drzy

In a break from PRMM, I tried out the XBOXHUEG Might and Magic: Dark Messiah single player demo. I had it downloaded the day it came out (a couple weeks ago), but it wasn’t until yesterday that some friends of mine hyped it up enough for me to try it.

From screenshots and the preliminary movies it looked to be a clone of Oblivion, so I wasn’t too enthused. I liked Oblivion alright, but it didn’t hold my interest long. It turns out, as usual with games, the gameplay differs greatly from screenshots and video impressions.

The demo is exceedingly short, especially since it is a 1.4 GB download. I went at a normal clip and I finished it in around 10 minutes. That was a great letdown, as that 10 minutes was enough to make me yell at the screen in delight, something that rarely happens anymore. The game’s only similarity to Oblivion is that it is an action RPG in the first person perspective. As I’ve come to see from Ubisoft games, the level of interactivity is very nice. I don’t really want to spoil anything, so my advice is to play the demo yourself and try to utilize the surroundings, both with your hands, and your weapons. There are some pseudo-scripted things in the demo, but there is much more imbedded interactivity that doesn’t need to be scripted. Then when you have played it once or twice, check out YouTube and see how other people played it, and I guarantee you will see things you never tried.

It’s built on the Source engine. For those gamers crawling out of boxes, that’s the Half Life 2 engine, which is still arguably one of the best lighting and physics game engines on the market. (I haven’t written about how fun Half Life 2: Episode One was yet.) They seem to need a bit of tweaking in weights of objects, but you will need to interact with objects to survive many battles. There are some puzzle-type encounters, but mostly its about killing things in creative ways.

The effects look fantastic, the sword battles are ferocious and don’t feel like swinging through molasses ala Oblivion. Upgrades feel like actual upgrades and you will notice their effect immediately, and yet the lowest level swordsman does not feel gimped. The key here is the battles are pure realtime, and require skill and finesse with the sword, your environment, and your skills. They really put an emphasis on melee battles and it clearly shows. Enemies aren’t all yours, as many creatures fight against each other, even in the midst of fighting against you. All the abilities and skills you use? They are all used against you. This isn’t a wade-through-monsters-in-a-killing-swath type of game, every battle has the real potential of ending your poor characters life. So when it gets to be two on one or more, it’s a lot more nail biting than a game with a chaingun or rocket launcher at the ready. Your arsenal does get mighty impressive, but so do your opponents’.

I just hope that the demo is all there is to the game, it would be a shame if the innovation ended there. Here’s to hoping Arkane and Ubisoft pick up the ball and run with it. We’ll know for sure come September. There is a rumor that an open multiplayer beta will be released soon.

This preview of the demo is longer than the demo itself. Surely if the rest of the game is as good as those 10 minutes I played, it’s going to be a nice diversion from real life for awhile.