As we have the week off, I have been taking the opportunity to finish off some of the games I have bought recently.

Dark Messiah of Might Magic

Dark Messiah is branded as a Might & Magic game, but this doesn't really mean much more than "it's a fantasy FPS." And that's fine with me. In face, my experiences with the last several M&M RPGs were so irritating that I assumed this game was also going to be a waste of my time, until I downloaded the demo. Go ahead. Go download the demo. I'll wait for you.

People have had mixed reactions to this game, but I'll say this -- if you loved the demo, you'll love the game. Because the demo showcases why this game is incredible: a visually amazing fantasy world in which you get to burninate, stab, freeze, and kick people -- the latter preferably leading to any of the former, unless by happy accident your foe has his back to the abyss. Yes, yes, the story is trite and predictable. But we're not here for the story. We're here because Dark Messiah absolutely nails sword & sorcery combat in a first person setting, and dresses it up with Half Life 2-quality visuals. The game has a limited RPG aspect -- think Deus Ex. As you proceed, you can tweak your character along the brute warrior, archer, assassin, or spellcaster paths, or any combination of same which works for you. Combat is great -- while you can just whittle down an opponent's health, you can also create opportunities to end the fight decisively in your favor. Foe knocked to the ground? Execute a coup de grace. Worked him around to merrily blazing open fire? Kick that sucker in. Or use your spells to freeze him, lure him into a trap, or just charm him into working for you. Stealth kills also just... feel right. And the rope bow from Thief makes an appearance (as does another homage to that great series -- a master thief's outfit embroidered with a G, found in a room that to me looked suspiciously like a certain character's homebase in Thief 3).

The visuals will tax your machine, but they sure are purty. With Valve's high dynamic range support turned on, the contrast in light and shadows as you roam through murky subterranean tunnels approaches a virtuoso quality. Your fancy graphics card's fancy shaders will work overtime to put glossy sheens and gritty surfaces on everything you pass. Put it this way -- forget Oblivion.

In fact, "forget Oblivion" in general characterized my feelings about this game. I spent a lot of time traveling Tamriel, and enjoyed it, but it's a very shallow traversal of a lot of land. Here, the skills to choose from are extremely tightly focused, and -- since it's an FPS, not an RPG -- everything takes place along a highly designed infinite corridor. You won't be wandering the land looking for quests. You'll never vendor things to a merchant (no, seriously, you won't, so don't be a dumbass like me and hold on to every weapon you find). You will travel from Startington to Endville in a direct line, burninate all foes that stand in your way.

The game isn't perfect by any stretch, but it should be of no surprise to my regular readers that I am a sucker for the flawed gem. As mentioned, the story can be seen coming a mile away. "What, character M is EVIL? SURELY YOU JEST." They call the final boss sequence the "epilogue." Poison will keep ticking until your health hits 5 no matter how much you heal yourself. You can really screw yourself in the midgame if you haven't focused on a particular specialty -- I tried to straddle magic and combat, and wasn't good enough at either once I hit spiderville, so I burned through a lot of potions until I could fix that.

Gears of War

So, there I was, already impressed by the visual splendor of Dark Messiah. I kept hearing good things about this other game, Gears of War, but I'm thinking "yeah, yeah, the 360 has been OK and all, but I'll believe it can outdo my badass PC when I see it."

Yeah, well, now I've seen it.

Gears of War succeeds from a gameplay perspective, from a visual perspective, and -- to the extent it needs to -- a storytelling perspective. We'll deal with those in reverse order. The story is mostly straight Hollywood blockbuster schlock, including at least one mid-game revelation that's straight out of cheeseball comicbooktown. But that's ok, because the characters have just enough personality to -- as XPlay comments -- be interesting without being caricatures (loosely quoted). The banter between your squadmates provides just enough glue to keep you moving forward as you are catapulted from brilliant combat sequence to brilliant combat sequence in the midst of dilapidated visual glory.

The visuals truly are impressive. I do share psu's concern about the muted color palette, but the shiny! The gritty! The pockmarked detail on your Gears and on the environment add just enough immersiveness to really wrap the whole package together. More importantly, blur is used without feeling like a gimmick. When you spin the camera fast, or when you focus in on something, depth of field is actually used to effectively align attention, rather than to show off that they can do it. The coolest bit is the way that the camera foreshortens as you change what you're doing. The field of view actually changes cinematically as you pop in and out of cover, or barrel into a roadie run. It's subtle, but it's effective. Finally, whenever there's something you really should see, you can jab the Y button and your camera swivels to the current point of interest. It's just well done.

But that's all sideshow. We're here for the inner loop. And the inner loop is glorious. Other games have attempted to make seeking cover an essential part of gameplay, but Gears of War really makes it feel integral and strategic. Taking a play from the "keep it simple but deep" playbook, the A button is your all-purpose context sensitive "get me into cover" button and it works great. Getting nailed? Push towards a block and jab A -- your guy will paste himself against that brick like nobody's business. In cover and need to move? Angle towards another piece of cover and jab X -- you'll do the appropriate cool SWAT turn or barrel roll or whatever. It feels a little funny at first, but it soon becomes second nature.

Once you're in cover, the game becomes strategic. Keep an eye on those opponents as they move forward -- lay down some covering fire! Pop over long enough to take a guy out, but don't stay out too long. Lob a grendade! Call in a satellite strike! You have a simple set of tools, but their use is rewarding. I've played the game a lot these last few days, because getting to the next firefight and then getting through it remains a pleasure that comes in delicious bite-size chunks. Plus, at any time you can call in a pal to join your single-player game and make it multi-player. I shanghaid psu into helping me out with about half of Act 3, and it was a blast.