Messiah Review

8.5

Format PC

Developer Shiny Entertainment

Publisher Interplay

Genre Shoot 'em Up

Only the true Messiah denies his divinity. Unbeliever: Steve Hill

It is said that there are only seven different jokes in the world. It is also said that there are only seven different game genres. We don't know who said it, but surely someday one game will rashly try to encompass them all. Step forward, then, Messiah, the world's first third person, platform, puzzle, stealth-oriented shoot 'em up, action adventure. Oh yes... With an angel.

Messiah doesn't so much bust a genre as take elements of a cross section and stuff them into one all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza. Starring the aforementioned angel.

Yes, an angel - a fact that has already caused minor consternation among those with nothing better to do. Fuel was added to the fire by publishers Virgin, who released a typically controversial advert featuring a picture of the Pope clutching a home-rolled jazz cigarette, accompanied by the legend: 'What on Earth possessed you?'

Developers Shiny wondered what on Earth possessed Virgin, and were unsurprised to learn that the campaign was banned by a number of magazines, this one included. Some misguided religious zealots will inevitably pick up on the game as an example of the sickness permeating our society, but they will be well wide of the mark. Releasing a game called Messiah as we celebrate the 2000th birthday of Jesus Christ Our Saviour might be asking for trouble, but this is simply down to the game being hideously late, as opposed to any premeditated evil. Messiah is, of course, an adult game, but this is due to the more orthodox reasons of sickening acts of violence and foul and abusive language. Business as usual, then.

CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM

Despite the name, and the angel - which sounds more cringeworthy every time we mention it - Messiah is by no means a game about religion. Playing as an angel (cringe) is simply a mechanism for enabling you to take possession of other characters in the game. They could just have easily made it an alien life force, or even come up with some kind of soul transfer nonsense, a la The Nomad Soul, and then nobody would have raised an eyebrow.

But they didn't. They chose an angel. An angel called Bob, no less. This, in the perennial sixth form world of computer games is, of course, hilarious. An angel! Called Bob! Nurse, my sides!

That's Bob over there, in those pictures, and indeed on the cover of this very organ. Now we don't know what an angel looks like, for the simple reason that there's no such thing. Call us old-fashioned, but Bob looks like a slightly overweight child in a nappy, with wings (Bob, not the nappy). If pushed, we might concede that he's a cherub, while also pointing out that the design is not a million miles from the dancing baby popularised in typing pool TV favourite Ally McBeal.

But he isn't, he's an angel, and as the token story would have us believe: 'Bob is a working-class angel ordered by God himself to go and clean up the putrid, disgusting, sleazy and infested world of the future. He has been given the power of possession so that he can sneak up on any person, animal or genetically engineered being and leap right into their soul!

'With your help, Bob can then use their bodies, their weapons, or even their bare hands to strangle, cripple, impale and incinerate the cities of sinners sent to stop you from finding Satan himself.

By hi-jacking their souls, Bob can use these sinners' bodies against their will as armour (to take pain for him), or he can use them for camouflage (to hide inside them) and pretend to be just another twisted citizen in the Messiah world...

'The rules are up to you... Enjoy the freedom.'

VIDEO NASTY

That's that cleared up, then, and in case you can't read, the above tale is related via a (mercifully) brief FMV sequence that's supposed to be funny. It's an almost universal truth that every US games developer you meet will tell you that they 'love your Monty Python,' blissfully unaware of an entire generation of superior comedy (acknowledging only Benny Hill and Mr Bean). Shiny would appear to be no different, and the intro wears its Pythonesque influences on its pre-rendered sleeve. Set high in the clouds, the booming voice of God dispatches the reluctant Bob earthwards in a ball of mock-ecclesiastical flame. Bob lands smack between the shoulder blades of an oblivious cop, whose body he then possesses before embarking on a murderous spree of bloodletting, unleashing a carnival of violence which is entirely at odds with the cartoon intro and far from being angelic.

