Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a new take on the role-playing side of the Might and Magic universe of old. The new is the real-time first-person shooter element, the old a point-based skill system that allows you to customise your character, Sareth. Sareth is a young apprentice for the wizard Phenrig, and this is all the information we’re privy to as the game quickly throws you into the first tutorial mission, a crawl through a series of catacombs to retrieve a magic crystal. The tutorial teaches us how to use Sareth’s abilities, swing a sword and negotiate his surroundings.

Most of the game is spent battling the minions of evil to retrieve a sacred item known as the Skull of Shadows. The game will give you a couple of opportunities to display your quality as a nice or nasty, the choices affecting the final outcome of the game.

Combat is visceral, requiring a combination of charge attacks, quick blows, parrying, kicking and spell casting. A hot bar located at the bottom of the screen represents Sareth’s belt and, by pressing the Tab key, you can access Sareth’s inventory and spell book and assign weapons, potions and abilities to each belt slot, which in turn binds that assignment to 1 through to 9 on the keyboard. The spells and weapons available to you is determined by your skill selection.

Skill points are awarded for completing mission objectives. The first tier skills require only a point or two to access, but as you progress down each skill tree, you’ll have to invest anywhere up to 12 points to gain a new ability.

Our main gripes with the game come from the lack of plot obfuscation, the counter-intuitive level design and the rope bow. It will quickly dawn on even the most dim-witted of crustaceans that Sareth is the spawn of evil and that he is being manipulated to free his father, the biggest evil of them all. Some levels feel like they were designed to be admired, not played through and the rope bow will have you swinging into all sorts of dead ends as you try to make your way around the less than obvious level design.

The game comes with 12 stages, and completion of the single player is achievable in about 10-15 hours. A multiplayer component, produced independently by developer Kuju, should see this time extended many times over if you want to take it online. Competent and playable until its conclusion, Dark Messiah is a solid start to what we hope will be the rebirth of the RPG-based Might and Magic. Although a lack of clear level design, lacklustre ‘end’ powers and that damned rope bow stop it from being perfect, the fun is in plentiful supply.