The enemies in the game are about as dumb as you will see in a current-gen game. There are destructible environments, like shelves with barrels on them, which the enemies are more than willing to pose beneath for you, allowing you to get an easy kill. The occasional group of baddies will take you on at once, but it is far too easy to just kick the others to the side and take on one at a time. They never put up much of a fight, leaving you feeling like Conan in a world of feeble weaklings. Even the boss battles are incredibly easy, thanks to bosses that are more than willing to stand around while you figure out how to take them down. Late in Chapter Five, when taking on what should be a dangerous fire-breathing dragon, the monster is more than willing to fly harmlessly over your head and occasionally squawk until you find the switch to close the door on his head. During a five-minute brain fart, the dragon took three swipes totaling maybe half the character's health.
On top of everything else going against it, the game is years behind in terms of graphics and has framerate issues that occasionally make for choppy, unwatchable battles. Character models are inconsistent, with your main characters looking decent enough, but the Orcs and several other enemies looking laughably bad. The jittery battle animations are universally bad, with hilariously delayed reactions. It is typical to kick a guard off a ledge, watch him hit the ground, wait two seconds, and finally hear him groan and die. When you get the occasional close-up of a decapitation, thanks to 'adrenaline attacks', the blood splatters look like giant Commodore-64 quality pixilated red globs that look about as old as most gamers. The voice acting is surprisingly adequate, given all else that is wrong with the game.
The game's biggest selling point should be its Live options, but it botches that as well. There are five different modes available, but they are all slight variations on 'control points' with a little 'deathmatch' thrown in for good measure. Though the game gives you a mini map showing the location of the control points and the two teams, you will frequently see a clear map and then be sliced in half by an enemy the map had not quite gotten around to showing you yet. The same awkward, twitchy animations are online, making battles frustratingly silly. With only five small maps to plow through, Live is unlikely to hold your attention beyond one session.
Dark Messiah recently dropped in price to a paltry $30. Even at this reduced price point, it is a questionable purchase, full of more nagging issues and restrictive gameplay than most gamers will be able to stomach. Just because there are not a lot of RPG offerings on the 360 does not mean you should have to play bad ones like this.