It's an incongruous concept, with an unorthodox lead character. Shiny don't specialise in orthodox characters, though: the underachieving MDK featured a rubber-suited man with a head like a penis, and the game which forged their reputation starred none other than an earthworm called Jim. If you want to get unnecessarily deep about it, Messiah could be considered a natural progression from Earthworm Jim, in that a weak central character becomes strong by immersing himself in a more powerful shell. In Jim's case, it's his super-hyper-duper-kinetic suit, and in young Bob's case, it's the bodies of the unfortunates that he possesses.

ANGEL DELIGHT

On his own, Bob's pretty useless - especially in a fight. He might be able to fly (but only with the grace and effectiveness of a fat fairy), but a couple of high velocity bullets aimed at the back of the head and he's one dead angel - despite television teaching us that angels are immortal. Perhaps they've just got lots of save games - something that is essential in Messiah, as death comes swiftly and often. However, as long as it's not Bob that's dead, it doesn't really matter. Other characters in the game are largely expendable, and Messiah forces you into something of a re-education in the way you play games.

Self-preservation comes instinctively, but once you have possessed a body, this doesn't have to be the case. In fact, it can be used to your advantage and opens up a whole new world of strategies. Consider, for instance, a situation where you are faced with two cops that you need to get rid of. You could wander around and find another character, jump into him and go at them with all guns blazing. You could also keep your distance and pick them off with the sniper mode, which offers three levels of zoom. Alternatively, you could sneak up on one of the rogue cops, jump up his arse without being detected, calmly stroll across to his buddy and shoot him in the temple from close range. You could then walk your possessed cop to a high place and simply force him to leap to his death, jumping out of his back at the crucial moment. Explaining what you are doing to a casual passer-by might prove more difficult, but it's nonetheless an interesting concept.

PULLING IT OFF

Interesting it might be, easy to pull off, it isn't. Due to Bob's limited stature, and the dubious fact that he has to enter his victims from the rear, the actual act of possession often proves to be an irksome task. If you can manage to sneak up on someone undetected, it's fairly straightforward, but once your cover is blown it becomes a frantic affair. Once alerted, your intended victim will naturally turn to face you and there then follows some desperate moments as you rapidly circle your spinning victim, hoping to jump into an orifice to gain access. It's not a particularly subtle element of the gameplay, and often depends as much on luck as judgement, particularly in the midst of a skirmish, when you will find yourself leaping into anything that moves (a bit like Peter Stringfellow). While it's not particularly refined, it can still make for some exciting exchanges, and in the heat of battle seeing the cherub emerge from the corpse of a stricken victim is enough to induce blind panic, while subsequent possession induces a palpable sense of relief. All of which is utter gibberish to anyone who doesn't play games.

Shiny's parent company, Interplay, boasts the motto 'By Gamers. For Gamers', and Messiah is certainly sticking to it. The entire length of the keyboard is utilised, as is the mouse, and it certainly isn't a case of pick up and play. Put it this way - you're not going to come home and find your mum having a dabble, neither will you find your four-year-old brother tearing through the levels. Which is just as well, as the game features strong language and adult themes.

PIMP WHORE PIMP WHORE

Adult themes? Well, it's got whores in it, if that counts, although if Shiny were looking to shock, they might have been better off not featuring prostitutes. Messiah isn't the first game to include hookers, and it won't be the last. We've all got access to hardcore pornography and a bit of computer-generated cleavage is scarcely going to raise a shrug. Besides, it does nothing to quash the image of computer games as the outlets of hormonally challenged loners.

As well as prostitutes and cops, Messiah features scientists, armoured behemoths, priests, bouncers, bondage dancers, pimps, gigolos, sewer people, vagrants, welders, nuclear technicians, riot police, bar tenders, medics and even rats, all of which can be possessed. The idea is that certain characters have particular skills that have to be used accordingly - although often it's simply a case of a door only opening for a certain rank of officer or, say, a nuclear area being safe only for radiation workers. The body you inhabit can also gain you access in other ways - providing you don't behave out of the ordinary, you can mingle with characters of your ilk. Conversely, stroll into a foreign area in the wrong body and you will be immediately challenged, particularly if you have your gun in combat mode. Different characters also react differently to being approached by a small cherub with wings. Some will be utterly bemused, some will shoot first and ask questions later, and others will ask questions first and not shoot at all - namely the scientists, who assume that you are the result of some macabre experiment.

