Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5703 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Released on: 2006-10-03
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review:
In a nutshell:
Role-playing games and first person action don’t always gel, but Dark Messiah aims to bring them together with state of the art graphics and a lot of dead orcs.

The lowdown:
Although popular in certain circles, the traditional Might & Magic games were pretty hardcore fantasy based strategy and role-playing games. This game though uses the original settings of those games to create a brand new first person action game that while it still retains some role-playing elements is primarily all about chopping up monsters into BBQ meat. As such, the melee combat is more complex than normal with an array of different attacks for different situations, including a handy kick for knocking bad guys into dungeon traps. It might rankle long time fans that all the emphasis is on violence but this is the best chance yet for drawing in new fans to the franchise.

Most exciting moment:
The game features a very unusual levelling system where instead of getting experience points for killing monsters you get it for completing specific objectives. This cleverly ensures that you can upgrade your character just as effectively without the need for constant combat – perfect if you prefer to play a more stealthy style of game.

Since you ask:
The game’s highly impressive graphics use the same Source engine that was created for the classic Half-Life 2. It’s not the only outside help the game has got, with developer Kuju (who also did the multi-player in Call of Duty: Finest Hour), brought in to create the multi-player modes as an essentially separate element.

The bottom line:
An interesting new step into the action genre for the heroes of Might & Magic.-HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description:

Discover a new breed of action game powered by an enhanced version of Valve’s Half Life 2 Source engine. Set in the Might & Magic universe, players will experience ferocious combat in a dark and immersive fantasy environment. Become an expert warrior, mage or assassin, using a vast array of devastating weapons, against huge and vicious creatures in a deep and captivating fantasy. Developed by Arkane Studios, the team behind the critically acclaimed Arx Fatalis game, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic puts players in a first-person perspective, allowing them to immerse themselves in the legendary Might and Magic universe as never before. It is also the world's first fantasy action game to feature a complete first-person combat system. It takes full advantage of the SourceT Engine's exceptional technological enhancements in areas such as character animation, advanced AI, real-world physics and shader-based rendering. Key Features: Cutting-edge technology: Experience an enhanced version of the famous Source engine, including new jaw-dropping environments and incredible special effects. Discover the fresh perspective of a view with complete body awareness, realistic movements and physics rendering, making it the first fantasy action game featuring a complete first-person combat system. Never-ending action: Challenge the forces of evil in 12 huge levels and learn to master over 30 weapons and a variety of devastating spells. Engage the enemy in intense melee combat with swords, bows, staffs and daggers, summon magic powers against the legions of darkness or sneak in the shadows to stalk nefarious creatures. It’s heart-pounding action where success in combat will dictate destiny. Evolve your character: Extend your gameplay experience without being limited to a single discipline. Learn powerful new spells and attacks using Dark Messiah’s unique Skill Evolution System as you progress through the game. The Might & Magic universe’s darkest and most engaging side: Eighteen years after the events of Heroes V, you become the young hero Sareth, trained in the art of magic and war in order to fight the prophecy of the Dark Messiah. But the revelations of your past may alter your course and reveal a path to the truth. Explore a secluded region of Ashan populated with fearless orcs, savage goblins, dreadful undead, elusive trolls, massive dragons and many other creatures that defy nature’s creation in both size and cunning. A revolutionary multiplayer mode: Get ready to battle with up to 32 players in the revolutionary Crusade mode, which will allow you to gain experience and new equipment across dynamic online campaigns. Enlist with the humans or the undead and choose among five complementary character classes. Wage epic online battles, sprawling over multiple zones, from the dark Necromancer’s lair at Nar-Heresh to the man-made splendour of Stonehelm. The classes in multiplayer Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Assassin: weak, melee, stealth, he will hide in the shadows to strike swiftly. Skills are oriented at stealth (invisibility, silent movement), poison and resistance, setting traps. Warrior: strong and melee oriented. Will rush at the enemy, protected by his resistance to damage and shield. Skills: strike harder, run faster, endure better. Priest: weak, ranged, defensive. Will support his team, launch spells dealing damage over time, spot invisible threats. Skills: pinpoint assassins, healing spells… Mage: weak, ranged, offensive. Will deal damages to group of enemies thanks to area effect spells. Skills: improve spells and learn new ones, increase resistance. Archer: weak, ranged, sniper. Will deal heavy damages to a single target. Skills: fast reload, zoom, multiple shots. Multiplayer Q&A: Can you tell us about the multiplayer modes? The game will be playable as a team-based multiplayer mode, playable with up to 32 players. We have dedicated a whole team just to develop that part. We are lucky to have an engine that powers games like Half Life 2 death match Counter Strike and even crazy multiplayer physics experiments such as Gary’s mod. How will multiplayer be managed? Will the players play online with their in game characters or you need to create a new character from scratch for MP? In the multiplayer part of the game you will play character “classes”, similar to what can be found in games like Battlefield 1942. The classes will have the opportunity to evolve during online campaigns. As you play only Sareth throughout the single player game, that would make Jno sense bringing him online What can you tell us about the multiplayer modes? Would you liken them more to something like Quake, Diablo 2, Guild Wars or something completely new? Of course we will provide many classical online modes, similar to what can be found in most first person shooters. But we also wanted to exploit the potential of a fantasy game through the “evolution” mode. In the “evolution” multiplayer mode of the game you will play character “classes”, similar to what can be found in games like Battlefield 1942. The classes will have the opportunity to evolve during online campaigns. Speaking of Multiplayer, what exactly are the dynamic campaigns? The dynamic campaign means that you will be able to play online matches with the results of one round impacting on the next one: the results will determine the next map, and also the items / skills you will be able to gain between rounds.

