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Dark Messiah of M&M singleplayer demo released

LegatoB

Member
Here's a video of myself playing through the non-tutorial part of the demo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=c_3hs1TQ4bg

I'm not exactly impressed with the combat, and that's about all the demo has to offer. It's short, it's pretty, but there's not much to it. I'm definitely going to wait before I pick up this game.
 

Monk

Banned
LegatoB said:
Here's a video of myself playing through the non-tutorial part of the demo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=c_3hs1TQ4bg

I'm not exactly impressed with the combat, and that's about all the demo has to offer. It's short, it's pretty, but there's not much to it. I'm definitely going to wait before I pick up this game.

Yes, the brute force approach has nothing to it... You fail.
 

Yusaku

Member
Thaedolus said:
I thought this was a Source game, which would make it available via Steam?

Source and Steam are two different things. Putting your game on Steam isn't a requirement of licensing the Source engine. Vampire: The Masqurade - Bloodlines was Source, but not Steam.
 

Easy_G

Member
golem said:
i usually dont turn it on... lowly 6800gt cant handle such things

You sure? My x800 pro which is is actually worse than your 6800GT has handled every source game at 1280x1024 with some form of AA on. But I'll know for sure about this once the damn thing finishes downloading.

So no torrents yet?
 

siege

Banned
19981202h.jpg


Sucks the demo is so short. I've played through it three times now, using different skills, and I can't get enough. The game rocks.

Heres to hoping Ubi releases a MP demo within the next couple of weeks.
 

Easy_G

Member
The one thing I don't like is how the game has to make the camera go nuts during every animation. I seriously hate throwing any objects cause my it seems like my character is going through a triple somersault just to do it. The animations are good though.

Also, if I'm swinging a sword that covers basically a 4 foot radius in front of me, why do I have to have my little tiny crosshair on the monster to actually hit it?

Basically, the combot itself feels majorly clunky to me. But it is very fun playing around with all the different ways you can kill an enemy. Freezing the ground and having them go sliding down, slamming them into spiked walls, and setting off traps are all very fun.

EDIT: and my X800pro has MUCH more trouble running this than any other source game I've played. It seemed to just randomly chug along even in fairly low detail environments. I never noticed any slowdown in Episode 1 with basically everything on high.
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
This is the third third-party Steam release. Vampire: Bloodlines ran horrible. The Ship runs pretty badly for how sparse it's environments are (although definately playable). And now this... I get big slowdown in the strangest places.

I guess third parties just can't optimize the Steam engine correctly.
 

Wollan

Member
It's definetly a system hog and I guess it could be much better optimized but the game is awesome. The sword fighting is just excellent.
 

siege

Banned
Yeah, there is no reason it should be chugging as bad as it does with everything set to low. They still have a couple of months to optimize it, so hopefully it will be greatly improved.
 

Anamoly

Member
Seems like it will be a great game if a little unoptimized at this point. It would be perfect if this were coming out on the 360 though. Its almost if the game were designed with the 360 pad in mind :\ wishful thinking...
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
That was definitely awesome, though playing as a spellcaster seemed extremely tough given how little mana you have and the fact that it doesn't regen at all.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Extremely impressive graphics. I remember it looking poor in the 1up Show feature a good while ago, but on my rig...wow.

Demo's short but worth the download. Had fun as a mage, and I'll be going back to it in a minute to try some other options.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Is it just me or does the tutorial guy sound like someone doing their best attempt at a George Takai impression?
 

Easy_G

Member
Playing through with the different skills provided some fun. Going for all stealth kills is awesome. And man, I love those traps set up to kill them with. There are also quite a few little secret passages that make sneaking around MUCH easier.

EDIT: couple other cool things:
wood object FINALLY can be burned! hooray!

Also, being grabbed and thrown by an orc is very cool. It is actually almost (ALMOST) scary staring at the orc as he holds you up and then falling to the ground and seeing yourself laying there as they come chargin for you. Quite cool.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Jesus, those graphics are just stunning, maybe the best I've ever seen on my computer. Not only that, it also runs exceptionally well. And the game is fun, which is not a bad thing either :)

Now I have to buy a new mouse to use all those commands without having to look at the keyboard, my two buttons+wheel won't cut it.

