Recent reviews by Lumos

I'd heard a lot about this game, and with a sudden urge to kill things, I decided I'd check it out. Turns out this "enhanced edition" had come out recently, which couldn't've been more perfect, right?

TL;DR: This game is very entertaining and simultaneously incredibly tedious or even outright boring, and my recommendation is tentative at best. The combat is fun, but the repetition and respawning enemies, coupled with the usually-useless loot make the whole process more tedious than rewarding.

The first ten hours or so were rather magnificent. Hitting your first few levels, carefully fighting tough enemies and completing missions, whilst occasionally discovering new and useful guns... However, circa level 15 (the level cap is 69), it all becomes insanely boring. The last time I encountered difficult enemies was in the Lost Cave when I was level 13. After that, since I'm a completionist by nature, going through all side missions meant that I was always three or four levels higher than the zones I was sent to, which means that the strongest and tankiest enemies would melt in two or three sniper rifle headshots.

Around level 30, and after (tediously) soloing the "Prove Yourself" quest in the Underdome DLC, I disregarded the next (and as it turns out, last) batch of side missions and pushed on with the main quest 'till its completion, which came after about four or five missions in total... after that, I couldn't be bothered to go through the rest of the DLCs, nor could I be bothered with playing this game any more.

It all feels pointless by virtue of the fact that enemies respawn. You clear a couple of bandit camps to reach a quest location (Sledge's Safe House in this instance), and you fight your way through it to uncover a story McGuffin. Then you emerge out again, victorious and one or two levels higher... and you must now fight your way through the same bandit camps you cleared, though at this point the bandits are a couple levels lower than you and this can be shredded through without any effort. What is this, an MMO? It's just tedious.

Enemy variety: Also tedious. First, you kill dog-like vermin. Then you kill flying vermin. Then you kill bandits (which are human vermin, really), then you kill bugs, then you kill spider(ant)s and throngs of more bandits. In the story's third act we are introduced to the Crimson Lance, which are a military-type human faction with special enemies, and they might just be the only non-vermin enemy type in the game. (Guardians aren't prominent enough to be of interest.) The player is supposed to be a "Vault hunter" self-interested merc of sorts, not a damn pest removal service. Add in that all the sodding critters also respawn, and that certain map areas are off-limits to vehicles, and you get the complete (and tedious) picture.

What of the loot? It's a looter-shooter, right? Again, at the start of the game you can have fun with any of the scant weapons you encounter, since they're all new and level 1 or 2, just like you are. As the game progresses, however, virtually all the loot you encounter is garbage. Virtually everything the shops sell is garbage. You'll find a good purple-rarity ("unique") weapon and stick to it for a few levels, and everything else will be useless. You'll kill a boss who's one or two levels beneath you, and he'll drop his unique weapon that's eight levels beneath you, thus completely useless. Then you'll find the Crimson Lance, where virtually every single soldier drops at least one item, virtually all of which are useless. Fighting the Crimson Lance is an exercise in cleaning house, then running to the shop to sell everything in your inventory, then running back, which is exceptionally tedious.

I completed my game at level 32 with my main weapon being a really good sniper rifle I'd been sticking with since level 22 or 23. Whilst I did have a couple of alternative snipers (with elemental damage), every single other sniper I'd found for the last third of my game had been worse than this one. That's not fun, that's just boring.

This is unfortunate because the weapon randomisation mechanics are interesting. If only there were a way to "craft" weapons, to lock certain components in order to produce something that's not utterly ♥♥♥♥♥... But alas, that isn't the case.

The four playable classes aren't very interesting either, all having just one "action skill" on a cooldown, and the rest of the tree being percentage upgrades for the skill and for various stats. I played as Mordecai, the sniper, which allowed me to dispose of enemies quickly with headshots. I also played solo, and whilst the game would probably be more fun in co-op, virtually every single game is more fun in co-op, and I've also heard that enemies gain more health the more players you have in the party. That certainly doesn't sound like it'd make firefights tedious, certainly not...


I don't really know what else to say, except that I'm not sure my purchase of both Borderlands 1 and 2 a while back was sensible. This game was entertaining until it became tedious, but I realise that "tedious" is a subjective criterion. It's objectively not a bad game, ergo I recommend this... I just don't think it was exactly my cup of tea, so to speak.

