By John Walker on June 7th, 2011 at 6:12 pm.
Arrowhead and Paradox are a cheeky bunch. Magicka’s irreverence became infamous in the moment they announced DLC for a fantasy magic game themed around the Vietnam War. Their cheeky approach has continued, after they learned a while back that the Paradox booth at E3 would be immediately next to Bethesda’s megabooth. The result? See below for the full version.
The poster was their first intention. That was what Paradox thought they could get away with, having rejected the idea of adding on a slogan saying they’d have twice as many dragons as Skyrim. (Their not having any dragons at all slightly put the kibosh on that claim.). Arrowhead slightly misinterpreted things, and as a result there’s now to be a brand new free DLC item for Magicka: a dragon born wizard robe. It’ll be given away free in the near future.
So here’s the Skyrim poster:
And here’s Arrowhead’s version:
Check out that slogan. You can click on them each for a larger version. The two will be right next to each other at E3, at least until Bethesda’s henchmen show up.
The other big Magicka news this week is that in two weeks there’s to be another free update, adding PvP to the game. Which is good, too.
07/06/2011 at 18:15 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
Cute!
07/06/2011 at 18:16 Drake Sigar says:
Those cunning bastards.
07/06/2011 at 18:37 Andrei Sebastian says:
Take my money!
At least for the balls you’ve proven you have.
07/06/2011 at 18:17 Teddy Leach says:
I love Arrowhead.
In other news, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO, WEEOO.
EDIT: Sorry, blame what I just saw on E3. I just wanted to share the utterly ridiculous name.
07/06/2011 at 18:24 Inigo says:
Birdy. Birdy. Birdy.
07/06/2011 at 18:42 Kerbobotat says:
‘WEOO WEOO’? Correct me if Im wrong, but is that “The sound of da (british) police” ?
07/06/2011 at 18:57 Teddy Leach says:
We prefer to say NEENAW, NEENAW, NEENAW, but it’s pretty much the same.
07/06/2011 at 19:28 magnus says:
Actually that was a sound Patrick Starfish made in the ‘Hall Monitor’ episode of Spongebob Squarepants.
07/06/2011 at 19:54 Nevard says:
That ridiculous noise is actually the name of Nintendo’s next console
07/06/2011 at 19:55 Teddy Leach says:
Nevard wins!
08/06/2011 at 09:01 Milky1985 says:
Its the name of the console if you have a speech impediment :p
Or maybe are from the north (does that count as the same thing?)
07/06/2011 at 18:17 Kirioth says:
I fucking love Paradox and Arrowhead.
07/06/2011 at 19:55 Commisar says:
me too, can’t wait for Sword of the Stars 2/ any upcoming Magika updates
07/06/2011 at 18:17 IchigoRXC says:
1/2 man, 1/2 bear, 1/2 pig.
07/06/2011 at 18:33 Kandon Arc says:
No it’s clearly 1/2 bear and1/2 manpig
07/06/2011 at 19:45 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
2/3 Man and 2/3 Big.
07/06/2011 at 20:38 Dachannien says:
And 30% titanium.
11/06/2011 at 16:24 sidhellfire says:
100% polyester
11/06/2011 at 16:26 Solcry says:
Silly people not catching the South Park reference
07/06/2011 at 18:18 polyorpheus says:
Crazy swedes.
07/06/2011 at 18:44 DainIronfoot says:
Was about to say this.
Listening to their commentary on Totalbiscuit’s channel. These guys are wonderfully nuts. Also, Magicka is a great game made by only 8 people. And it still looks, sounds and plays great.
07/06/2011 at 19:47 Valvarexart says:
Link? :D That’s coming from a Swedish guy.
07/06/2011 at 19:54 DainIronfoot says:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut#grid/user/295A49D9210D37C9
I believe it was initially livestreamed and since then Total Biscuit is releasing it… really slowly. It’s rather good and a nice insight into the making of a game which started it’s life as a student prototype.
07/06/2011 at 18:19 Icarus says:
That is utterly glorious. I do believe I’ve found my new desktop.
07/06/2011 at 18:32 Valvarexart says:
If you use one of those newfangly fullHD desktops, maybe you could make use of what I made for myself but now feel so kind as to share: http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/851/extendedmagicka.jpg
07/06/2011 at 18:37 Icarus says:
Done and done. Thank you sir.
07/06/2011 at 18:19 Valvarexart says:
I do love the guys at Paradox.
07/06/2011 at 18:19 westyfield says:
What they should do is overnight, sneak in and put another Magicka poster over the Skyrim one. See how long it takes Bethesda to notice.
07/06/2011 at 19:29 Soon says:
Then do similar with every poster at the show.
