Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/11/13/Dark_Messiah_of_Might_Magic/1.html

 

Dark Messiah was made using the Source engine, not "Steam". Steam is the digital distribution system which you buy Dark Messiah off.

Edit: Fixed

 

Hrm -- I'm not sure I agree with the optimistic tone of this review. Personally, I don't see a way is this game worth $50 USD -- I'd rate it more in the $20 USD section. And frankly it's more of a 5 or 6 than an *8*.

I've played through and beaten the single player, and found it a bit short. No one encounter in the game was particularly adrenaline pumping. The combat was really well done, though, and I liked the swordplay and environmental trickery although the environmental stuff was a bit gratuitous. There's a great deal of pleasure to be had by just picking up and throwing a barrel at an enemy Donkey Kong style, but it really seemed after a while that all the overhead barrels and spike beds were a little too conveniently placed -- almost every other encounter in fact.

The ending is also completely anti-climactic. In fact I'd say it's one of the worst endings I've ever played through. The boss is just not interesting and all of the hype building up to the encounter is left unattended.

The multiplay is awkward as hell but can be really entertaining with a good match up. Unfortunately those are very rare. It definitely has a learning curve, and initially you will probably be destroyed easily. It can, however, provide for some interesting games. It still needs balance -- the devs have acknowledged that -- because mages are far too powerful on some levels. Overall, once the learning curve is mastered it becomes a lot more enjoyable.

It's also a horribly bugged release. My monsterous system crashes running it singleplayer every 5-8 zones, and since the patch I now freeze at random during multiplay.

This isn't a "near miss" by any means -- it's a Pariah-ish bomb. If you're still interested nonetheless I suggest waiting a month or two for the price to drop significantly... it will.

 

I'd really like to make an RPG of my own in collaboration with psople who enjoy realism and physics. Games like WoW are terrible (thinks me) because you use the same attack over and over again, the npc's are completely robotic, you cannot turn to your friend and kick the back of his/hers knee in and shank them in their kidney's turning diabolically evil. My point is that you have limted control and freedom inside the game..

Graphics and hardware continue to grow at a very pleasing pace, yet the content inside video games is less than sastisfactory for someone like me who enjoys to f'all more than once a day. If I were to make an MMORPG it would have a fighting system dynamic and brutal... math math math, Like tekken5 but with midevil weapons, acid arrows, and Giant ogre's.. The ability to attack anything, and absolutely know direction at all aside from the players personal interpretation of the world.

In short, this game is beautiful but it is so friggin' predictable and cleshe'.

 

I thought this had the potential to be what Oblivion should have been when I saw the previews.

But when I actually got the game and played it I found extremely disappointed by the on-rails gameplay.

Looks awesome, shoulda been open world.

 

Yeah I think alot of people expected it to be more like oblivion, when this is basically a first person shooter with swords.

I think it does deserve at least a 7 IMO, even if it didn't live up to it's hype and potential, I still really enjoy playing it, online play is pretty awesome once you get used to it.

Unfortuneatley other games (medieval II and 2142 mainly ) have taken my attention away from this one so the plot remains unresolved for me.

 

I found this game quite enteraining as its a bit more simple than oblivion, once in a while I enjoy a good hack and slash, I'm currently on Chapter 9 which I assume is near the end, some of the plot twists are quite amusing -)

When I played the demo I was only running one 7800GTX at 1920x1200 and found it a bit lagy but since I've gone SLI it runs like a dream. Some of the scenery is truly breath taking (looking out over the sea coves in chapter 7/8) and its the best implementation of HDR I've seen in a game so far.

 

would hold my interest for about 30mins. Deus ex (the first one) is a far better action RPG (second ones quite good aswell, just not as good)

 

and this game promised to be very good.... bah... nothing is perfect.

 

Crashes like a mo-fo on mine. A particular favorite is it crashing on zone changes - have to go through the start up load time (to display the menu? ), the original load game, and then try and change zone again... a nice 10 minute wait (oh, and it might crash again sure...)

Its good, but buggy buggy buggy, which is a shame.