Dark Messiah: Might and Magic

The Good
In terms of visceral, face-to-face, first-person-combat, Dark Messiah has got the field licked.

Kicking opponents into fires, spikes, and over cliffs is endlessly amusing, if improbable.

Full frontal nudity in cutscenes are always a plus.

The Bad
Stability, stability, stability. Even on its latest patch, Dark Messiah tends to crash way more often than it should...and beware those of you who like to turn the settings knobs to 11.

Throwaway story and plot.

Some very tedious, go-through-the-motions gameplay in areas.

Uneven graphics -- some outdoor areas are particularly onerous.

Giant spiders ahoy! Somebody call the fantasy monsters union and complain.

Game overfavors "tank" melee characters. Don't expect to play Garrett or a pure mage here.

The Bottom Line
Might & Magic Dark Messiah is very easy to sum up: it’s a fantasy first-person-shooter where all of your good ranged weapons are taken away and replaced with melee weapons. It is most definitely not an RPG – while the game uses RPG-like elements, they are trivial and would have been better replaced with a streamlined shooter-style interface. For example, there’s an inventory screen…every RPG needs an inventory screen, right? However, you have enough slots to carry every portable object in the game, and since many objects are simple upgrades to earlier objects, why not just go for a simple “next-item-previous-item” interface?

Other RPG facades include the ability to upgrade your alter-ego with the use of skill points given to you throughout the game. You can buff up your character’s melee skills, stealth skills, or magic skills. Unfortunately, the game’s design focuses around the golden path of the tank. Enterprising sneaky types will be disappointed by the fact that enemies are able to unerringly locate you after one successful sneak attack, regardless of where you’re hiding (or the fact that you soaked up a ton of skill points in hiding skills). Magic users will be disappointed by the slow rate of fire of their offensive spells, since the enemy A.I. mainly consists of quickly getting into your character’s face.

Luckily, however, I like tanks, and I play them all the time. M&MDM is a wonderful fantasy tank simulator. The first-person melee combat is meaty and bloody. It rewards both the frantic button-masher as well as the more deliberate button-masher. Although many of the combat situations are implausible and suffer from “why is that guard standing next to a barrel of boom” syndrome, there’s a lot of mileage in being able to pound, kick, and smash enemies into fires, conveniently-placed spike traps, and over the edge of cliffs. Although some folks may prefer the trickier 3rd-person melee combat setup of games such as Jedi Outcast, I prefer straightforward bashing and smashing over spinning wall-leap maneuvers … but then again, I believe that if god wanted us to play shooters in 3rd person, he would have given us floating cameras in real life.

Surprisingly, the one trick that M&MDM does well is just enough to cover up the game’s myriad flaws. Stability is not the least of those flaws – the game is a RAM pig, and if the graphic settings are set just a smidgen too high for your system to handle, the game will crash all over the place. The old Source engine bugaboo of stuttering sound makes an annoying reappearance, as well. More downsides include a yawner of a background story (complete with a “plot twist” that can be spotted from a mile away), uneven graphics, and an ever-present NPC (whom I dubbed “Shodan” for reasons made obvious for any System Shock fan that plays this game) that ruins all of the game’s puzzles by telling you exactly what to do next. It should be noted, though, that you do get full-frontal nudity “Shodan” cutscenes, so that’s a plus, I suppose.

So, is the game worth $40? Probably not. The game is weak in every area but melee combat (in which it admittedly does well) and its few subtleties are shown far too early and used way too often. The incarnation of the Source engine used in this game struggles mightily and crashes frequently. The story, settings, and opponents are all generic throwaway quality (yes, you WILL fight giant spiders, that’s all that needs to be said). Still, this is a game where the overall experience somehow manages to lift itself from the sum of its component parts, and I had a surprisingly good time working my way through it. Wait until it hits the $20 price point, and it’s a decent, if totally forgettable buy.

