Multiplayer

Hail To the King, Baby

Besides, Ragnar is badass™. He's Russell-Crowe-in-Gladiator badass™. He doesn't fight with guns like a pansy. He gets up close and personal with a Great Axe, exchanges blows, swings his weapon like a madman, picks up his opponent's severed limbs, and uses them to taunt his foes. If he gets injured, he eats lizard heads or downs a flagon of mead. There are no wussy healthpacks and medikits here, son.

A regular blood bank

Move it!

Beating On Each Other

Multiplayer is a blast. When is the last time you got to beat your own buddy or a total stranger to death with his own arm or head? Quake and Unreal might have an announcer saying "excellent" for two rails in a row or "headshot" when you snipe someone's noggin off, but Rune has "trophies" that you get to keep when you decapitate your friends. The levels are beautifully designed, although the emphasis is more on function than form - not much sightseeing but the play is great.

Unfortunately, Rune suffers from a perennial Unreal problem - lag. For a game based on the Unreal Tournament engine and one that has no need to deal with massive amounts of moving projectiles, you'd think that the lag management would be better. Unfortunately, the problem is undeniably there.

At least it's not a jump puzzle

Grrr....

It's made all the worse by the fact that you have to get close to your enemies to hit them, so any warping that occurs has a large effect on gameplay - possibly larger than it would in a regular shooter. The game is hardly unplayable - it's just not as fun as it might be if the netcode was up to par.

The limited number of gameplay modes also hurts the game. There's only deathmatch and team deathmatch. Rune might not lend itself well to Capture the Flag due to the lack of ranged weaponry, but it would be great for reverse CTF, where you have to run your flag onto some point(s) in the enemy's base. Capture and Hold (AKA Domination) and Defend and Destroy (both game types from Tribes) would likely work as well.

Claustrophobic!

Acrophobic!