By Jim Rossignol on June 22nd, 2011 at 2:00 pm.
The Paradox/Arrowhead partnership continues to produce some of the best promotional material in gaming. The live action trailer for the new PvP expansion for Magicka is a delight, and you can watch it below.
This new PvP expansion is free, but there are also $.99 map packs, as Paradox explain. There’s “Vulcanus Arena, a sci-fi themed map that doubles as a PvP map and a challenge map,” and “the chilling Frozen Lake map as well as a “stop staring at me, you’re freaking me out” Watch Tower map.” All of which adds up to some solid cheap extras to our favourite comedy mage game. Carry on, Paradox/Arrowhead.
22/06/2011 at 14:08 thepaleking says:
Hahaha, what a great reference to Pulp Fiction.
22/06/2011 at 14:14 Ondrej says:
Reservoir Dogs, you mean.
But that vid made me chuckle, great job.
22/06/2011 at 14:58 Koojav says:
You both are wrong, it’s from Kill Bill.
22/06/2011 at 15:14 Inigo says:
Did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said “Dead Wizard Storage”?
22/06/2011 at 15:16 jrod says:
definitely dogs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=monNMsQyfCE
22/06/2011 at 16:21 Tams80 says:
Absolutely Reservoir Dogs as mentioned before.
22/06/2011 at 16:37 Slade says:
I thought it was from Deathproof.
22/06/2011 at 16:43 Ace Jon says:
What? It’s Jackie Brown, isn’t it?
22/06/2011 at 17:18 steviesteveo says:
Isn’t it Casablanca?
22/06/2011 at 17:43 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Inglourious Basterds, clearly. A riff on the famous scene where Hitler does that there ranting, and hilarity ensues.
22/06/2011 at 19:03 Evil Timmy says:
Which is actually a scene from Der Untergang (Downfall), not Inglourious Basterds.
So the chain continues… (and it totally, clearly is Reservoir Dogs)
22/06/2011 at 20:54 Fumarole says:
From Four Rooms for sure.
22/06/2011 at 21:23 Dreamhacker says:
The “Usual Suspects”, surely?
22/06/2011 at 22:54 JackShandy says:
No way, I definitely remember this from Toy Story 3.
22/06/2011 at 23:37 tossrStu says:
Nah, Sin City innit.
23/06/2011 at 06:36 Corrupt_Tiki says:
+1 Reservior Dogs
23/06/2011 at 07:04 grimskin says:
you are kidding, right ? it’s obviously “From dusk till dawn”
23/06/2011 at 09:56 Mr Ak says:
C’mon, the sunglasses are a clear callout to True Romance. Any fool could tell that.
22/06/2011 at 14:09 harvb says:
Best Reservoir Dogs spoof ever. Maybe the only one.
22/06/2011 at 14:13 skurmedel says:
Yes, their film spoofage does not disappoint.
The Elias reference in the SP-campaign… how I laughed.
22/06/2011 at 14:19 MajorManiac says:
Reservoir Dogs has been homaged more times than Madonnas flashed her pant’s……actually this might not necessarily be true.
This was very funny though.
22/06/2011 at 14:12 RaytraceRat says:
I got a feeling they’re making a reference to Star Trek and their uniform colours… I think.
22/06/2011 at 15:04 Nick says:
actually its this.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dm6Z3eYs7E
22/06/2011 at 17:10 RaytraceRat says:
I need an irony font, I’m no good without one…
22/06/2011 at 14:13 KauhuK says:
Oh Sweden I’m so jelly of you having all good things of gaming lately. It seems that game development here in Finland has slowed down quite a bit.
22/06/2011 at 14:14 skurmedel says:
Take solace that everybody and their dead grandmother is playing Angry Birds.
22/06/2011 at 14:13 Teddy Leach says:
The new robe you get with this update is very stylish and splendid.
22/06/2011 at 14:15 Snuffy the Evil says:
I love Magicka. So much.
