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Asgard’s Wrath 2 is hailed as one of the greatest Virtual Reality games ever. It got an amazing Metacritic of eight point seven stars and a perfect ten out of ten from IGN. I was ready to dive right into that puppy as it came free with the Meta Quest 3. Before I do… I figure it’s time to look at the predecessor. That’s right, I will be playing what I believe will be my first round of Asgard’s Wrath.
Asgard’s wrath originally came out five years ago in twenty-nineteen. Winning the Best VR game at the GameAward’s. It’s all about stunning graphics and great gameplay. Seriously, this may be a record for how much better the first game’s graphics are compared to its sequel. Of course, that is due to the hardware for the original Asgard’s Wrath, which is only available when streaming through your personal computer. That means you will need a thousand-dollar gaming machine for the best graphics, four hundred dollars for the headset, and pay whatever it costs to have good enough internet to stream the game. The second one uses the mobile hardware in the headset… easy. Is Asgard’s Wrath worth all of this cost and effort? Spoilers, but absolutely.
Before discussing this game more, I wanted to get my challenge out of the way. For I am not just playing Asgard’s Wrath… I am using it to burn calories. My challenge was to play this game every day for thirty days. I will use an Apple Watch to calculate my heart rate and calorie burn to determine how much weight this game caused me to burn. See all of this in the statistics section of my video. Again, you can always scroll through using the scroll bar below.
With my challenge out of the way and everything set up, I am ready to dive into the world of Asgard. I will be spooling up to get the raven character, so skip ahead to the statistics section to skip all that. Upon starting the game, you must hold your arms to the side to configure your height. From there, the game starts with this amazing opening of you walking in a beautiful temple with a rainbow pathway. From there, you begin the first saga, the voyage of the Sea Beast. It’s here you learn the controls and how to swing your weapon. The amount of detail displayed in this opening is incredible. The animation and the epic soundtrack… just everything comes together to create the perfect experience.
Once you beat the beast, you get taken to Asgard’s hall with your friend Loki. It turns out you are a god that’s in training. You must answer the praises of people in bad situations and help them. When you help them out, Loki will pop up every now and again, giving you advice and training. In return, you bring back rare items to Loki. These items are not owned by other gods, and Loki is trustworthy. That’s the lesson you learn from the Thor movies, after all.
In my playtime, I helped out a few characters. First was a woman whose town was taken over by another god. There was also a guy with an axe that you can retract, which made me feel like Thor. Next is a blind magician who will save his town, and lastly is a dark elf who needs to get back home with some rare treasures. To help each person, you will take over their mortal soul. You can pop out to being a god at various alters. The gameplay mixes between being a god and transforming animals and solving puzzles. When you are possessing, your goal is to explore and beat up bad guys to make it to the next area. I am, of course, simplifying everything, but you get the jest of it.
Let’s talk about the gameplay. For the most part, the game controls very well, especially early into the VR gaming culture. You walk around using the joystick, which may or may not make you dizzy depending on your usage of VR. You can grab your sword and shield from your body and swing around the controller to attack. You must look at items and hold your controller to pick up items. You have a small inventory, so you must travel back and forth from the mortal world to Asgard. You must sit through lots of loading screens each time you do that, so I wish this aspect was more streamlined. However, with these items, you can upgrade your heroes or allies. Allies are these cool animals that you transformed when you were a god. Each one contains a special ability that can help you solve puzzles.
The graphics are great, the soundtrack and sound effects are amazing, and the gameplay is engaging… I must have nothing to complain about, right? Well, that’s not true. The game’s fatal flaw is that it’s buggy as hell. Items will fall through the floor, and your allies will disappear or won’t follow the commands you set. It’s just a mess. One major bug that happened to me was a save glitch. I saved my game in one spot, and when I returned, I skipped ahead to a new section in the map entirely. It also gave me a bunch of items, and I had two new allies. Here is a Reddit thread that explains what happened… It’s apparently a common enough glitch that people have reported about it. What isn’t known is if this locks me out of the game.
To wrap up where I am in the story, I return to Asgard to everyone gone except for a single god. It turns out Loki tricked you into taking other god’s stuff, and so he banished you forever. This is the fifth saga in the game. You must transform a raven into an ally to get out of prison. I can’t do that since I already have the ally in my game from the before-saved glitch. I can escape the prison cell but want to transform the raven. This all occurred on my last day, so I don’t know if this will cause any issues or not… I will find out when I dive into round two of Asgard’s Wrath.
Despite these glitches and bugs, I still had a blast with this game. While it is nowhere near perfect, and apparently, the sequel triumphs everything except the graphics, I recommend everyone play this game. It is one of the best VR experiences I have ever had and one I recommend to everyone who can afford it.
The video shall conclude with the results of my experiment… how many calories did I burn while playing Asgard’s Wrath. I played the game for thirty days and took off once a week, usually on Sundays. That brings me down to twenty-six days of playing. Before playing the game, my starting weight was two hundred and four point eight pounds. That went down to two hundred and ninety-three point two pounds. Total weight loss was only one point six pounds. It is a bit disappointing since you should lose up to two pounds weekly. Here is the chart of my playthrough, including the date, time, and number of calories I burned. All this will be put on the jack-jenkins.com website, so click the link below if you’d like to see more details.
From the table, I was able to gather a few statistics. During the thirty days of playing, I burned four-thousand-eight-hundred and forty-six calories. That’s a bit more than a pound of calories burned off from playing a video game… the power of Virtual Reality right there. The average number of calories burned during a session is one-hundred and eighty-six point thirty-eight. I played the game for a total of ten hours if rounding up. That gives me a playtime of twenty-three point five minutes per day. I try to aim for twenty minutes per day, so If I go for longer, then that means It’s a good game. Overall, I burned eight point zero eight calories per minute. My average jogging calorie burn is eight point three, so it’s a bit less than that. Of course, calorie burn depends on whether I am in combat, swinging my arms around, or just doing a puzzle.
So, guys, that is it for today’s video on Asgard’s wrath. If you liked this video, then please give me a thumbs up. I am trying to grow the channel, so any reaction to the algorithm helps. While you are down there, please leave me a comment. I try to answer every single comment provided. If you have any challenges or ideas for me, please leave them down there, too. I will do pretty much any legal challenge that won’t hurt me. Follow me on X and Instagram @truejackjenk. Visit my website at jack-jenkins.com. Lastly, have a fantastic day, everyone. All you guys watching are just so incredibly amazing.