Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $4.38

Features:

• System Requirements - 2.2 GHz CPU, 3 GHz CPU (Recommeneded), 512MB RAM, 1 GB RAM (Recommeneded), 128MB video card, 256mb dx9 video card (Recommeneded), 6GB or more Hard Drive Space
• Requires DVD drive

Accessories:
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (Prima Official Game Guide)	PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Great game, though slightly linear didn't deserve all the bashings [Posted on 2008-03-02]
Dark Messiah is a great immerse game with gorgeous visuals plenty of interactive environments, virtually limitless ways to defeat opponents and progress in skills, powers and general abilities. Though the game is a little linear at times it's a small concern as long you enjoy brutal archaic hand-to-hand, ranged and mystic combat, including use of the "friendly environment"(pits, wall spikes, collapsing structures, ect..). The game also includes challenging and well conceived puzzles in between battles. It's sad that the game got bashed so much just because some people thought it was to confusing and/or just because it didn't have the most incredibly dramatic of plots.

One other thing to add most technical issues people have with the game is because of hard-ware and driver issues not necessarily the game and the ones that were have been resolved.

Best combat system ever [Posted on 2008-03-31]
Number one combat system in a game, too bad game is only playable in storyline mode without having to go online. Well worth playing over and over though.

A lot of fun, easy to get into, but fairly linear [Posted on 2008-04-15]
I approached this game with hesitation, I have fond memories of the Might & Magic name that I didn't want to tarnish, from the old games of the 1990s. I shouldn't have worried!

This is the one of the few First-Person games I've played where I relished being ambushed randomly or running into that surprise group of enemies. The mutable environment and the ability to have some real world effects makes game-play very enjoyable. You can knock your opponents down, they will be stunned if you land a blow. Sneak up on them or surprise them by rushing in. Use a very powerful blow or a flurry of small attacks. Better still -- shove them off a cliff, kick them down, push them onto impaling spikes, set them on fire... it's fun!!

So say you're on a bridge and a horde of goblins comes rushing across at you. You pull out your trusty staff (moves realistically like a long-staff in martial-arts) and whack them around, keeping them off-balance and knocked down. You could keep on and kill them this way but it's taking a while since the staff doesn't do much damage. So you start kicking and shoving them off the bridge! It's disturbingly fun.

You won't want to kill the baddies the old-fashioned way considering all the options.

I was most concerned I would hate the sections with jumping puzzles -- I still get irritated thinking about the idiotic puzzles inspired by the early Tomb Raider games. They were hard to solve, you'd get half-way, then you fall. Start the jumping over or reload... Ugh.

Turns out that these folks must not like that experience either. Jumping / climbing is a big part of the game, but not difficult and not super-ultra-precise like Tomb Raider. yay!

Some of the combat scenes are hard, but nothing that requires many retrys, though you may end up reloading just to see if you can kill the baddies in different ways. There's some autosaving also.

The game isn't perfect. It's a little too linear, with only a few plot branches, and only a modest number of areas for unstructured exploration. Cut-scenes and loads disrupt game-flow. Like most games of this genre, you occasionally get stuck on an in-game corner, or see minor clipping (can see through a wall or other "solid" object). There are times when you know you can go through that passage but have to spend a few moments lining up JUST right, as if your character couldn't figure out he just needs to pull in his knees or whatever. And it's pretty, but not gorgeous like Oblivion.

The biggest problem is in the first areas of the game (practice and the area after that), where I noticed what others complained about: the game dropping out to Windows occasionally, especially during combat. You could resume by selecting the suspended game from the taskbar, but you'd lose a couple of often-fatal seconds in the meantime. I'm not sure if this was somehow related to other Windows software (such as for my Logitech keyboard/mouse), but the problem stopped on its own with no changes on my part, after the end of those first areas.

I will disagree with other reviewers who state this needs a high-end system to play. I played this on a current entry level PC (mid 2007, lowest-end dual core Intel) but with a moderate, recent video card (Nvidia 8600GT, this model: XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Ready Video Card (Dual DVI/S-Video)). Unfortunately, the on-board graphics of PCs are inadequate for most modern Windows games so plan to have an add-in card; that's just the way it is. With that 8600GT, I was able to run at a reasonable resolution with most effects turned up to high or maximum, no problems other than the clipping I mention above.

For the current bargain price, and this level of entertainment, highly recommended!

One of my most favorite games ever [Posted on 2008-04-20]
This is my first Might & Magic game I have ever played, and I have to say I was not dissapointed. I loved the graphics, settings, and broad range of characters. The weapons array was exceptional and the magic skills were extremely complimentary. I would be happy to try another version of M&M when I get a chance and finish the games I am currently working on. I also want to add that the cheats and walkthrough were extremely helpful and a fun bonus whenever you get bored with the game after playing through once. The only problem I have found is that the graphics were significantly slowed down and jerky after using the cheat codes for a little while.

Why Linear? [Posted on 2008-04-26]
To begin with Dark Messiah is linear. Does it really have to be linear? The atmosphere is also way to gloomy in the single player. This is an outlook of all the atmospheres in each level

Level 1 - City
Level 2 - City by Night
Level 3 - Underground
Level 4 - Ship
Level 5 - Caverns with some vistas at the end
Level 6 - Caverns
Level 7 - Caverns
Level 8 - Burning City
Level 9 - Caverns

There are no forest environments in this game. The majority is spent underground. It is also a little too short

Graphics are very good, character models are excelent, environments are very detailed, and HDR Lightning can be run with anti-aliasing. The best thing is that the graphics take almost no toll on my PC. There is hardly any lag during the single player mode (same is not true for multiplayer). I run Dark Messiah on a 1280 x 1024 resolution with hightest detail settings and 8x AA and 16x anisotropic texture filtering and I have never experienced any lag during single player.

Gameplay is also great, the combat system is so realistic you will constantly have to remind yourself that this is a game. The artifical intelligence in this game is great, enemies will constantly engage in conversations, when they have not seen you. They also use strategies such as trying to surround you or pin you against a wall or cliff.

Sound is mediocre, no more to be said.

The story itself is not really that intrieging. Your basic fantasy with dragons, swords, orcs, and gouls

Multiplayer is probably the part of the game you will spend most time on, in multiplayer, you chose from five classes, in seven maps, with four modes. The unique feature of this game is the mode Crussade. In crussade, the teams (Undead and Human) battle it out to take control of a series of maps, until they are at the other army's stronghold. One complaint here is that there are only seven maps. Yet, those seven maps are well designed and very fun to play on.

One more thing, this game has very long load times. Longer than any other game I have ever played.

Graphics 9/10
Gameplay 10/10
Sound 6/10
Story 7/10
Length 7/10
Multiplay 9/10
Stability - Impressive Performance, Minor Glitches

Score 8/10 - Good

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