07/06/2011 at 18:19 Dozer says:
He put on his robe but not his wizard hat.
07/06/2011 at 19:04 RYNOBIG says:
Brilliant! “You are now a bloody red ragdoll suspended in the air on my mighty horn.”
07/06/2011 at 18:20 Pani says:
Please no henchmen! It’d be fab if Skyrim ripped into Magicka a little. I’d love a jokes war.
07/06/2011 at 18:20 PanzerVaughn says:
Magicka had one Dragon!…
Though, you cant have twice as much of anything with only one.
Oh! unless you count alternate timelines, then magicka has like…. okay, two.
07/06/2011 at 18:33 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
It has 1 1/2 if you count the first boss as something very similar to a dragon.
07/06/2011 at 18:58 PanzerVaughn says:
Nope, thats definitly a serpent, you need legs and/or wings to qualify as a dragon, and even then you might only register as a Drake or a Wyrm or something.
I would like toput forth that fafnir is way more Dragon than any of Skyrims Dragons though. He lives in a super annoying mountain ruin, hes got a Treasure horde, theres a magic sword that kills him in one shot, he keeps ancient magic handy for adventurers, hes bros with vampires.
I doubt any Skyrim dragons can handle TWO of those at the same time.
07/06/2011 at 18:21 McDan says:
I hope bethesda take it in good cheer.
07/06/2011 at 18:27 pepper says:
I hope they one-up paradox on there playful joking.
07/06/2011 at 18:23 pakoito says:
Can I has a OMGEYECANCER resolution of it?
07/06/2011 at 21:04 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Have a gander at this very comments thread.
07/06/2011 at 18:24 somini says:
1/2 the copies sold by Skyrim?
07/06/2011 at 18:58 Nick says:
1 millionth of the budget.
07/06/2011 at 18:25 johnpeat says:
If their QA was as good as their PR they’d be AOK with me…
As it is, cool PR, game is a bugfest…
07/06/2011 at 18:28 Diziet Sma says:
Still?
07/06/2011 at 18:42 JWendin says:
Not really a bugfest anymore. I guess some people only give games one chance and consider them to be like that forever and ever in this rigid, adamant world..
07/06/2011 at 18:43 Vinraith says:
The game’s completely fixed at this point, at least for me and my friends (and it was a train wreck at launch for us, mind you). Arrowhead really pulled it together and got things patched up, we can co-op through the entire game now without a hitch.
07/06/2011 at 18:50 mlaskus says:
I tried cooping it with a friend but we had to stop at Havindir because our framerates dropped to about 5 per second. Were there any performance improvements?
07/06/2011 at 18:59 Vinraith says:
@mlaskus
Well, when we couldn’t play it, we couldn’t play it at ALL (it crashed almost immediately), so it’s hard for me to answer that. I know a lot of the crashes were a product of issues with specific video cards, which were fixed, it’s possible that those same conflicts were causing your performance issues. It’s probably worth going back and trying again at this point.
07/06/2011 at 19:15 johnpeat says:
What really gauled me about this is that the publisher admitted they knew the game was unready and would need a load of work – but still they launch it and take your money…
Some of the early patch reports are hilarious – they contain stuff like “Fixed bug where pressing a key caused the world to end”…
However much work has been applied since, the fundamental issue is they shipped a completely broken game – not just a bit broken, not just broken for some people, broken broken.
Not sure that a funny poster makes up for that.
07/06/2011 at 19:20 Vinraith says:
@johnpeat
Your standards are your own, of course, and you’re welcome to them. Personally, I think a comprehensive job of patching the game, free apology DLC, and a generally irreverant sense of humor more than compensate for a $10 game being broken at release. Considering how many $50 games are never fixed, I’ll cheerfully support Arrowhead over your average AAA developer any day. You’re welcome to do otherwise, of course.
08/06/2011 at 01:20 InternetBatman says:
I have to agree with you. I bought the game just to play with a friend and was pretty dismayed by the constant bugs, the 5fps multiplayer framerate (for the nonhost), and the horrendous checkpoint save system in single player (I’ve gotten to fafnir 4 times only to have the game crash on me. Since your in level progress can’t be saved at checkpoints you have to redo everything).
This wasn’t a launch day horror story, I got the game in the impulse sale two or three weeks ago. I hope pvp fixes the netcode, but right now, five months after release, the game is too flawed for me to recommend.
08/06/2011 at 04:48 Enikuo says:
Yeah, still crashes for me too : (
07/06/2011 at 18:29 Temple says:
Vietnam DLC for Skyrim day one?
07/06/2011 at 18:33 Dozer says:
featuring the Viet Cong on armoured horses.