Edit: Aw, so much for running smooth, now it chugs whenever it wants. Damn it.
 

Spayro

Member
Short demo, replayed it about 5 times now. its so fun where you kick an orc back and see him fall right before you stab him in the nipple.
 
Graphics are incredible. When I first stepped out into the cave and looked over at the fortress, it looked like a freaking painting.

The combat is a little disappointing though. I think Oblivion's swordfighting has more oomph, like when you block you really feel it. It's also way too easy just to kick the orcs off the edges into the abyss, or kick them into fire or spikes. Sword combat seemed the least effective way of killing, in fact (and I upgraded it).
 

Electrii

Member
I was really looking forward to this one, but it runs like shit on my decent computer.
Framerate is all over the place, completely smooth in one point, and a slideshow if I look in the wrong direction - no middle ground. the worst thing is, that changing around the settings doesn't seem to help at all.

Looks like I won't be getting this one after all.
 

ghostmind

Member
Looks great on my PC, even tho it runs a little janky on my X850XT at 1680x1050... gameplay seems a little "floaty" - as mentioned above, Oblivion's environ feels like it has a bit more weight to it.

Hopefully this game isn't short, because every video i've seen of it takes place in the demo level...
 
Why oh why didnt Oblivion have combat like this? It is absolutely batshit insane! Ive never seen first person melee combat this awesome. Everyone should try this and be amazed, finishing moves, physics, orcs flinging you into a pile of boxes, kicking orcs off ledges, setting orcs on fire, the fun never ends. You can even shoot an arrow in some guys leg to make him slower and easier to defeat, there is actually an animation that hows his handicap. Apart from that, the game also looks and runs beautifully.

Pure awesome, give this game a shot if you havent already.
 

Monk

Banned
Fallout-NL said:
Why oh why didnt Oblivion have combat like this? It is absolutely batshit insane! Ive never seen first person melee combat this awesome. Everyone should try this and be amazed, finishing moves, physics, orcs flinging you into a pile of boxes, kicking orcs off ledges, setting orcs on fire, the fun never ends. You can even shoot an arrow in some guys leg to make him slower and easier to defeat, there is actually an animation that hows his handicap. Apart from that, the game also looks and runs beautifully.

Pure awesome, give this game a shot if you havent already.

Uh, did you not play severance?
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Ive never seen first person melee combat this awesome.
Actually, Riddick does it better. DM tries to do something similar, although is not as smooth.

But man, what an incredible looking game. It blows my mind.
 
Monk said:
Uh, did you not play severance?


Ah very good point, I enjoyed that game a lot. It wasnt first person however and it didn't use physics like this game did. Also, the enviroment wasn't playing that big a part.

Funky Papa said:
Actually, Riddick does it better. DM tries to do something similar, although is not as smooth.

But man, what an incredible looking game. It blows my mind.

Riddick's combat is more polished, true (I sort of forgot about Riddick when I made the post above). Still though, the combat in this demo is, although not as polished, still pretty good compared to Riddick's
 
mr_nothin said:
What I mean is, is that it looks like you have AA ON....
Yeah, I'm also running the demo with no AA. With my X800XL, it isn't worth the marginal improvement seen in this game for that performance hit. Runs silky smooth at 1360x768, everything maxed and 4x AF. I suppose I could try 8x AF, but it already looks very nice. I'll post a screenshot if you would like. But other Source games with HDR, I can usually get away with that 2x AA. This is the first where I thought the performance took too much of a hit for me. Maybe for the final release, it'll get further optimized.