FUTURE SHOCK

The world of Messiah is an overtly violent one in which street people known as Chots are constantly kicking off with the police. Riots are commonplace and you regularly get drawn in by either side, often changing the course of an altercation through your intervention. For instance, you can join in with the police, picking off the proletariat uprisers at will, or even unload into a colleague when no one is looking. And if your current character gets killed, you can simply (or not so simply) hop into another one. You might stroll into the middle of the skirmish and get ripped to shreds by the crossfire. It doesn't matter - that's the point.

The basis of Messiah is a simple case of good versus evil, and while it's fairly mercenary, people are going to have to die for the greater good. Die they do, and unlike most games, the dead bodies remain resolutely in place until you join them.

If you've had a look around, you'll surely agree that Messiah looks very nice, if not quite as mind boggling as was originally promised. It is set to look better in the future, though, as apparently the engine will adjust the detail of the characters and worlds to the maximum that your personal machine can handle. Shiny claim that you will actually get to see your PC being used at 100% of its capacity, with Messiah pushing every part to its full potential. Apparently, there is detail within the game engine that can't even be utilised on today's machines, and the idea is that technology will catch up with the game, effectively making it future-proof. There's no way to prove this, but if it is the case, expect a Messiah resurrection every couple of years. That would be in keeping with the game's name, after all.

LEVEL LEVEL

So what have they done with all this clever technology? Made a computer game, obviously. And it looks like one. Supposedly a near future version of Earth, the general look and feel of the locations appears to have been lifted straight from the Game Designer's Book Of The Future. Weapons and crates of explosives are left liberally scattered around, doors open with the obligatory hydraulic 'whoosh' and 'Access Denied' is repeated ad infinitum in a suitably robotic voice. And while we're all for real world locations, if we find ourselves in another warehouse, sewer or nightclub, we're going to have to punch someone in the throat.

All three make up a level of Messiah, along with some 13 others, all of which generally involve getting from one place to another without being killed. How you do this usually depends on who designed the level, and a variety of gaming styles are deployed, some of them covering a lot of old ground. Traditional door opening affairs are represented, as are platformers, and guiding a bloated cherub round some industrial areas proves particularly frustrating. A degree of thought has gone into some of the other levels and a clear strategy is usually required, although it often degenerates into a shooting match. Even so, it's still different from the norm, as you can only carry one weapon at a time. There are 10 or so weapons in the game, including flamethrowers, pump action shotguns, machine guns, bazookas, rocket-propelled harpoon guns, buzzsaws, ice guns and mines. Targeting is automatic, and it is largely a case of keeping your finger on the trigger, although more subtlety does come into play when sniping. And you can even have a go at someone with a welding torch - which must be a first.

VFM?

It's a mixed bag then, but this mixture of styles might irk some people. Then again, others might consider it value for money. It can lead to a dilution of focus though, and you can find yourself thinking in terms of a platform game, or a shooting game, or whatever section you are playing. There's an argument that this pick 'n' mix style of game presents less of a consistent experience. Whereas in Half-Life, you were fighting for your life, in Messiah the challenge often seems to be solving the game designer's puzzles.

Taken as a whole though, it does work, and if you can suspend your disbelief, Messiah is an intriguing game. There's constantly something going on, and much of the value is in seeing what's around the next corner. It's a fine piece of work, although whether it gives Shiny the hit they are so desperate for remains to be seen. Its mass market appeal is debatable, and it's certainly no Earthworm Jim, but in aiming high, Shiny have furnished us with a hardcore gaming experience that will test your manual dexterity and gaming acumen to their limits. Messiah is certainly an epic game, but after two and a half years, you'd really expect it to be.