I never knew this game existed until I found it by chance one day ago. Thought I'd pick it up, because it looked interesting, I gathered that the melee combat was good, and I'm currently very curious about first-person melee combat.

Nine hours later, it was already evening. I'd binged through most of the whole thing, and had to stop only because of biological needs and because my eyes were stinging. Rarely have I seen them be so bloodshot...

This game comes quite close to what I'd like to make, if I had a team of artists at my disposal. The graphics are very pretty, though of course, the game is ten years old at the time of writing of this review, and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Still, the HDR lighting in particular makes an astonishing difference, and the whole things looks really nice at maximum quality.

The story is... adequate. It's certainly nothing groundbreaking, and I had a feeling that I've already played this game, despite the fact that I never have. That may have been a result of the story.
It's worth mentioning that this game feels like some sort of Tomb Raider mixed with the new Thief game (the one from 2014). The protagonist is a gluttonous kleptomaniac with a berry juice addiction, who spends most of his time raiding tombs. Aside from that, we've got demon kings, ancient artefacts, necromancer armies... and, of course, all of it ended with a dragon, as is standard for the budget fantasy genre.
It really does remind me of a budget fantasy film... But I really love that sort of thing, so I enjoyed it.
I should also say that the "big twist" of the story actually caught me by surprise, at least to an extent. I wasn't expecting that to be the case once I started playing the game. It became easy to anticipate once the respective hints started dropping. Still a neat idea though.

It's also got a voiced protagonist (though no dialogue choices), something which I very much prefer, so extra points for that.

The characters are standard -- nothing quite memorable in that department -- and the voice acting is... delicious. It's not "great", but I like it. You can guess whether the character is good or evil based on voice alone. Ain't that a good thing?

The gameplay is quite interesting as well. The melee combat is quite well executed, though magic and switching between the two is slughtly clunky by today's standards (or at least my standards). As usual, the player is presented with different playstyle options: sword-and-board combat, archery, magic and stealth. However, you can always do all of them, and aren't necessarily limited to one, which is very nice -- some situations are naturally better solved with some tools rather than others.
I personally went for a build that emphasised stealth and marksmanship. They both start off pretty weak, but stealth ends up completely broken in the endgame (Remember Chameleon 100% in Oblivion, anyone? It's sort of like this, but with actual backstab mechanics that aren't dreadful).
Furthermore, enemies are prone to parrying most of your swings and dealing too much damage to you, so direct combat is more effort than necessary.

I can't not mention the kick. Kicking is your best friend, because of the point above, and because there's precarious ledges and walls of spikes everywhere. When it works properly, you can propel enemies backward, and literally send them flying. It feels extremely satisfying. If you like the power fantasy type of games -- Far Cry 3/4's broken takedown mechanics come to mind -- then you'll probably enjoy the combat here... Kicking, that is. Note that it's not as overpowered as the knife in said Far Cries, because you can still die in three hits, and your kicking stamina is limited, but it's still pretty enjoyable.

The sound is fantastic. Except the thundering footsteps that are loud even when you're supposed to be sneaking. But aside from that, I really enjoyed the sound. The ambience is very atmospheric when it wants to be, and some combat tracks were brilliant. Sounds in general were also on par.



Some other things worth mentioning:
- The goblins in this game are great, and I absolutely loved them. Their banter is hilarious, including the in-combat quotes, and slauthering them was so fun that I'm slightly worried to admit it. Unfortunately, there was too little goblins throughout.
- The first-person full-body-awareness thing this game has going on is sometimes exceptionally glitchy, but it's not fatal. Still, it's a bit awkward to have your knees clip through your face when you're running up a steep staircase... but fortunately, that rarely happens.


Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a well-made, if not very polished game. It's aged quite well (your opinions may vary), except a few things that I'd personally change, mostly related to the inventory.
The combat is satisfying, and the story isn't too bad. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would have very much liked it if additional campaigns or expansions existed.
I thoroughly recommend it. It's worth at least a single playthrough, if not A LOT more, and the ratio of value to price is big. I got my copy for less than £3.50, so I can't complain on that front.

EDIT: At this point in time I've beaten this game over 20 times, so saying it's "worth a single playthrough" is a dramatic understatement. I'll most likely beat it 20 more times as well, because it's just that much fun.

Final rating: 8.5 Pao-Kais out of 10 Pao-Kais.