Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Previews
-
Category: News ArchiveHits: 877
You'll get to pick from five classes: archers, assassins, mages, priestesses, and warriors. Archers are the class most in line with what you'd expect from a traditional FPS. They kill things with ranged weapons, though they drop like a stack of cards if you get in their face. As they level up, they get a cool spread of abilities that improve their ranged firepower; one allows them to nock two arrows at once, which increases the "loading" time, but allows their eventual out to act somewhat like a shotgun blast. Another allows them to zoom in with their sights for precision fire. Mages, meanwhile, can be thought of as mobile artillery -- at higher levels, anyway; in the game's current incarnation, they're more or less fodder for the more capable classes until they get a few levels into them. Once they do, however, they're mighty deadly. Their fireballs do insane splash damage, and if they invest their points correctly, then can control their trajectories post-launch. They're also capable of erecting magical shields to protect nearby teammates, which provides harbor from the assaults of enemy spellcasters.
The second is at Game Informer:
From the outset, characters are pretty weak (most notably the squishy Mage and Priestess). However by leveling throughout the Crusade, any character can become a true ass whooper. When the Crusade begins, everyone starts at zero. Archers can only zoom in on targets, Assassins have to rely on cloaking and their daggers, Warriors have a single standard attack, Priestesses can only heal, and Mages can wield their gravity ball.
The third is at HEXUS:
Each of the characters start the game equipped with a basic weapon, dependant on which class you have chosen. The four weapons are bows, staffs, daggers and swords. Each weapon or character skills are upgradeable through acquiring skill points which are awarded through killing your opponents and can be distributed amongst your five characters in any way you wish. For example, if you've take a shine to playing as a mage, you could award all of your points to this character, but you will be weaker in all of the other character classes. Alternatively, you could distribute the points equally between all classes making for a more balanced set of characters.
The fourth is at gameSlave:
What's hard to get across in pictures is the brutal, visceral nature of the combat. Remember how you would wince when your character would stumble after being smacked about in Oblivion? Well Dark Messiah is possibly even more violent and gritty. Animation on weapons is top notch, swing your sword enough times with different stances and combinations and you'll realise just how fluid it all looks, with one attack gracefully moving into another. It's really quite exhilarating charging into the enemy ranks and cutting down two before they know what's hit them, only to find yourself suddenly locked in a duel with another skilled warrior. Stop to look around you and you'll see arrows and spells whistling past as each team struggles to gain possession of a flag. Bigger fights can get quite epic in scope, and you'll no doubt be telling stories for weeks of that one time you duelled three at once and won. Gruesome and violent sound effects only enhance the experience. If you're familiar with Counterstrike, poison plays out very much like flash bangs. Get nicked by a poison blade or arrow and you'll stumble about with blurred vision, desperately seeking cover whilst wildly swinging your sword.
And the fifth is at Kikizo Games:
Environments in Dark Messiah are sprawling and varied, comprising undulating terrain, extravagant castle structures and murky dungeons; there's a city set on a steep ness and protected by huge walls, a small coastal market town, an ancient ruin surrounded by two abandoned temples, a coastal cliff scorched by a deep pit that guards the entrance to the 'undead' realm, and the gigantic undead necropolis, set in deep caves, guarded bottomless pits.
