Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

Graphics

Dark Messiah runs on an enhanced version of the Source engine which powered Half-Life 2. It definitely looks pretty swish, full of sharp visuals and brilliant sculpted fantasy environments. We decided to take a look at how the game looks on the various settings, from low to high, and then went and had a look at how some of the graphical technologies have been implemented into Dark Messiah.

Highest Possible Settings

The highest possible settings we could manage on our gaming rig were 1920x1440 with everything in the game turned to max. On our games machine (Athlon 64 FX-57, 2GB RAM, X1900) we were able to get it running on this spec but found that some of the more demanding scenes caused slow down. We actually settled for a compromise and lowered some of the settings.

Tim, on the other hand, popped the game on his Geforce 8800 inspired machine and managed to push the boundaries a little bit further. He managed to put the resolution up to 2560x1600 and had everything running on full smooth as butter.

The HDR effects are phenomenal. In one test we pulled out a sword that contained lightning magical powers. The lightning effect gave off a glow that affected our vision in different ways depending on what other lighting sources were in our proximity. When confronted with open plan environments, like the temple scene in the picture below, the result is really breath taking.

Medium Settings

These are the settings that you'll most likely be playing the game through on. Was the experience far worse than on the highest setting? There was a certain feeling that I was missing out on that real 'blow my socks off' look, but it was still enjoyable. My advice is to try to keep HDR on if your PC can handle it, even if that means sacrificing other technical options. A lot of the levels were designed specifically to make you gawp at the lighting and so to ignore that by turning it off or putting bloom on would be a mistake.

Turning anti-aliasing off in this game is also quite noticeable. If you look to the picture for a reference you can see that the back left pillar is very jagged. Again, it all comes down to how much of a gaming purist you are. If you're not too bothered about seeing the game look as splendid as it can look then these small graphical effects shouldn't bother you too much. The jump in frame rate when dropping to medium settings was fairly substantial also, at places the framerate went from 40 up to 70-80.

Lowest Possible Settings

As is usual with the lowest settings the game was unplayably ugly. The Source engine was designed to allow a wide range of PC's to play the various games released for it but to be completely frank, you'd be better off not playing the game on these settings. Scenery loses all of its beautiful charm and the enemies look rancid and horrible (in a graphical way rather than a scary way). If this is the best your system can manage then steer well clear.

Sounds

The sounds of the game are a mixed bag. On the one hand I enjoyed the atmospheric music and the noises the weapons make when hitting different objects. However, the repetitive slogans your enemies blurt out at you will really grind your gears. Slaughtering clone copies of an enemy is bad enough, but to have them say the same phrases to you throughout that slaughtering... it's torture. This is countered ever so slightly by the fairly cool set-piece moments where you overhear a group of enemies speaking, debating topical fantastical issues such as whether orc meat is as good as goblin meat.

Conclusion

It's dissapointing that Dark Messiah doesn't live up to the hype that was surrounding it over the last couple of months. Sure, it's a good game, but it could have been an awesome one. Instead it's left me anticipating the amazing looking Project Offset even more than I was previously. In the mean time this will at least offer you a good chance to blow a few enjoyable hours.

The game is priced at £24.99 on Play and can be picked up for a similar price through Steam if you're that way inclined. I feel that price represents pretty good value for money in terms of the amount of gameplay hours you'll get out of it. However, I'd advise you to only buy it if you have a pretty good rig though, as otherwise you'll be left wondering what all the fuss over the graphics is about.