Magicka/Shout-Out

So many they were clogging up the main page. But no more!

The very first sentence to be uttered in the cutscene before the first level has no less than six shout outs. See for yourselves: "Stay a while and listen, and I will tell you a story. A story of Dungeons & Dragons, of Orcs and Goblins, of Ghouls and Ghosts, of Kings and Quests, but most importantly -- of Wizards and Vamp -- Well, a story of Wizards."
The imps in the tutorial bear a striking resemblance to those in Dungeon Keeper. They even chip at the walls with their little pickaxes.
The first (and only) sidequest in the game involves killing rats in the basement, except that the NPC changes her mind upon realizing how trivial that problem is.
The first thing you hear from a goblin is a call to his friend "Rakanishlol".
- Also, the bleak village in the middle of the swamps in Chapter 9 features what anyone familiar with the game will instantly recognize as the Tristram music from Diablo (even though it's actually not, obviously).
In the room before the tutorial boss, there's a sign saying "You don't have to, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to burn the rope." And sure enough, you can burn the rope, dropping a chandelier on poor Behold, the Watcher, killing him instantly.
Pretty much ALL of the achievement names, some of which include "I put on my Robe and Wizard Hat" and "I think Magicka is a Pretty Cool Guy". If it's a meme, it's in there somewhere.
- There are also achievements called 88mph, State Alchemist, OMG, They Killed Yellow!, Blue... No, Yellow!, Deep Impact, Good Company, No Power = No Responsibility, among others.
The same goes for many of the magicks' pictures:
- The image depicting the Grease magick shows the three mages in exact same poses as the Wehrmacht soldiers from the "Hammerzeit" photo^{[dead link]} (minus the leftmost one).
- The image for the Crash to Desktop magick pretty nicely mimics the FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- image macro.
- The image for Summon Death resembles a scene from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey which in turn parodies The Seventh Seal. Fittingly, you fight Death on a giant chessboard.
- The image for Vortex strongly resembles the title scene from Army Of Darkness.
- The slowing magick is called Time Warp.
- Tractor Pull was inspired by a fan-made video.
- And, well... Portal.
A sword called Stung which glows whenever enemies are nearby and the Staff of the White Wizard, which frightens enemies and upgrades your light radius.
- Also the Morgul Blade, which, unsurprisingly, poisons enemies.
The reservoir robes description "I don't want to read about no reservoir wizards."
The overworld map shown in chapter intros features the island of R'lyeh.
- Which you actually go to in the DLC The Stars are Left.
In chapter 2, you'll come upon Gram's Workshop, from which "a powerful hammer of the dark and gritty sort" can be retrieved.
- And if you speak to the villagers in the town just before that, one of them says he heard that "in the distant north, there is only war."
A Sword of the Masters which shoots arcane bolts on swing if you're at full health.
- The cover art looks a lot like Four Swords'.
Vlad, who is totally not a vampire, says in the middle of chapter 3, "To boldly go where no vamp .... err MAN has gone before".
A guy named MacLeod, standing in front of a grave at a cliff edge with a katana. You even get the achievement "There can be only one" for killing him!
When you get the M60, the dialogue goes something like, "Our blacksmith and handyman Angus made this using nothing but a paperclip... and a shotgun."
By itself, Star Wars gets a huge number of references:
- The first six chapters are named, respectively, The Fancy Menace, Attack Of The Goblins, Revenge Of The Tribes, A New Hope, Havindr Strikes Back, and Return Of The Wizard.
- A wizard studying a dead moose in the first chapter mentions that "only goblin rangers are so precise".
- You find two dead burned corpses in front of a burned farmhouse in the beginning of Attack of the Goblins who resemble Owen and Beru's corpses.
- During the city assault portion in chapter 4, you and three NPCs will get surrounded by enemies in the town square. One of the NPCs, Admiral Agnar, shouts, "IT'S A TRAP!"
- After the wizard holding the King hostage at the end of chapter 4 is defeated, he begins charging a massive lightning spell, only to have the king pick him up and throw him down a conveniently placed shaft as electricity arcs around him.
- There is a lightsaber to be found next to a charred skeleton lying by a lava river...
- During your duel with him, Vlad makes a few random comments, one of which is: "Impressive! Most impressive!"
- When you win the mind duel, Grimnir says: It seems that this battle will not be decided by the strength of our minds, but by our skill in spellcasting.
- At the very end of the game, Future Vlad, Behold the Watcher, and a hooded wizard all appear before you, like Yoda, Anakin, and Obi-Wan at the end of Return of the Jedi.
- Upon entering the goblin camp in Chapter 2, the goblins yell "Intruders!" and "Blast them!"
- Prior to abandoning ship in Chapter 3, Vlad says he senses a great disturbance in his town.
- One of the villagers in Chapter 2 says: "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways! Yeah, you heard me right! What're you going to do? Strangle me?"
- In the swamp: "There's a faint outline of a small X-shaped vehicle in the water."
