Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (PC)

Graphics/Models

With the Source Engine behind the game Dark Messiah looks nice. It’s not the nicest game out there but supports all the fancy graphics effects and tweaks that people expect from a new game. High Dynamic Range Lighting serves to lend a real sense of darkness to some of the dungeons; coming out of a cave into the bright sun momentarily blinds you as the light blasts into overload.

The colour palette used for the game varies from grungy brown and greens to slick stonework, marble, bright and colourful for the interiors of certain places. Dungeons are slimy and dank, the perfect kind of atmosphere for a fantasy game.

The graphics for the actual models, monsters and objects in Dark Messiah are definitely just as good as the interiors and exteriors; they have a good level of detail and are definitely well designed and very well modelled.

Level design

Dark Messiah has some simple levels early on that make way for more elaborate and complex levels later in the game. One of my favourites so far has been an orc infested temple where it clings like a faded memory to the side of a mountain, you have to watch your footing but there are plenty of places to indulge in your creative destruction side – especially when you can trigger some nice environmental attacks to bring down your foes.

There are often hidden routes, multiple paths and plenty of shadows to lurk around in for those people that don’t want to charge in blade swinging, the developers have certainly taken their time in the level design, the attention to detail in the architecture is meticulous.

Animation

The animations in Dark Messiah are well done. The combat animations especially are excellent with a great deal of detail given to the exchange of blows and the physical reaction to the various weapons. A heavy strike can stagger an enemy and in some cases the weaker enemies will be forced into a wounded state, they’ll become slower and swing their weapon as though it weighs a lot more.

The adrenaline moves, such as the brutal chest stab are likewise spot on animations that really bring the brutality of the combat system to the fore.

AI

The AI in Dark Messiah is good. It can flank, coordinate attacks with allies and it can also use the environment to inflict pain. There are times I was picked up by an orc and hurled off into a fire or over the edge of a precipice to fall to my doom below. The enemies also have a certain racial reaction to each other; orcs don’t quite like goblins, so they’ll often fight if they meet. You can use this to your advantage and a distraction on certain levels.

The AI differs as well between species; a giant monster like the Cyclops uses different attacks and reacts to wounds differently compared to the orcs. It also requires a little bit of thought to get the better of, some of them are definite ‘puzzle’ bosses and you’ll need to work out the best way to beat the bigger enemies.

The AI also knows when it’s beaten, when to run and when it’s got a definite advantage. It will press the attack harder when you’ve been wounded and go for the kill if it can.

Physics

Havok powers the game and provides a solid level of physics interactivity to the game. Objects behave based on mass, weight and other physical properties to allow for some very slick environmental attacks and destruction.

Sound

The game has solid sound effects. There are spot effects in the levels that serve to enhance the atmosphere, the battle sound effects from the clash of swords and the thud of weapons against flesh are well realised.

Music

Dark Messiah has a brooding orchestral soundtrack that flows from haunting melodies to brutal confrontations, nearly seamlessly.

Voice

All of the voice acting in the game is top notch, there are a couple of cheesy dialogue lines but for the most it’s a good script and the voice actors have done a brilliant job in bringing the world to life. The combat sound effects are great, there are some nice taunts especially delivered by the orcs.

Multiplayer

The MP in Dark Messiah needs some tweaks, there were severe crashes server wise and it hasn’t been easy to get a stable game quite yet. It has several modes, most of these are vanilla – however there’s a Crusade mode that reminds us of Team Fortress and provides a significant distraction from the single player campaign.

There are 5 separate classes in the MP game:

The Archer: Akin to the sniper, the range specialist of the game.

The Mage: Kind of like artillery capable of some punishing area effect magic.

The Priestess: Not quite a medic, can cure or curse, can also perform other magic and resurrect the dead.

The Knight: A true close in combat specialist, brutal and deadly.

The Assassin: Stealth specialist, has a backstab ability.

In MP Dark Messiah you don’t get new weapons, what you do get is experience points to buy new skills – a little like the single player game.

Crusade mode is about the best part of the MP side of the game, two teams battle to achieve objectives on a map. Victory assures that you progress to the next map – there are 5 maps that are divided between Human and Undead factions. The ultimate target being the stronghold at the end of the map set.

You begin at the middle of the map set and if you win the map moves closer to the enemy stronghold. It is similar to the Battlefield style of games with control points to reduce the enemies respawn tickets.

You must conquer the enemy stronghold to win, you also keep XP to the next battle in this mode.

The last stroke

A game should work out of the box, that’s the saying and it’s true. Dark Messiah shouldn’t be as buggy as it is, but once you enter the mat_picmip 1 command into the console most of the issues vanish.

There are some extremely annoying show-stopping crashes and bugs; these impact the enjoyment of both the SP and MP sides of the game. However in all fairness my experience has not been jaded by playing it without the command, so I can say that I have played up to Chapter 7 so far without incident with the command, and about 10 minutes into the game it repeatedly crashed without the console command.

This is a game that should have had a stricter QA process and it is unacceptable to most gamers, who have shelled out their hard earned cash for a game that they can’t play without using a command.

You can’t expect a game to be released with no bugs at all, but in the case of Dark Messiah it’s a shame to see a ‘most wanted’ title slip this badly into the mire of crashes and fatal errors.

The game as it stands at the moment unless you do use the command suffers from long load times as well, these are significantly reduced by the picmip command so I presume the level load times are related to high resolution textures and the way the engine handles them.

Hopefully a patch will sort these problems out.