Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (2006)

Took a break from tactical FPS and RPGs to go for this hack n slash. Heard good and bad when it was released. Most liked the physics, especially the kicking, but felt it got stale. I enjoyed most of it though did get lost of where to go from time to time, yet the game is quite linear.


Sword fighting felt good, bows felt basic and the magic I tried (fireballs/freeze) worked fine. Decent enough RPGness to it with the user picking different abilities to use as you gain exp points for completing tasks. I mostly went with strength, magic/mana (mostly for healing), and bow. Picked a few other things but most seemed unnecessary or duplicated by magic/scrolls one could easily find.


Kicking the enemy off cliffs or into fire/spikes never got old. Quite helpful for some of the stronger little beasts. I liked my fire sword that I got later on as a few blows decimated most (or a single hit if I held for a power strike). Rope bow was nice and reminded me of the old Thief games. I spent lots of time looking for high places to bow snipe from and getting their using the rope bow.


The HUD was decent. Easy enough to hover over items and know their specs. Same with picking what abilities you wanted or moving stuff to the quick use bar. Lots of nice graphical effects during explosions, lightning strikes, magic aura-stuff.


Decent enough change of environments from castles to caves. Though lots of the middle was just cave or dungeon. Lots of good height going on in the levels along with large monsters to avoid or figure out non head on ways to take them down.


One of the better non gun FPS I've played (not that there many). While not a RPG like the old Might and Magic games or turn based game like Heroes ofMight and Magic games, it was still a good M&M game. Would like to see one with more of a RPG feel to it as the engine was nice and while linear still felt open enough to enjoy.

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