Rune goes to Valhalla

One of last year's more colourful titles was Rune, a viking themed third person action game based on the Unreal Tournament engine. As a young warrior called Ragnar on a quest for revenge after the death of his father, you found yourself battling your way through the Norse hell and other popular holiday destinations. Since the game's release developers Human Head have announced that they are working on a new multiplayer version of the game called Halls of Valhalla, which will include all the multiplayer content from the original game for newcomers to the title, while adding a large number of new deathmatch maps and online modes for veterans.

Probably the most interesting of these new deathmatch modes is "headball", which Timothy Gerritsen describes as "a sports event where up to four teams can compete by throwing limbs and heads through goals". Beats the hell out of basketball. "Each level is unique, and there are various play styles that allow for harder to hit goals worth more points, and easier to hit goals for less points. Some levels require you to get into combat to take limbs and heads, while others provide you with some that you can find (or take them from your opponents). At its basic level this mode is a variation of capture the flag, except that you are trying to capture opponents' heads and limbs rather than a flag, and seeking to score via a ring or basket."

Given that (with the possible exception of Severance) Rune featured some of the most enjoyable head cleaving action we have seen since the days of Barbarian on the BBC Micro, headball certainly sounds like a lot of fun. Our only worry is that, like id's recent Team Arena multiplayer-only add-on, Halls of Valhalla will sink without a trace. Rune has a tiny online following compared to Quake 3, and as Team Arena showed even the biggest games can't always support an official multiplayer add-on, especially when any number of free maps and mods created by the game's community are widely available.

Source - Evil Avatar