Valheim’s next big update takes Vikings to the land of the dead
Plus, the Hildir’s Quest update adds new style options
Computers Tech Games Crypto Music and More
For those who like all things Viking, the city-builder survival sim Land of the Vikings might be right up your alley.
Launched in Early Access today on Steam for $19.99, the developers describe the game as Frostpunk with Vikings, but if you ask me, it also has a bit of a Banished vibe to it. And that’s a good thing because I love that game, and have been hoping for a sequel for ages..
In development at Laps Games and to be published by Iceberg Interactive, in Land of the Vikings, you are the Jarl of a new Viking village who must manage resources and survive harsh conditions, and enemy raids. You must do this while also guiding your fellow Vikings to work together through social conflict.
Netflix has released the first clip from Vikings: Valhalla Season 2. Season 1 debuted on the streaming service back in February, and by March it was already renewed for and began production on Season 3.
Valhalla is a spin-off of History Channel/Amazon Prime Video’s Vikings series, which ran for six seasons. Back in 2020, Vikings showrunner Michael Hirst discussed why he chose to end the show after six seasons. “I had to give these various storylines a satisfying conclusion–a conclusion that didn’t cheat in any way,” he explained. “And I felt that if I could come up with endings that were satisfactory and felt justified, then the audience would hopefully feel the same because I love these characters so much and it was very important to me.”
In this new clip of Season 2 of Valhalla above, the Vikings prep for and are pushed right to the brink of a battle–before everything cuts to black. The legendary Viking heroes seen in the clip include Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett), Freydis Eriksdotter (Frida Gustavsson), and Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter), and according to Netflix, this scene shows the trio making a “desperate last stand against Olaf and his warriors.”
The Green Bay Packers welcome the Minnesota Vikings at the U.S. Bank Stadium in their Week 1 matchup.
Kickoff time for Vikings vs. Packers is scheduled for 4:25p.m. ET on September 11.
The season-opening match will see top rivals in the NFC North go head-to-head with both teams tipped to have a strong chance of winning the division.
While the game will be available on local TV in areas around Minnesota and Green Bay, most fans will need to stream the game to get in on the action.
In the U.S., there is no single option available that will allow you to stream every game on any device you want, so you will need to look around for the best NFL streaming options.
If this is an in-market game for you, most live TV streaming services will show this game, because they stream your local network affiliates. Here’s a list of live TV streaming services, most of which have free trial options:
DIRECTTV Stream– $69.99 a month
Vidgo’s “Plus” plan – $59.95 a month
YouTube TV – $64.99 a month
FuboTV – $69.99 a month
Hulu with Live TV – $69.99 a month with ads, or $75.99 a month ad-free
If this game is out-of-market for you, you’ll probably need to subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket, a premium service carried by DIRECTV, which will cost you $73.49 per month, after a free trial week. And no, you don’t get NFL Sunday Ticket for free, even if you sign up for DIRECTV Stream.
The popularity of the NFL continues to grow in the UK with games being played in London in recent years.
The good news for UK fans, watching NFL games will cost you a lot less than it would in the US. NFL Game pass has a number of options available to fans this side of the water.
The PRO subscription which will cost just £150.99 annually – or four installments of £37.75 until 31 July 2023 will give you access to all 270+ games live, which may be bad news for your sleeping pattern.
Game Pass “Essential” tier, which costs £42.99 annually, will allow you to watch NFL Redzone live with on demand highlights of all games.
Much like the two button fighting game, Divekick, Vikings on Trampolines is a game that manages to squeeze a ton of fun and depth out of the simplest of controls. It’s a 2D “bounce-em-up” game that is surprisingly self-explanatory: You are a Viking, you bounce off trampolines, and attempt to stay alive by avoiding the ground like it’s lava. It’s about as easy to pick up-and-play as a game can get, and based on my 15-20 minutes with an early build of the game, it’s a game that I definitely want to pick up and play much more of in the future.
The wild thing about Vikings on Trampolines is that it’s a game that’s played entirely with the control stick. Every level begins with you being dropped onto a trampoline, and from there you can only move left and right as you aim to land on another trampoline to keep yourself alive. You can hold down to drop faster, and you can hold up to slow your descent and give yourself a little flutter jump. And that’s about it. Those are all of the controls that you need to explain to someone who’s never played.
It’s the things that get between you and the life-saving trampolines that really make Vikings on Trampoline sing – whether that be other players, enemies that need to be bounced on and knocked out, or soccer balls that need to be smacked into the opposing goal. There was a ton of variety on display even in just the short demo that I got to play. The main attraction so far seems to be the adventure mode, which is fully playable both in solo and co-op, and pits you against a series of boss battles, challenges, and minigames. In one boss fight, we had to avoid getting crushed by a bird in a giant stone statue, timing our jumps so we could get above the statue to bounce on it when it stomped down.
