Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
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| Dark Messiah of Might and Magic | |
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| Developer(s) | Arkane Studios (and Kuju Entertainment for multiplayer) |
| Distributor(s) | Ubisoft |
| Engine | Source engine (modified) |
| Latest version | 1.02 |
| Release date(s) | October 25, 2006 (US) October 27, 2006 (EU) |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter, Fantasy |
| Mode(s) | Single player and Multiplayer |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| System requirements | Windows Edition: Windows XP, 2000 512MB System RAM 2.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor 128MB DirectX 9.0 compatible video card 8x DVD-ROM drive Download available on Steam 7 GB free hard disk space Recommended: 3.0 GHz [Amd Athlon or Pentium 4] 256mb graphics card 7gb of hard drive space |
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a computer game developed by Arkane Studios for Ubisoft. It uses a modified version of the Source engine from Valve Software, which was originally used to make Half-Life 2. While Arkane Studios created the single player portion of the game, Kuju Entertainment developed the multiplayer mode.
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[edit] Game description
Dark Messiah takes place in Might and Magic fantasy world. The game is a first person combat game that features a wide variety of ways to customize the player's character, including stealth, melee combat, archery, as well as violent and non-violent magic. The player takes on the role of a young man named Sareth who wishes to find adventure and riches in the world. He is the pupil to the wizard Phenrig; Sareth's adventures lead him the city of Stonehelm to aid in the recovery of a mystic object known as "The Skull of Shadows".
[edit] Gameplay and Features
The main features of Dark Messiah is its environmental manipulation, combat system and unique character development.
[edit] Artificial Intelligence
Arkane Studios has said that the advanced Enemy AI can be best described as, "If the player can do it, so can the AI." This will add an extremely realistic aspect to the game. The player is now no longer the only one that can attack and defend intelligently and realistically, or create strategies and perform special moves during combat. This means players will have to think on their feet and conform to each new situation in order to successfully defeat the enemy especially once the bigger more powerful enemies come into the picture.
[edit] Environmental Manipulation
The game features destructable environments, which can most of the time be used to aid the player in combat and help the player create a strategy in order to survive the current situation. The player can do everything from cutting ropes and releasing heavy swinging objects to pummel an opponent, to kicking an orc through a wooden fence and over a cliff to his doom. The player can collapse structures that enemies are standing on and even cause a colossal statue to drop directly on top of them and crush them. The player can even set traps in order to catch enemies off guard. These are just a few of the ways in which you can use the environment effectively to defeat opponents. The two main parts that make this ability special is that using the environment is entirely up to the player, meaning that the player does not have to use the environment at all if the player wishes (although this will make combat much harder), and also as stated before "if the player can do it, so can the AI." So the player will have to be careful and be fully aware of your environment or else the AI may use the environment against the player and lure the player into a trap.
[edit] Combat System
The combat in Dark Messiah uses a context sensitive system in order to trigger special events and animations. This means that blocking, striking, and special moves will all feature realistic animations that conform to the situation. An example situation: an orc is charging the player with a sword, by pressing the block button as the orc strikes at the player, depending on the direction, area and type of strike that the orc is attacking the player with, the player's character will move the weapon/shield to intercept, and block or parry the orc's attack, giving a realistic and fluid feel to the game. This also goes with a character's attacking as well. To further enhance the combat you can perform many different combat moves (blocks, parries, disarms, stuns, slashes, stabs, shield breaking, stealth kills, and lunges to name a few) and the player can also perform special moves to finish off an opponent such as a lunging attack where you impale the enemy on your sword then proceed to kick him off the end of your blade, or the lateral slash in which you perform a powerful horizontal swing and decapitate your opponent. Along with this vicious melee combat there is also ranged combat with weapons like bows and arrows and like many games of its genre, magic attacks. These magic abilities range from ice blasts that freeze an opponent or make them slip and fall down, all the way to conjuring huge fire balls that you launch and guide to their intended target. As with the melee there are also special magic attacks that can be unlocked such as telekinesis, which a player can use to hurl objects at enemies, or even pick up an opponent and hurl him into a wall or off a cliff. Dark Messiah will feature many different weapons that can be used, ranging from different types of swords, shields, staffs, daggers, and bows.