- At the end of Chapter 11, Vlad implores Fafnir to help the heroes by saying: "Help us, Fafnir. You're our only hope."
- They even throw in a reference to the infamous mistranslation of Star Wars Episode 3 known as Star War: The Backstroke of the West.
The names of chapters 7-11 (Return to Castle Aldrheim, Mine Sweepers, Symphony of the Twilight, A Grim Tango and Raiders of the Lost Ruins) are video game and/or movie titles.
- In the Count's castle on level 9, you find a guy in a leather skirt with a whip lying dead on the floor.
- In Chapter 10, Future Vlad explains that the ruler of the underworld, Death, is part owner of a travel agency.
Finally, Chapter 12 is titled At the Mountains of Madness, already foreshadowing the Lovecraftian chapters to follow in the The Stars are Left DLC.
- The true final boss is introduced as "The King In Yellow", as befits a yellow-robed (vaguely) Humanoid Abomination.
- And when you beat him, he lets out a Big No, of memetic proportions.
The King who, in a conversation with a soldier right next to a pit says "Madness?!?... Well, yes, now that you mention it, I suppose you're right..." Though you can throw the soldier into the pit yourself. (For an aptly named achievement: "This is Magicka!")
A knife of Counter-Striking which makes you run incredibly fast.
The achievement for killing 20 enemies with one spell or Magick (harder than it sounds), is appropriately named "MU-MU-MU-MULTIKILL!".
- ...kill...kill...
The Yeti from SkiFree didn't forget you; it just patiently waited until you decided to play Magicka.
- Fittingly, the first time you encounter a yeti (or "Snow Troll") is at the beginning of the snow chapter. You see a soldier skiing down a snowy mountain, jumping off a rainbow-colored ramp shortly before the yeti devours him. Also, while the other trolls are very slow and the Cave Troll's instant death attack takes a long time, the Snow Troll is really fast and it devours your wizard in less than a second.
"Remember: The safety word is banana!"
The Vietnam expansion DLC added even more.
- In the trailer, the beginning is a reference to Cannon Fodder
- One of the new achievements is titled, aptly, Lead Farmer.
- One of the POWs that you have to rescue in the DLC mission is named John, and attacks enemies with explosive-tipped arrows.
- At the end of the rescue mission, Captain Vlad swoops in on a Huey and shouts, "Get to the chopper!"
The DLC Challenge map, Marshlands, boasts the following description: Left for dead, your party must fight to survive the unrelenting hordes of the undead and all their friends."
The entire Final Frontier DLC is an obvious reference to the Star Trek series. Even the new robe is based on the Star Fleet uniform.
The chests in versus mode walk around on hundreds of little legs and try to eat you
The live-action trailer for the new Player versus Player mode is a straight shout out to the "nicknames" scene from Reservoir Dogs.
The fifth boss, an Orcish warlord, is named Khan. The developers admit in the commentary that the sole reason for this was so the king could do a KHAAAAAAAAAN! scream.
The broken hourglass from the front cover of Braid can be seen in Chapter 10.
In Chapter 2, there's a house that if you knock on, a person inside will say "Go away! I'm... not dressed properly!".
The Mace of the Molten Core's name is a nod to World of Warcraft.
The map at the start of Chapter five has an island named The Lonely Island and there's a boat right next to it.
There is an achievement for pushing someone off a cliff called Wingardium Leviosa
The Gamer Robes DLC pack added three new robes: a zombie with a parasite on his head wielding a crowbar, an epic equipment set, and a purple tentacle monster.
The free community update added a space marine armor set and a cyber robes set.
There's a skeleton wearing brown shorts and a teal shirt lying on the floor of a tomb. Upon examining it, you're told that it "seems she was raiding this tomb".
- The developer commentary/Let's Play elaborates that this reference was meant to go even further by having "milk jugs" on the floor as well.
James Bond gets an obvious reference in Chapter 4, both in dialog and in the way the boss decides to kill the king using a ridiculous contraption.
Chapter 3 gives us a twofer in the form of a stone circle with some druids and the corpse of a knight in blue. When engaged in combat, the druids shout "Shrubbery!" and "Ni!". The description for the knight says that he looks like he's had a really hard day. The sheer amount of blood and gore in the game is very much reminiscent of Moonstone as well.
The bosses of Chapter 8, the goblin ruling body, are referred to as The Aristocrats. The achievement for defeating them is called "More like The Aristocats".
One shout out doubles as a Stealth Pun - at one point you encounter a goblin archer wearing a green shirt and a hat straight out of the Errol Flynn film, making him of course Goblin Hood.
One of the bosses is introduced as Fafnir, the Burninator.
If you go into "cover mode" in the Vietnam game mode, you start to regenerate health.
Gram (of Gram's Workshop) quotes lyrics to the Iron Maiden song 'Run To The Hills' when the goblins come. "RUN TO THE HILLS! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"
You have the checkpoint fairy following you around, constantly interrupting with "Hey! Listen!"
Where you pick up the Nullify spell, the goblin shaman shouts Kah-lee-mah!
The Steam achievement "Ice Age" mentions in its description that "It's what killed the dinosaurs."

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