In another, we had to precariously bounce on a constantly moving Viking ship, with trampolines that would slide along the deck as the ship got tossed by the waves, all the while trying to defeat a boss and his pet whale that will occasionally pop out from the water, and try to swallow the ship whole. It’s an incredibly dynamic boss fight, with the stage changing multiple times as the whale continues to progressively wreck the ship, causing it to eventually split in two with one half occasionally submerging, leaving us with only two trampolines to bounce off of as we tried to avoid falling ice blocks that would threaten to knock us off.
Beyond boss battles there was also a fun jump rope minigame, survival missions where we had to take on waves of enemies that would drop in from the sky, and there’s even a minigame that you can play on the world map that gives every player three balloons, Mario Kart style, and has you competing to be the last one standing as you try to bump your friends into the spike ridden edges of the map.
Vikings on Trampolines shines brightest in multiplayer, and in addition to playing adventure mode cooperatively, there’s also a competitive multiplayer mode for up to four players. I only got to play the simplest of maps, so it’s hard to say how wild things can get, but the addition of power ups certainly made for some chaotic fun. There’s an axe that immediately gets thrown towards the closest opponent and knocks them away if it hits; you can grab a hammer to increase your knockback power; a weight that makes you invincible, but causes you to bounce very low; and wings that let you fly up and avoid danger for a little while.
All in all, Vikings on Trampolines seems like a blast in the right environment. It remains to be seen if it sustain this level of variety throughout its whole campaign, or if the fun of multiplayer holds up in the solo experience, but in all other regards, Vikings on Trampolines has all the makings of an indie multiplayer darling along the same lines as Towerfall, Samurai Gunn and Overcooked.
Vikings aren’t really known for their acrobatic prowess but Owlboy developers D-Pad Studio are limbering up for their next indie game, Vikings On Trampolines. It’s based on an award-winning experimental game the team produced back in 2011. Witness the sheer Nordic bounciness in the trailer below.
Week 2 of the NFL preseason is at its end, with just one game left: The Raiders vs. The Vikings on August 14, 2022 at 4:25 p.m. ET. This game will be the capstone of NFL Network’s nationwide week 2 coverage, though it will also be on local TV in the areas around Las Vegas and Minneapolis. But if you don’t have pay TV, or a working antenna, you’ll need to stream.
In the US, there’s no single option that lets you stream every game you’ll want to see this year on any device you want.
But long story short, if this is an out-of-market game for you, the NFL+ streaming service is probably your best bet, and it only costs $4.99 a month after a free trial.
Here’s an explanation:
Like I said, if this is an out-of-market NFL game for you — meaning you’re not in the areas considered the primary markets for Minnesota Vikings and Las Vegas Raiders games — one way to stream this game for cheap is with NFL+, the NFL’s new streaming service. NFL+ has a base tier for $4.99 a month (with a free 7-day trial period if you haven’t already tried it) that will give you access to this game, and the other out-of-market preseason games, but once the season starts you can only watch on a mobile device like a phone or tablet.
If this is an in-market game for you, the NFL+ streaming service will not allow you to watch it. You need a live TV streaming service.
At $35 a month — with a limited-time discount rate of $17.50 for your first month — Sling Blue is the cheapest live TV streaming service that will let you stream your local network affiliates along with NFL Network, which means you will be able to easily find live coverage of this game if you subscribe. There are other live TV streaming services as well, most of which have free trial options, like Vidgo’s “Plus” plan ($59.95 a month), the even more comprehensive YouTube TV ($64.99 a month), FuboTV ($69.99 a month), Hulu with Live TV ($69.99 a month with ads, or $75.99 a month ad-free), or DirecTV Stream with its wildly varying price options.
Assuming you don’t immediately cancel your live TV streaming service after this game is over (which is very much an option) the advantage of subscribing to one of these services is that after you fork over that eye-watering monthly fee for this one game, they’ll keep the gridiron action streaming to your TV for as long as you’re subscribed. They do this by letting you stream your local network affiliates like NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX (though read the fine print to see which of these they do and don’t have), along with channels like ESPN and NFL Network in some cases. YouTube TV in particular might be the clear center of the NFL-streaming universe soon if it scores a deal to allow users access to 13 additional games per week by winning the bidding war for NFL Sunday Ticket.
Whether you’re a British NFL fan, or an American who moved to the UK simply to stream NFL games for much, much less money than you could across the pond, congratulations: NFL Game Pass, which is unavailable in the U.S., is the envy of all American NFL fans stuck on native soil. The Vikings-Raiders preseason game is available live to those who pay for the Game Pass “Essential” tier, which costs £42.99 annually, or about £3.58 a month. Unlike preseason games, most games are replays at this tier, and for £150.99 annually (£12.58 a month) you can watch the Vikings-Raiders preseason game at the same time as fans in the U.S., and then tune in live from now until the Super Bowl. I just hope you enjoy staying up late.