The Good
To be honest, I always took a much greater interest in the multiplayer portion of Dark Messiah rather than its single player brethren. Developed by Kuju Entertainment, the company responsible for helping develop the EyeToy games for the PS2, the multiplayer mode for Call of Duty: Finest Hour, and Battalion Wars for the Nintendo Gamecube, the multiplayer mode of Dark Messiah encompasses a unique style of gameplay in a fantasy setting. The game splits between 2 factions, the Humans and the Undead. Each faction allows 5 playable classes, the Assassin, the Priestess, the Mage, the Archer, and the Warrior. The only difference between the Humans and the Undead is their physical appearance; otherwise, they are essentially the same.

The Bad
Despite some slight conflicts of class balance, the multiplayer portion of the game leads as an excellent and worthy contender of popular multiplayer first person shooters. To begin with, the Assassin is a very fast paced and fun-to-play class. In fact, all classes are extremely fun to play, and it will only get better as Kuju decides what should be done to help make the game even better. (And they do, their commitment to the Open Beta was extraordinary, as far as updates and forum responses go). The Warrior is a tanker lover’s dream, being able to negate any spells and absorbing the most damage with its Reinforced Armor. Surprisingly, the Warrior’s attacks are powerful as well. The Priestess is most likely the main concern of many balance critics. With her instant self-heal ability and an armor buff that lowers any kind of damage, the Priestess can take on any class and win. I haven’t even mentioned the insane range of her Corrupt ability and the Bramble spell that slows ALL players to a crawl. Kuju Entertainment obviously decided that Priestesses should do more than just supporting other classes. The Mage is insanely powerful as well, but only in late levels. Finally, the Archer is a class that rewards those with practice; arrows not only take time to reach the target, but they also arc as well. However, 1 fully charged shot deals 56 damage; 2 shots will kill the player.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, the multiplayer portion of Dark Messiah is anything but the norm. It features a retrospective view of the modern first person shooter with 5 totally different playable classes. The game delivers tons of different tactical strategies, and will only get better as Kuju Entertainment continues to please its fans with updates and additions to the game.

The Good
There were times when the game’s graphics didn’t offend me. The Spiders the giant trolls and of course the Dragon. The Spider lair itself scared me pretty well, and when hoards of arachnids are tumbling down on you, you’ll appreciate the game. That’s about it.

Aside from that, the melee combat was entertaining for an hour, maybe. I enjoyed kicking people into spikes and whatnot, but only for that same first hour. Um, aside from that there isn’t much else to say. The water looked pretty good, I guess?

The Bad
There honestly isn’t much that I loved about Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. The acting, dialogue and story all made me cringe. Aside from the ludicrous and sexist portrayal of the demon temptress who you meet at the beginning of the game (trust me, you won’t believe how badly this character is implemented) the rest of the characters are more stereotyped than those of a bad Japanese RPG. The villains are always cackling and laughing up their sleeves, the good female character is there solely as a romantic interest, “hot” body and foil to the sexy demon temptress, and all other characters are secondary. I actually thought that the plot was interesting, but it was so muddled and badly organized that I quickly lost interest.

The combat, as mentioned before, gets old fast. You’ll quickly realize that you have to block and attack in a very regular fashion. Bows, magic and other supposedly cool abilities are largely unpleasant to use. Enemies are mundane when confronted as a fighter, and annoying when confronted as a spell caster or thief.

Returning to the presentation of the game, I liked some of the landscapes a bit, but the problem was how the Source engine was used. I know that this engine can create some amazing vistas, so why was it that every single wide-open area looked awful. Every other texture was so blurry it was like they were underwater. This applied to creatures and items too. The worst was when I realized that my sword was basically a grey stick that got a bit red when I stabbed people. The darker areas look pretty bad, and all of the enemies animate horribly. The later zombie encounters are maddening, as is the fact that you don’t get really good items until way too late in the game.

Multiplayer is a mess, and there aren’t really enough people playing to make you care about it.

The Bottom Line
I really wanted to like this game. It takes place in one of my favorite universes, and it boasted a visceral, melee-oriented look and feel. Sadly, when you have a melee-oriented game where the melee is awful, you might have a problem on your hands. This game annoys and frustrates at every turn, and its portrayal of women is childish and offensive. A few fun creature encounters and some clever set pieces can’t save this game from its own awful design. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a melee FPS, an action RPG, or any other swords and sorcery epic. Look somewhere else.