PC News and Game Reviews

It’s been a while since my last Blog, and I knew it would take something really big for me to get the finger out and put pen to epaper.

I was a huge fan of the Thief series. The first game created the genre “First Person Sneaker”. The main character was excellent, and the story was compelling with amazing depth. When Looking Glass Studios went the way of the dodo, I was genuinely upset that this excellent franchise would never see the light of day again.

But thanks to a mere rumour it looks lie Garrett may be climbing through windows again in the dead of night, with a blackjack in his hand and a grin on his face. Eidos-Montréal has begun to recruit for what they are calling a “AAA” project, with the biggest hint being that the title of the new game begins with “T”. Fans of Thief seem to have taken the above as proof of life for another Thief game, and frankly so do I

It makes perfect sense to revive what was and still is an excellent set of games. My only complaint was the creation of a 3rd person view for Deadly Shadows. It was horribly evident it was to appease the button mashing console masses, and introduced a dynamic that took away the heart pounding feeling the first person view gave. You could now pivot the camera to see around corners. This for me is an unfair advantage for a thief to have!

With today’s technology a new Thief game COULD be excellent. I would urge the developers not to change too much (if its not broke don’t fix it). Obviously taking advantage of dynamic light and new particle effects would only further immerse you in Garrett’s world.

I hope this game comes back…praise the builders if it does…

NWN was a must for any fans of the RPG genre, the successor to the superb Baldur’s gate series and long forgotten, eye of the beholder classics. Full 3D view and slick interaction justifiably made it the flagship for next generation RPGs. NWN II was initially staggeringly in its depth of character development, items, monsters and looked very good, performing well with even a small army on screen.

Its fatal flaw, which NWN did not suffer from, was the number of bugs. The game seemed overly complex, with simple cut scenes causing your game to crash and resulting in the campaign having to be re-started. In fact, there was warning on the loading screen telling you to save your game as often as possible. These bugs put a lot of players off what was ultimately a good game, if a little stretched.

The add-on pack is just that, new levels, monsters, classes, items and effects. It’s the usual price for a non-independent game and is designed to allow you to import your NWN II character. Curiously, there is a welcome note in the manual in which the producer basically says that they released NWN II too early and that Mask was how the game should have looked and played.

As you’re playing a character that was able to complete NWN II (you have to create one otherwise), game play is more complex from the offset then a standard RPG. You need to know the game to play it, as your using a powerful character. But immediately you can tell that the developers have worked hard on the engine, its seamless and bug free. The loading time between maps is reduced and levels are kept to a reasonable size to ensure your PC isn’t unnecessary taxed. If NWN II had looked and played like this then it would have made a much bigger impact.

The main campaign is tough, well paced and just the right length (about 10 hours). Character development to “epic levels” is possible, allowing your character to become a juggernaut of destruction. There are dozens of new feats and spells (you do need to play with the manual open to figure out what they do) which allows new ways to win battles and solve problems.

The game only falls down in its plot devices. Most games in the Baldur-NWN series have complex plots with the protagonist central to the story. Mask goes to far though, and has a horrid feature called the “spirit meter”. Not to give the plot away too much, it basically dictates how long you can spend on any map, how often you can rest, whom you can kill etc. It seems like the game creators wanted to limit your ability to regain spells or health by resting, so to make the game more challenging. It’s worked into the plot and very hard to get away from. Predictably, there is a cheat out there that doesn’t disrupt the game at all but drastically improves the game play. Its just a bad idea that could haunt the developer for some time.

This aside, the dialogue is also very heavy and you have to be careful what you say since your party members can get annoyed and leave. There are even dialogue sequences whereby you have no choice at the end but to kill the bad guy you’re talking with, therefore making the conversation totally irrelevant.

Otherwise the game plays well and looks good. I would have to recommend it to anyone who enjoyed NWN II and wants to see the game to its full potential. I would also welcome further add-on modules (the scope is unlimited with an engine like this) but no more spirit meters please.

You have to love the “Hack em ups”. The first game that springs to mind when playing Dark messiah is Severance. I don’t know if the two games are linked (forgive my ignorance) but they are definitely similar. If memory serves me correctly, Severance had the honour of being one of the first games where you could burn objects. Throw a barrel on a fire and watch it burn! So the torch that you carry into the dungeon actually had a use after all (Torches used with “Dark Monitor Syndrome” don’t work like torches at all!)

Really Severance filled another gap on that mighty bridge to true Physics and Chemistry heaven within Games. Thanks to Half Life 2 and the guys in Havoc who really hammered home a huge Physical keystone.

Also in Severance, hence the name, you could separate enemies from their much needed limbs. It lacked hit locations that Soldier of Fortune may have had, so you could only hack a few predetermined bits off. But in D.M you can hack many, many things off with impunity! The fighting is excellent; there are lots of moves, 4 main Power attacks easily found by using the WSAD movement keys. There are flurries too which leave the victim wondering where is legs have gone. One nice touch is getting your sword stuck in the guy’s body. Bliss.

Monsters are varied and spread out over the whole 10 chapter affair. The levels are massive, although linear, they go as far as the eye can see in various directions. For example the Orc mines and caves are especially my favourite as when you look up you can see other walk ways and bridges that may or may not be the place to go to. Ultimately they’re not, but still nice to have there, as they immerse you in the game that little bit more.

As for graphics they are nice, but not spectacular. No jagged edges or dodgy 2D that’s for sure. Animations are good and FX for fire and spurting blood is pleasing to the eye.

The story is believable, in some games nowadays (Fahrenheit for example); the story is random hoping that you’ll follow it. DM’s storyline is fairly consistent and entertaining; with some delightful cut scenes and saucy actors.

There’s a nice puzzle element to it at times, with a trusty “rope bow” you need to make escape routes from time to time or to just get to places at a higher altitude. Thanks to the physics again, you can dislodge heavy objects and have them swing from the ceiling sending your malleable opponents to their doom. And not forgetting your lethal right boot, as you can kick you way through the game nearly, always handy when the bad guy is on the edge of a cliff…

DM in a few words:

“I finished Dark Messiah last night; I’m really impressed with it and loved every minute. There’s a welcome twist half way through with optional endings”