Game Review: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

James O'Brien - Daily Mail

Mar 03, 2008

Dark Messiah of Might And Magic: Elements ( Ubisoft, Xbox 360)

Verdict: Nice game, shame about the execution Maybe it's just me, but it is almost impossible to say this title out loud without involuntarily adopting a portentous, gloomladen voice and sounding like an announcer on Tales From The Crypt.

How appropriate, then, that this exceptionally gory maraud should leave no stone unturned nor, for that matter, depth unplumbed in its assembly of swords and sorcery cliches.

You are Sareth, student of the wizard Phenrig (look out, here comes that voice again!) and charged with retrieving the Skull of Shadows and the, wait for it, Shantirir Crystal.

You play as Warrior, Mage, Archer or Assassin. This means you can play through a stage in quite distinct ways.

Assassins employ stealth to make close-quarter kills; archers snipe away from a distance; warriors batter and slash everything in sight; and mages wield both spells and a sword.

It starts slowly and somewhat clumsily but, such is the inventiveness and variety of enemy slayings, it soon sucks you in.

Unfortunately, once in, a host of frankly unforgivable failings manifest themselves.

Many games these days are so dark that you need to reset the contrast, colour and brightness settings to get the full effect.

Hone your controlling to where not only is much of the subterranean action largely indecipherable even after you've maxed the aforementioned, but the night vision facility improves matters not a jot.

I got stuck in a wall for the first time in years, spent ten minutes thinking my console was on the blink as the action inexplicably slowed and speeded up again, and went back to the instructions incredulous at the absence of a proper autosave.

Dark Messiah is funny, imaginative and challenging, and provides one of the most gratifying opportunities in yonks to improve moves and powers as the plot progresses.

But the negatives increasingly outweigh the positives until you find yourself waiting for the next framerate slowdown, glitch or lighting disaster, when you should really be waiting for the next chapter.

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