gained such a good reputation when it was first released. Now, the same formula was extended in a PvP environment, with MOBA-like arenas for wizards to battle freely amongst themselves.

Magicka: Wizard Wars is more or less the same thing as the original game, in the sense that you still have to combine elements in order to cast a variety of awesome spells. However, instead of having to clear level after level of enemy creatures with barely any intelligence to them, you know have to do the same thing against other human players, which is obviously more difficult and way more fun.

To begin with, the game plays out much like your typical MOBA, since you first have to look for a game and let the application find suitable players to match you against. After the two teams are complete, the match starts and everyone must work together in order to defeat the enemy team, by destroying their base. However, thanks to friendly fire, vicious neutral creatures, and the stress of finding the correct spell every time, the matches are incredibly intense and atmospheric most of the time.

Gameplay-wise, the wizards have eight elements they can choose from and three slots to combine them, which results in quite the large variety of spells. Not only that, but they can also be cast in a variety of ways, because you can either create offensive magic and damage your enemies or go for a shield to protect yourself from harm. There are many other such choices to be made along the way,  but you must make them quickly and use them wisely.

Even if the top-down perspective might seem a bit old-fashioned nowadays, it’s probably the only way this game could work. There’s just too much happening on the screen at any given time, which means that it would be impossible to follow it all if you were any closer to the action. Fear not, however, because the graphics are sublime and every spell is unique from a visual point of view.

Magicka: Wizard Wars may be a bit overwhelming at first, but the joy of casting your first spell gets you hooked for a very long time. Due to the fact that every match is different and it’s quite difficult to master the gameplay completely, you are in for many hours of gameplay.