[edit] Character Development System
There are no official classes in Dark Messiah. Instead, the player develops his character throughout the course of the game by virtue of an evolution system in which one spends his points both to develop his character's abilities in the areas of magic, stealth, and combat and to unlock new abilities and moves in these areas. However, in Dark Messiah these upgrade points are not obtained by killing enemies, which is a departure from similar systems used in RPGs. Instead, these points are acquired through the completion of goals and objectives. This property of the system guarantees that the different styles of play available to players are balanced and that one class' power does not grow more quickly than that of the other classes.
For example, a person who plays using mainly combat abilities will tend to fight and kill every enemy he encounters whereas a stealth-based player may choose to sneak past dangerous groups of enemies instead of fighting them. In a point-by-killing system, the stealth-based player would take a long time to advance and would be weaker against the more powerful enemies while the combat-based player would thrive and grow due to the sheer volume of enemies he kills. Dark Messiah's points-by-objectives system eliminates this problem. This new system ensures that each player will progress consistently and will not miss out on certain abilities. It also ensures that one style of play is not "better" or more powerful than the other styles and that all styles of play are balanced in order to keep the player at the same level as the enemies he faces.
The player does not have to choose just a single style of play throughout the game. In fact, due to the wide-open non-class-system advancement, the player could become a "jack of all trades" if he or she wishes by using a combination of all the styles of gameplay. The advancement and abilities of the character are completely up to the player to decide, but it is not possible to become a master of all styles of play. If the player distributes his points among the different styles without being careful or thinking ahead to the future, the player may end up creating a character that may know a lot of the different styles but isn't particularly good at any single one.
[edit] Storyline
A thousand years ago, a wizard called Sar-Elam, also known as the Seventh Dragon, locked up the Demons in a magical dungeon. The only way to open this dungeon is a Skull of Shadows, which is in a hidden place, waiting until his power is needed again. Seventy-six after Sar-Elam, a disciple, named Sar-Shazzar, prophecized that one day, a child would be born, known later as the Dark Messiah. The prophecy sounds like this:
Ten centuries shall the fortress stand
Walls of spirit wrapped in walls of fire
And horned lords shall bowl their head
To one not yet born, of the darkest sire
One century of blood and strife
The moon shall darken, and none know why
The resting place at last is found
Of the Seventh, who soared so high
Last daughter of a forlorn line
Shall guide him into history
Beneath the crypts prophecies clash
The war of ancient enemies
The protagonist of Dark Messiah is a young man named Sareth, who is under the tutelage of the Wizard Phenrig. After years of studying the arts of magic and physical training in the arts of war, he is finally taken on an expedition to retrieve a rare artifact known as the Shantiri Crystal. After finding the Crystal and disposing of the would be rival expedition. He is tasked to bring the crystal to an associate of Phenrig's, Menelag. To guide him on his way, Phenrig summons Sareth a companion, named Xana. She is able to reside in his mind and give him occasional help.
After two weeks of riding on horse back, Sareth arrives at the gates of Stonehelm, a free-city state under the rule of Master Phenrig's associate, The Grand Wizard Lord Menelag. As he nears the main gate, the villagers and town guards seem to be in a semi-state of panic and fear as rumors of an army of necromancers are coming and no sooner is Sareth accepted to go in by the guards, when a flaming catapult shot smashes into the nearby watch tower. The resulting chaos spooks Sareth's horse, causing him to be thrown off and land hard on the ground. As the injured Sareth is dragged into the city, he sees a glimpse of the horde of ghouls and mercenaries led by Necromancers butchering the town's fleeing inhabitants. Once on his feet, he makes his way to the battlements and takes control of an unmanned ballista. He helps the town guard in slaying an undead cyclops, thereby effectively halting the siege. After the suspense dies down, Sareth wanders around the town until he eventually arrives at Menelag's Manor. There he meets Menelag's niece and pupil, Leanna.
From there, Sareth is introduced formally and is given a banquet in his honor. In the following night, a sleepy Sareth is awoken by a frightened servant, who informs him that the manor is under attack. From there, he tries to rescue Lord Menelag and his niece, but is frozen by a Necromancer's spell and watches helplessly as Menelag is murdered before his nieces eyes. After the spell wears off, Sareth has no time to comfort Leanna as the ghoul who had killed Menelag has stolen the Shantiri Crystal.