As for the actual demo. Very nice. The combat, to put it bluntly, blows away Oblivion, in my opinion. The swordplay is some of the best I've seen, especially in a FPS game. The environmental interaction is there too. Completely shocked that you actually see your lower limbs for once, I like the headbobbing too. I'm liking this very much so far, so I'll have to pick up the full version.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Fallout-NL said:
Riddick's combat is more polished, true (I sort of forgot about Riddick when I made the post above). Still though, the combat in this demo is, although not as polished, still pretty good compared to Riddick's
Yep, not denying that. The game is fun, and I hope the final product is even better. And man, the graphics, the graphics...
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
The game does some odd things with filtering. The background has a sort of "softness" filter put over it. Sometimes it has the effect of antialiasing, and at other times it actually aliases distant objects more.

It's a strange effect... I'm pretty sure the HDR in Red Orchestra does the same thing.
 

sprsk

force push the doodoo rock
i had a weird problem where the graphics would do all sorts of crazy shit. It would go from completely untextured to textured then the lighting would blow out, and it would cycle rapidly throughout the whole time iw as playing, which made it unplayable :/
 
sp0rsk said:
i had a weird problem where the graphics would do all sorts of crazy shit. It would go from completely untextured to textured then the lighting would blow out, and it would cycle rapidly throughout the whole time iw as playing, which made it unplayable :/
I guess it could be a bug in the software, but that also sounds like a hardware problem. Any other games having that problem?
 

BlackMage

Banned
It was fun kicking the orcs into the spiked wall thingies or kicking them off the cliff. Don't know why the download was 1.38 gigs for 8 minutes of game.
 

sprsk

force push the doodoo rock
GoldenEye 007 said:
I guess it could be a bug in the software, but that also sounds like a hardware problem. Any other games having that problem?


no, i have had a weird issue with 2d stuff in direct x. Ive been screwing around with emulation (ps2, n64) lately and those have no problem. i havent tried any other full blown 3d games though.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
FlyinJ said:
The game does some odd things with filtering. The background has a sort of "softness" filter put over it. Sometimes it has the effect of antialiasing, and at other times it actually aliases distant objects more.

It's a strange effect... I'm pretty sure the HDR in Red Orchestra does the same thing.
Depth of field (DOF)
 

jarosh

Member
just played this. now i'm hyped, probably gonna buy it. the controls need a lot of practice though. combat and movement have a very unique feel to them. tried out all the skills and i loved the stealth approach with the daggers etc. runs very smooth on my 7900gt and looks f*cking fantastic.

one question though: fraps didn't work but i'd like to know the exact framerate i'm getting. any ideas?
 

Wollan

Member
I would say that this goes beyond Riddick. Or not necessary beyond but it nails a different aspect. Every time the enemy parries off my blow it's just as fun as actually hitting because you are in the middle of this dirty fight and that other bastard just needs to go down!
And it's cool that you can mix up stuff like a kick to give you a split second extra.
 

Fliepke

Member
Thaedolus said:
I thought this was a Source game, which would make it available via Steam?

A devver from Arkane Studios told me that it will be available on steam as well as in stores. I've played the multiplayer beta version and it was really fun. I don't think they will come with a demo though, because the multiplayer version will only feature 5 maps. I hope they release some extra maps right after launch
 
I tried this out on work computer and it's a real looker! The demo install is insanely large for so little actual time spent on single run, but that's not really an issue. Too bad about the feeling of melee, though. It just feels too detached. The original Thief feels more solid, to me. Hopefully, this is addressed before ship. Otherwise, this will probably kick ass online and off.
 

winalot

Member
He looks proper wet and slimy, awesome.

I'm guessing it's because we weren't meant to play that bit, but he doesn't seem too bothered about fighting, unless you get up real close he doesn't try and chase/attack you.
Still, big thanks for the link, looks gorgeous.
 

Xdrive05

Member
Thank for that link. The cyclops doesn't attack you unless you're right in front of it, and he also doesn't do that level interaction they showed a while back (like where you try to hide under the stones and he pulls them away from you). He just stands there doing his "pose" animation over and over again. Also, there is an obvious trap in one side of the room that is completely deactivated. It looks like you are intended to kill the cyclops using this.

It's obvious the designers didn't intend for us to play that part. Part of the rocks in the middle of the room don't even have collision detection for their model.

:lol
 
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