22/06/2011 at 14:16 Mr_Initials says:
$.99? I would buy them all if steam wasn’t saying there $1.99. Also they didn’t mention the other pack with the party robes
22/06/2011 at 14:18 stahlwerk says:
Mages to the left of me, Wizards on the right…
22/06/2011 at 14:25 Moni says:
That makes the trailer a billion times better, which makes a total of around three billion.
22/06/2011 at 15:00 LionsPhil says:
The timing on that works surprisingly well
22/06/2011 at 15:06 Kirioth says:
If I could send you some sort of medal through the Internet, I would.
22/06/2011 at 16:11 DigitalSignalX says:
Brilliant spoof, even more brilliant dub with spoof. Bravo!
22/06/2011 at 16:27 Tams80 says:
Kudos to you.
22/06/2011 at 21:00 Fumarole says:
Where the ’70s survived.
23/06/2011 at 01:07 Burning Man says:
You sir, have won our love and gratitude. Which is, to say, the most I can offer for free.
23/06/2011 at 08:30 stahlwerk says:
Cheers! :D
22/06/2011 at 14:19 John Connor says:
Best reference to Kill Bill ever.
22/06/2011 at 14:23 Moni says:
I think you mean Inglourious Basterds.
22/06/2011 at 14:27 John Connor says:
Not Death Proof?
22/06/2011 at 14:29 MajorManiac says:
The Golden Girls surely – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgcsHqgfm-Y
22/06/2011 at 14:32 skurmedel says:
What about Jackie Brown?
22/06/2011 at 14:42 Bantu says:
actually it references an episode of CSI
22/06/2011 at 15:16 LionsPhil says:
You dolts; it’s clearly a nod to that bit in The Usual Suspects with the antelope, with a dash of the car chase from Ronin.
22/06/2011 at 15:31 Limey says:
Couldn’t stop laughing at the reference to Hamlet.
22/06/2011 at 16:30 Inglourious Badger says:
You’re all idiots, it’s from Dusk til Dawn, obv
22/06/2011 at 14:27 Tom OBedlam says:
Well played, Paradox/Arrowhead, very well played.
22/06/2011 at 14:31 Dana says:
Inglorious Basterds is one of my favorite movies ! Robert Rodriguez is such a talented director !
22/06/2011 at 14:31 DainIronfoot says:
Sausages!
22/06/2011 at 15:05 Daz says:
lol, yes!
They put them everywhere! Now they are parodying themselves? =)
22/06/2011 at 16:03 DainIronfoot says:
More continuing their little running gag I suspect.
22/06/2011 at 14:34 GT3000 says:
Jim, it may be worth 1.99 a map or Steam royally screwed up.
22/06/2011 at 14:41 Gnoupi says:
Yup, it’s 1.99 a map, at least in euros/dollars.
(In before “too expensive!!!!” remarks, think of the pvp as an expansion pack like we used to have. If you buy all the new maps, you end up with around the price of a regular expansion pack. The only difference is that they cut it in parts, so you buy only what you want. Or you can even buy nothing at all, and still play pvp on these maps, if the host you join has the map. Nice way to not fragment the community)
22/06/2011 at 15:05 shoptroll says:
Which is weird because the newsletter that was sent out says $0.99 unless something changed at the last minute.
Awesome trailer though. Not sure if I’ll grab any of the DLC packs right now, but I’m glad work on the game continues :)
22/06/2011 at 15:38 LionsPhil says:
I’m seeing £1.69 which is, frankly, pushing it for a map, a map, some clothes, and overall the addition of deathmatch, the most basic of multiplayer modes. Final Frontier (map AND clothes) is a penny shy of a full two quid.
For some sense of scale, by the time all those are totted up, I could buy Terraria and have change left over.
22/06/2011 at 14:37 aircool says:
Awesome… Footage does sort of represent actual gameplay. I want to see this ad on TV :-))))
22/06/2011 at 14:39 Gnoupi says:
The PvP expansion in itself is a delight as well, quite fun to play, from what I experimented.