Sareth chases the ghoul from rooftop to rooftop, but it evades him, entering a warehouse and descending to its master, Arantir. Sareth gets his way inside the warehouse, and, following underground tunnels, makes his way to where Arantir is using the Shantiri Crystal to open a portal to the necromancer hive, and steals back the crystal. As he makes his escape, he falls unconscious and has a dream of his meeting with Phenrig, but subtly different - so as Phenrig is made out to be "holding Sareths leash", and Xana is first seen in her demon form. After waking up, he finds Leanna, who tells him that Necromancers have commandeered the ship to the Island. Sareth gets on board the ship, retakes it, and he and Leanna set off to the Island. Sareth has another dream, where Leanna is dancing with Arantir. Arantir offers her to Sareth, who begins to dance with Leanna. She falls back suddenly, a dagger in her stomach. Sareth raises his hands to his face uncomprehendingly, and as Leanna falls, Arantir is seen standing behind her. "Ah, your first victim. Don't worry, it won't be your last."
On the Island, Sareth and Leanna evade the Orcs and enter the temple, where Sareth is forced to kill a Pao Kai. After this, he makes his way to the top of the Temple to place the Shantiri crystal in a pedestal, and bring power to the temple. He is then accosted by the Orc's Shaman, Aratrok, who challenges Sareth. After killing him, Sareth is given safe passage out, and makes his way back to Leanna. She opens the gate to the Skull of Shadows, but is apparently killed by Arantir before she can follow Sareth. Sareth makes his way into the crypt, gathering crystals to open the door to the Skull. Sareth takes the Skull, and has a dream where Phenrig and Leanna are seen dead, and Sareth's father - The Demon Sovereign - tells him to break the skull and free him. Sareth wakes up, coughing, but Arantir arrives, takes the skull, and throws Sareth onto a spike, which is seen sticking out of Sareth's stomach.
Sareth wakes up among a pile of festering corpses, more closely bonded to Xana, and alive - thanks to the power of the Skull. Sareth fights his way through Orcs, and off the island, where he returns to Stonehelm.
Once there, he takes the portal to the Necromancer Hive, where he hopes to find Arantir. As he makes his way through, Sareth witnesses Leanna - still alive - being thrown into a spider pit, in which there is a giant spider residing. The player may at this point choose to save Leanna by killing the giant spider, or ignore her. If the player chooses to save her, Leanna will stress that Sareth must visist a sanctuary once he has returned to Stonehelm, in order to be cleansed of his demonic nature. She will also help him battle the remaining enemies, should the player ask her to. Regardless of the player's choice, Sareth then discovers Arantir's plans to sacrifice the entire population of Stonehelm for his ritual, along with a means of returning from the necromancer's lair, and back into the City of Stonehelm.
Sareth then battles his way through a burning and besieged Stonehelm, alongside the remaining human resistance. If the player chose to save Leanna in the former chapter, he is now offered a chance to visit a sanctuary in order to purge Xana from his body and soul, and cleansing himself of his demon heritage. The sanctuary's doors will be shut if the player chose to leave Leanna behind. In an antechamber to the Necropolis, Sareth is eventually reunited with Leanna. If the player left her behind, she appears as a reanimated corpse, a Lich, which Sareth then kills. If the player saved her, but did not visit the sanctuary, Leanna expresses her grief and resentment with the fact that Sareth did not renounce his demonic nature, and attacks him, eventually leading to her death. If the player saved Leanna and visited the sanctuary, she joins Sareth in the final chapter. Sareth then makes his way through the necropolis, battling several conscripted Lich Kings on his way, eventually catching up with Arantir as he is about to perform the ritual. Sareth kills Arantir, and takes up the Skull of Shadows. At this point the player may choose to either use the Skull for Sareth's own purposes, and lock his father away for ever, or destroy the Skull of Shadows and free his father. Each option offers a different cut-scene. The cutscene will also vary depending on whether it is Leanna or Xana that accompanies Sareth at the end of the game, giving the game a total of four different endings.
[edit] Multiplayer
Dark Messiah will feature a new type of online multiplayer gaming. The multiplayer will take on a similar type of gameplay style as the Battlefield games and cross it with a feel similar to The Lord Of The Rings. The multiplayer portion of the game will feature two game modes and will be class based. There will also be two playable factions in the form of the humans and the undead.
[edit] The Multiplayer Class System
The class system in multiplayer works mostly the same as the non-class system in the singleplayer, that is, you still build and evolve your character the same as in singleplayer. However, the different abilities are now sectioned into classes and you can no longer combine class abilities as you could in singleplayer. You are still able to customize your character's abilities, but depending on what class you've chosen you are limited to the abilities associated with that class. As with any good team-focused game, the five playable classes on each team complement one another, meaning that you will need a balanced team in order to succeed.
