Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

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[PC] We go hilt deep with this gritty fantasy fighter

Wednesday 12 July 2006
You should have already seen just how exciting Dark Messiah of Might & Magic's action-packed combat is - just check out some of the footage on our movies tab - but now we've finally had a chance to thrash about in one of the game's single-player levels. And we're pleased to tell you that the orc-bashing feels fantastic.

Dark Messiah has a pleasing grittiness to skirmishes that highlights the game's differences to fellow first-person fantasy game, Oblivion. This is a brutally physical experience, where your primary concern is bashing the daylights out of your ugly-faced enemies, and it's a more focused adventure than Oblivion's monolithic rambling.

Above: Enemies will hurl you around if you don't protect yourself

Take our experiences for example. Alerting a band of cleaver-wielding orcs, we climb to a higher platform and attack with our bow. But these meat-heads aren't totally brainless, jinking left and right to dodge our arrows. While we're distracted, one of the four orcs has found a nearby ledge and leaps across to our platform, crashing his blade down as he lands.

Fortunately there's a neat kick attack that boots anything and anyone at close range. So, as the orc charges we let loose with a hefty punt and send him sprawling backwards on to a wooden platform - which is where your terrific interaction with the environment comes in. We slash out and cut a rope nearby, releasing a weighty lantern that crashes into the platform and demolishes it. Bye, bye Mr orc.

Ben_Richardson

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.