And they rebalanced shields, protections, beams, projectiles, so it’s much more about casting the right thing at the right time.
Example, the “death ray” (steam/lightning/arcane) is now really easy to counter:
- If you have a lightning protection, it will almost not hurt you
- You can then cast a regular shield in front of you, which will bounce back the ray.
- They changed what happens when the ray hits a shield “facing”: before, it was exploding on the shield, and now it explodes back on the caster, so your shield will usually kill him with his own ray.
22/06/2011 at 14:44 MCM says:
(QR)EASA also explodes in a wider radius now – very hard to use without hurting yourself a lot.
22/06/2011 at 14:58 LionsPhil says:
This video is an accurate depiction of a game of Magicka.
But please guys. I already like the thing you made and gave you my money. Spend a little more time on the netcode.
(And I’m not sure how well Versus would actually work? One of the great things about co-op is that even though skill with typing and placing the right spell fast can make one player inordinately more powerful than others, it doesn’t really make it any less fun. In Versus that’d be like any other deathmatch game: a spawn, die, spawn, die loop, no?)
22/06/2011 at 16:47 Gnoupi says:
No, because they balanced the shields and protections. One guy could spam some attack at you, there are ways to not feel it at all, and even send it back to him (beams, mostly).
Also, in most maps you spawn quite far, so I haven’t noticed a lot of spawnkill.
PvP remains brutal, though. People who are not at ease with Magicka spellcasting to begin with should avoid it, or they face frustration. Not much time to wonder what to do, and how. You need to react fast and know what you are casting, or you will most likely die in a loop, yes
22/06/2011 at 15:53 Tei says:
Is interesting how much magicka looks like Loom. Probably other people has point it before.
http://home.comcast.net/~ervind/loomscreens1.html
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b241/ATMachine/loommisc/loomfleececdpic.png
22/06/2011 at 16:07 DainIronfoot says:
Whenever you look in a mirror in the game, your character will remark “Hey, it’s the guy from loom!”
22/06/2011 at 16:23 Tams80 says:
By virtue of loving Magicka and having, rather shamefully, only recently seen Reservoir Dogs for the first time (after meaning to for several years), this trailer bloody fantastic!
22/06/2011 at 17:12 The Pink Ninja says:
Yeah but have they fixed the game’s bugs yet?
22/06/2011 at 17:15 Vinraith says:
Ages ago. A friend and I played through in co-op back in April and didn’t hit a single snag.
23/06/2011 at 18:31 The Pink Ninja says:
I played it more recently than that and it was still crash-lag happy
22/06/2011 at 18:07 Bob says:
Definitely Reservoir Dogs, and hilarious. That kind of advertising/promo there should be more of I say.
22/06/2011 at 19:11 Davee says:
Oh man, this was great ^^
A game commercial I would love to see on the telly (in difference to many others where I tend to feel ashamed when they get shown).
22/06/2011 at 21:03 Fumarole says:
Absolutely brilliant.
22/06/2011 at 21:46 Darko Drako says:
Hilarious!
23/06/2011 at 04:56 mogofogo says:
For anyone who still doesn’t have Magicka, GreenManGaming has it at 65% off, I believe you can use the Key to activate it on Steam. Cheers.
23/06/2011 at 05:03 Vinraith says:
Gamersgate has it for $5, and yes the code from anywhere must be registered on Steam to play, as (at present, anyway) it’s unfortunately a Steamworks title.
23/06/2011 at 07:56 mogofogo says:
@Vinraith I would’ve killed for you to start your reply with a ” GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE.”
I got mine during a steam sale, but i think after the discount, its $3.48 on GreenManGaming.
23/06/2011 at 08:20 amishmonster says:
If that ISN’T Steve Buscemi, I applaud the imitator.
25/06/2011 at 02:12 Lim-Dul says:
They missed the opportunity to make an epic self-referential joke. The “OMG! They killed Yellow!” achievement used to be bugged and you got it when dying with purple robes instead of yellow ones – they should have referred to yellow as purple in the trailer. =)