Customer Reviews

Excellent when on full graphics, otherwise avoid.
Admitted, the game requires higher system requirements than it should, but with 2g ram and a good 256/512 graph. card this game is excellent. I personally had no problems with installation, or indeed came crashing, and while the game isn't the best looking, its still pretty good. Once you get used to the controls and the numerous ways to kill your foes, will you then truly appreciate this game for what it is. Game balancing issues are a minor problem, but nothing to complain too badly about (mostly the magic side of it.)
Some of the reviews are not fair, as the give the game 1 star having never played it, but in my opinion, if your computer is up to the challenge, this could become one of your favorites.
So in conclusion, don't avoid this game like the plague, at this rock bottom price, its an excellent bargain. Sure hope this changes a few minds.

Dark Messiah - RPG/FPS combined.
Dark Messiah attemtps to merge semi RPG with FPS-style gameplay and successfully creates an new type of game.

Most of my gaming time is taken up by my passion for Guild Wars, in fact most of my time is taken up by Guild Wars! It's about the only game that could have pulled me away from Battlefield 2, which I did play for quite a bit, but got drawn back to GW, which I have been playing solidly for over a year now, as well as run my Guild site and small community.

You may think that GW and Battlefield 2 (and games of it's ilk) have nothing in common, and until now that would have been true. Let me introduce you to Dark Messiah - part of the Might and Magic series. I know nothing at all about the MM series so I won't go into that here, rather I'll just tell you about the Dark Messiah game itself.

The game is in First Person perspective, one connection it has to other FPS games, although as it has no guns etc, it's not really a first person shooter, more of a first person melee or combat game. It's set in a fantasy world, where their advertising blurb tells you don't play as a warrior, or a wizard or an assassin - play as them all! As you follow the exploits of Sareth in the single player storyline you will learn new skills and get new items/weapons which will enable you to become proficient in a specific area or jack-of-all-trades. It's a skill 'tree' if you like, where if you choose one particular branch, you may be weaker on another.

The storyline itself gives you the role playing aspect, and what holds this up apart from other similar games is that it uses Valve's Source engine. For those of you who have played Halflife 2 will know how good that is - infact it's even better because it's an 'enhanced' version to boot. What this means is that the whole 'world' you play in will be very interactive, pick up barrels and throw them at enemies, move boxes around to get at hidden items and so on.

In what basically amounts to a seperate game (but within the same scenario), there is also an online multiplayer aspect for up to 32 players. This is where it becomes more like an FPS game similar to BF2 etc (although without tanks and planes!). There are 5 classes to choose from: Warrior which is your basic soldier, fastest on the field and most powerful when it comes to dealing direct damage as well as taking it; Priestess can be considered the medic of the group with her healing and protective skills; Assassin with his ability to cloak (looks like the Predator!) and stealth attributes can be considered your covert ops specialist; Ranger can also use stealth and ranged attacks (sniper maybe?); and the wizard has been compared to artillery with area of effect attacks etc. The online aspect of the game has been developed independently of the single player game (by an English company!) so should be a good indication that it will play well not just look nice.

Gameplay modes include your standard deathmatch and team deathmatch but also introduces the Crusader mode, where you start off in the middle map of five and depending on whether you win or lose, you will go either forwards or backwards onto the next map until you hopefully reach the enemies stronghold and conquer it to win. Another aspect of gameplay that is similar to BF2 is the use of various spawnpoints and the map on which to select them as well as change you class.

During the campaigns you will earn new skills and become more powerful with better weapons etc, and these will be saved over all the maps until the campaign has finished, when it will be reset - sort of an xp save type of thing. Should you switch to another class mid-battle, you will start that class from scratch but will keep any skills learnt on subsequent changes. Skills that can be gained vary depending on the class but include things like better stealth, zoom attack when using a bow, shield blocking and so on.

Technically, the game ran fine on my low/medium spec system, with both an ATI Radeon 128 Mb 9600 All-in-Wonder card, and now on my nVidia 128 Mb 6600GT, although the video setting will need to be low to medium unless you have a reasonably new card, this is especially important with the Texture setting which can be found in the Advanced section of the video settings.

The game itself has fairly slow loading times, but nowhere near as bad as BF2, in fact I would say they aren't too bad at all. During gameplay I only came across one bug which happened during a cutscene so didn't affect the game at all. The game ran very smoothly on my mediocre system and is a joy to play - it is a genuinely refreshing take on the RPG/FPS scene.

So, if you fancy a bit of swordplay (and be honest, which of you guys didn't have a sword and shield when they were kids!?) in an FPS setting, then this may be right up your street.

One word of warning - as the graphics are so good, as well as the physics of the game, there is a lot of dismemberment and decapitation to be seen, as well as various methods of stabbings and impalements.

If you're interested in this sort of blood and gore, check out the demo which is out now on Fileplanet and other good sources. The game is out now in standard and limited Collector's Editions.

Brilliant but flawed
I agree with the other reviewers, this is a briliant game and the most satisfying hack and slash/RPG I have ever played.
Unfortunately there is a big problem.....The game suffers from random crashes on the higher graphics settings, so although it is a beautiful game, you dont get to see it in all its glory (unless you like restarting every 10 mins or even less!).
These problems are well documented on the ubi software forums for the game, and the only solution at the moment seems to be to lower all the graphics settings as low as possible, and turn all of the effects off. It seems that both Nvidea and ATI cards are affected, and new drivers do not help. If a patch arrives that solves this problem I would have no problem in recommending, but in current state just be aware of the problems. Such a shame!