Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements - Review @ Eurogamer

magerette

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Eurogamer kicks up their take on Ubisoft's X360 port, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements, based on the PC title dark Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, from Arkane Studios, giving it a score of 6/10 and pointing out some positives as well as some frustrations.
On the positive side:
It's a game of simple, repetitive and often wicked pleasures: booting unwary enemies to their doom; into the abyss, against a wall of spikes or flame. If none of those are options, then you can always see if you can slash a rope and send a massive stone statue tumbling onto their heads, or dispense some lightning justice into a pool of water and electrocute the whole lot.Despite its RPG leanings, Dark Messiah: Elements is an unapologetically linear, story-based affair, set over ten medium-sized chapters, and in some ways all the better for it....Elements is a classic example of a game that starts off mediocre, dips into the realms of outright rubbishness, then soars unexpectedly out of the mire to become bafflingly engaging...
Some of the frustrations:
Ridiculously, the game has no auto-save, meaning that if (like me) you switched the machine off at the end of a session, you'll have to start over. Worse still, if (like me) you end up playing the game all evening and fail to save, then (like me) get stuck inexplicably in a piece of scenery or find that the game has just locked up for no apparent reason, you find yourself having to go back to the last save - even if that was four hours ago. Yes, despite regularly checkpointing your progress, it doesn't write those checkpoints to disk....
Even less forgivable are the optimisation issues. Surely a 16-month-old PC game based on Source (an engine from 2004, remember) should be capable of running on the 360 without a hitch? A few bits of slowdown and some tearing we can tolerate, but Dark Messiah: Elements regularly grinds to a near-halt when there are more than a handful of enemies on the screen - even when they're not in view...
Conclusion:
Anyway, I love and hate Dark Messiah: Elements. For everything that's good about the combat intensity, the flexibility of the skill system, the quality of the puzzles and the brooding, engaging atmosphere, it's undone by massive technical problems. After such a long wait, the last thing we expected was for it to be even more of a buggy, unoptimised mess than it was the first time around. But it is.
More information.
 
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The only question I had about this game is "Is it direct port of PC game or not?". The article doesn't answer that. Blast! I still dunno. Demo level is one we never saw on PC, stat system is different, mage cannot use bow - so I guess ropebow puzzles are gone or what? Still everyone says its just a port.

I liked the original a lot, actually. Played it in September 2007, and also tried Condemned and Bioshock(all on PC) same month - DMMM was my favorite of these 3. It had best-looking graphics to my mind and the most exciting gameplay due to its excellent combat system. The story might be a weaker point, but it's enough to inspire player to move forward, and I personally don't play videogames for enlightenment so don't think there's a need to be picky about the plot. And Leanna is soooo cute, one of the hottest girls I've ever seen in a game.
 
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Maybe this'll help:

"# More Action, New Challenges. Live the Dark Messiah of Might and Magic™ experience like never before on Xbox 360 with refined game mechanics carefully crafted for pad-controlled carnage, including a brand new lock-on feature, tweaked level design and game statistics. Explore four previously unreleased secret levels with new objectives, gameplay and rewards.
# Multiplayer Remixed. New multiplayer maps have been created exclusively for Xbox 360 and other maps and multiplayer gameplay have been completely re-mastered for an optimal Xbox Live experience, allowing you to play with up to 10 players. Enlist with the humans or undead and choose to play as an archer, priestess, mage or knight. In the Crusade mode, players can earn new skills and weapons as they progress in dynamic online campaigns where only united teams will prevail. "

From: http://www.ubi.com/UK/Games/Info.aspx?pId=6273
 
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According to the review I read they added classes and other simplifications to the xbox360 version. The reviewer didnt consider it as an "improvement".
 
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Man, that's harsh. Thanks for posting it, woges. I've put it on the news page.
 
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It is too bad that they didn't use the opportunity to listen to the criticism and try to make the correct changes ... or perhaps they thought theydid ...
 
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I liked the orginal game because it allowed vast numnber of different playing styles. but they went and dumbed it down.
 
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