Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Preview

E3 2006 First Look Preview

The Might & Magic series has been a staple on PC’s for some years, with countless entries, expansions and spin-offs hitting the market all the time. Ubisoft is throwing their hat into the ring now with Dark Messiah, an FPS with magic elements added to the mix. While it may be easy to write this one off at first as a modernized version of Hexen or Heretic (anyone?), Dark Messiah is doing a lot of phenomenal things with gameplay, providing an open-ended experience with many possible outcomes and ways to approach conflicts. FPS fans, as well as those who’ve followed the series would do well to check this one out.

In Dark Messiah, you must use skill and your brain to fight, utilizing the environment to dispose of baddies. One area that was showcased at a recent press event had the hero pulling traps to take out multiple bad guys, knocking them into spikes and the like. However, the enemies are quite intelligent, as the realistic AI will try to use the same traps against you.

One area that highlighted the multiple paths and dangerous environments of the game was a battle with a giant Cyclops. There were several different ways to defeat it, like using bows and arrows and swords to take him down (although it would certainly take a long time), or you could trigger traps to take him down, which expedites the process. The game uses a modified version of the Source engine from Half-Life 2, meaning that the physics when triggering a trap will be responsive and realistic.

Aside from using traps and brute force dark-age weaponry, you can use magic to take out your foes. Aside from the standard fire and ice spells, one spell that stood out was a shrinker spell, which allowed you to shrink your enemies and then stomp on them until they expire.

All in all, Dark Messiah is shaping up to be a very impressive FPS with some great action RPG elements. Look for it this September.
 

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