[edit] The Assassin
Though physically weak, the assassin makes up for this with stealth, and has the ability to move quietly and invisibly as well as a lethal backstab. Also, assassins can set traps for the unwary.
[edit] The Warrior
The warrior is the frontline fighter that does battle with sword and shield. Naturally, warriors are stronger, faster, and have more endurance than other classes, but they're limited to using melee weapons.
[edit] The Priestess
The priestess supports the team by healing teammates, as well as casting curses on her foes. As an added bonus, priestesses can detect invisible opponents, allowing the team to see them, making them the counter for assassins. One of the most important abilities of a priestess is growing brambles on the ground, which slow down every movement in the affected area and hurt sprinting players.
[edit] The Mage
The mage is responsible for dishing out the offensive spells. Mages, like priestesses, need to be defended from harm.
[edit] The Archer
The archer is considered to be the "sniper" of the group, and specialises in attacking from long distances. Originally, Archer and Assassin were combined in one class, but in order to avoid a sniper wearing an invisibility cloak, the Assassin class was split up, and the fifth class - the Archer - was created.
[edit] Multiplayer Game Modes
There will be a number of game modes in Dark Messiah Multiplayer including deathmatch and team deathmatch. There are 2 unique modes as described below.
[edit] Warfare Mode
In warfare battle mode the goal is to seize the opposing team's castle. The warfare battle mode is described as being similar to the conquest mode found in Battlefield games. There are two teams of 16 players each battling for control of the map, and each side has a limited number of respawn tickets.
[edit] Crusade Mode
In crusade mode, the online campaign, the results of online matches carry over to the next round. If a team wins, they advance into enemy territory, and the next match will take place on the next map closest to the team's ultimate objective. Lose a round, and the team will be pushed back towards the other team's base. The deeper a team gets into an enemy's territory, the tougher it gets to progress because there are more defenses to aid the defenders. A character can level up and gain skills over the course of the campaign, so new skills and abilities carry over to the next battle. In effect, a character becomes tougher and more powerful.
[edit] Release Problems
According to many reports on the Ubisoft forum the initial release of this game (both retail and on Steam) are ridden with bugs that make the game unplayable for some. On the same day as the initial Steam release (October 25, 2006) there were already two patches released via Steam, but most reports on the forums indicate that these have not helped. Although a patch has been released with an extensive list of fixes, many of the game's major problems remain unfixed.
[edit] Critical reaction
Critical reaction to the game has been fair with the game attaining an aggregate rating of 77% on Metacritic.[1] It was much better received in Europe. Praise for the game came from PC Zone (UK) and PC Gamer (UK) which awarded the game 84% and 88% respectively, with praise going to the game's innovative and responsive mêlée combat. Several high profile online publications in the US panned it. GameSpot gave this game a review score of 6.7/10 stating that it had many technical issues, repetitive gameplay, predictable story, and poor mutiplayer. Gamespy cited similar problems, giving it 3 out of 5 stars respectively. IGN gave mixed reports, with their Australian team awarding the game 8.8/10 whereas their American team only awarded it 7.0/10. 1UP.com was more critical in issuing the game a 4/10, criticising the over reliance on using the kick as a weapon and dubbing it "The Adventures of Sir Kicksalot Deathboot in the Land of the Conspicuously Placed Spike Racks". Game Informer, however, praised Dark Messiah for the sheer fun factor and beautiful graphics, awarding it 9.25/10.
[edit] Different Versions
Despite having received a "not under 18" rating from the USK, Ubisoft announced that the two German versions of Dark Messiah will contain some changes from the internationally released version. Specifically, the German version does not allow for enemies' heads or limbs to be severed, enemies cannot not be impaled after death, burning enemies will die immediately and their corpses cannot be mutilated further after death. Ubisoft separately released a limited edition "International Version" of the game (playable in English only) which is identical to the version of the game released in most other countries.
[edit] References
- ^ Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2006-10-28.
[edit] External links
[edit] Official
[edit] Fansites
- Disciples of Sareth - Dark Messiah Fan Community
- Celestial Heavens - news, features and discussions about the whole Might and Magic series (see Celestial Heavens)
- Dark Messiah Source - news, downloads, features and discussions about Dark Messiah
- FileFront's Dark Messiah Files - One of the largest Dark Messiah of Might and Magic download resources on the web
[edit] Forums
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