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Continuing their Viking Warrior saga, e-Funsoft has released episode 4 of the adventures of Helga with a title sub-titled The Battle for Alfheim.  This Match 3 offering reveals what happened to Helga when her path to Valhalla was blocked by evil forces following her death in episode 3 of the tale.  Even death will not sop a Viking Warrior.

As usual with e-Funsoft titles, you can create profiles to record the progress of different players and make adjustments to volume levels for music and other sound levels.  The game can be played in full screen mode with or without a tutorial pinpointing certain features.  You can also opt to play the game in Relaxed or Timed mode as you tackle 70 levels of Match 3 action that is spread over five chapters of story development.

The game starts as Helga, in an effort to enter Valhalla, inadvertently arouses the giant Ymir from its slumbers.  As a result Helga becomes honour bound to help restore the damage caused by the destructive actions of an aroused Ymir and bring peace to Alfheim.  In order to fulfil this quest, you will need to complete the usual e-Funsoft pattern of action based around Match 3 game play.

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Every grid in this game comes with its own particular challenge made up of the type and number of tiles that need to be removed.  The removal is carried out by the process of creating groups of three or more tiles of a similar type.  A group can be created by swapping two adjacent tiles.  The group then disappears and is replaced by other tiles falling downwards and, in some cases, forming more groups.  Tiles that feature rope restraints or spider webs will need to be used more than once in a group in order to remove them.

In general appearances, little has changed in the Match 3 game play.  A centrally positioned grid is sandwiched between available power-ups on the left and the items that make up the grid's current challenge and will need to be removed situated on the right.  The grid and its content does look to have been given a make-over with regards to a fresh coat of paint.  Along with this overall smarting up, two specific tiles have been made easier to be identified by the addition of a frame around them.  Tiles that keep changing their symbol until selected are now shown with a circular frame while targeted frames feature a square frame to make them easier to identify.

With each grid you are allocated certain power-ups.  These items will not be replenished until the start of the next grid.  However you can create other power-ups within the grid.  By creating a group of five tiles, you are rewarded with a medium bomb which can destroy eight nearby tiles.  A group formed of six tiles will bring a more powerful reward bomb which can destroy 12 tiles.  I felt this latest episode of the game felt easier to create these bombs that other titles in this Helga series.

Some grids feature one type of tile which can not form part of a group.  This is a crystal which, whenever it appears, will form part of the challenge.  In order to remove it you will need to create a pathway beneath it so that it descends to the base of the grid where it can be collected and removed.

At the completion of each grid's challenge you will be awarded Stars which can be used to activate the four upgrades required by each of the game's chapters.  Following each upgrade, a story development stage will take place.  This features a conversation between two of the game's characters.  Unlike earlier episodes in this saga, the dialogue during these sequences will be delivered in both spoken and printed text format.  I felt the voices used for these instances were expressionless and hardly seem to fit their character's persona.

While I was pleased to see the new features appearing in the game, I feel there is room for even more improvement.  I downloaded my copy of the game from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $9.99.  The game requires a 1.5 GHz processor with 1024MB of RAM running Windows 7 and later.

Helga The Viking Warrior 4 - The Battle for Alfheim | GameHouse