07/06/2011 at 18:35 Kandon Arc says:
And USAAF controlled Dragons.
11/06/2011 at 16:25 sidhellfire says:
Dragon Two, cleared to take of from runway 33.
07/06/2011 at 18:33 Dana says:
Ma’ bring me my shotgun !
07/06/2011 at 18:39 keith.lamothe says:
I hope Bethesda tries to demonstrate what happens when the wizard in the picture gains the “Icarian Flight” buff.
Sounds like an appropriate comeback ;)
07/06/2011 at 18:41 Gundrea says:
“Magicka: It’s the size that counts”
Bethseda could get away with that considering magicka is a thing in Elder Scrolls.
07/06/2011 at 18:41 Vinraith says:
Damn I love these guys. Come to think of it, the appropriate thing to do now would be to make a survival map that just keeps spawning an infinite number of dragons.
07/06/2011 at 18:45 Some_Guy says:
Gota like the flower in the dragons tail.
07/06/2011 at 18:50 Grygus says:
I think what I like most is that Paradox drew their own, instead of copy-pasting Bethesda’s and then making funny changes. I don’t know why I expected anything else but this still came as a pleasant surprise.
07/06/2011 at 19:22 Outsider says:
It was a good move. They probably want to avoid legal issues.
07/06/2011 at 18:53 leeder krenon says:
i don’t get it.
07/06/2011 at 19:09 Outsider says:
It’s amusing, but seems to fall a little short of actual laughs. I only found it mildly entertaining to see a copied poster design and font for another game, changed to instead include their own character.
07/06/2011 at 19:36 John Walker says:
The key is that their weeny stand is right next to Bethesda’s small town of a booth.
07/06/2011 at 20:04 Outsider says:
I just went up and read the post more closely, I missed the context and that actually makes all the difference. On its own as media it’s amusing … at E3, directly next to Bethseda’s huge booth, that’s actually pretty funny.
07/06/2011 at 20:16 Rii says:
@John Walker
Pix?
07/06/2011 at 22:45 Vexing Vision says:
Oh please. Pics.
07/06/2011 at 19:05 Daiv says:
Arrowhead, please use the money from the purchase I’m about to make to buy yourselves a beer.
I’ve already got the game but I’m sending a second copy to a cash-strapped friend.
07/06/2011 at 19:22 Stick says:
You’re assuming they spend money on other things in the first place…
07/06/2011 at 19:31 lunarplasma says:
They’re like the Monty Python of the gaming world.
08/06/2011 at 00:50 Koozer says:
Funnies doesn’t equal Monty Python.
/joykill
07/06/2011 at 19:41 MythArcana says:
Well, we now know that the Magicka hero is 150% of something. What, we are really not too sure. Now let’s see them make fun of the ultimate Funkillers; \ /@|v3.
07/06/2011 at 19:55 magnus says:
You sound a bit of a fun vacuum yourself. :p
07/06/2011 at 19:52 Maurog says:
0% Vampire?
07/06/2011 at 19:55 Vinraith says:
Bleigh!
07/06/2011 at 22:44 Vexing Vision says:
Dunka dunka!
08/06/2011 at 00:04 Sassenach says:
Good “luck”!
07/06/2011 at 20:15 Zarunil says:
What a bunch of cheeks.
07/06/2011 at 21:22 icupnimpn2 says:
“And there’s the beautiful Magicka logo!!!!!!!”
07/06/2011 at 22:57 JuJuCam says:
Damn I was hoping they’d designed a massive 3d standup that reached over and inappropriately touched the Elder Scrolls poster after reading that headline…
07/06/2011 at 23:12 rebb says:
Meh.
08/06/2011 at 01:31 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
The piss, they have taken it!
Again.
08/06/2011 at 08:07 JB says:
Nice.
Coincided well with the Skyrim front page ad on RPS =)
08/06/2011 at 10:24 funtard says:
Paradox’s cheekiness extends to releasing several DLCs for their game when the base game is still broken. I still haven’t actually managed to complete the first level in multiplayer because there’s always one game breaking bug of some kind.
I really wanted to enjoy this game but it’s just a broken buggy piece of shit. At least on my computer.
08/06/2011 at 12:34 Dominic White says:
I’ve completed the game 2.5 times over three computers, and never encountered more than an amusing glitch. I think you might be cursed. Have you run over any old gypsy ladies lately?
08/06/2011 at 13:02 Zarunil says:
At release the game was total shite and unplayable for me. After a few days and patches though, it was very much playable.
11/06/2011 at 11:56 Thecreeperskg says:
1/2 man, 1/2 dragon, 1/2 ass