Virtually all of the changes made to Elements for its new life on the 360 only compound the game's existing flaws. Controls are extremely awkward. You lumber around like a dump truck, turning and backing up so slowly that these maneuvers should be accompanied by beeps. Distances are skewed so badly that it seems as if your sword is a good 10 feet long, given that you can pretty much hit enemies from across rooms. Jumping is even more of an annoyance because this distance distortion makes it impossible to tell exactly where you are. Good luck getting through the third chapter's chase sequence--where you leap across rooftops--without getting incredibly frustrated.
Technical issues are another story. The original PC version of the game was no looker, but this may be the ugliest game powered by Half-Life 2's physics-heavy Source-engine ever produced. Textures are flat, and every setting is so dark and murky that it's hard to pick out any details. You can adjust only the brightness and contrast, too, not the gamma, so you're really given a choice between scenes so muddy brown that you can't see the hand in front of your face or scenes so washed-out that you might as well be looking at your TV through cataracts. Loading times are another pain. The only saving grace here is that you don't get killed often enough in most levels for these 30-second loads to be a serious irritant. Finally, the game is a bit buggy. During our time with the game, the primary control buttons froze up at least three times, a situation in which you could freely move Sareth but couldn't access any functions or even retreat to the main menu to save the game. You have to drop out to the dashboard and restart the game to bring these functions back.
Multiplayer modes are being billed as the biggest additions to the 360 version of Elements, but they're just as disappointing as the rest of the game. Virtually nobody is playing the game online, as can be witnessed by the pitiful leaderboard scores. Of the multiplayer modes of play, only crusade has any promise, considering that the other deathmatch and blitz options are just as dull and dated as you might imagine. At any rate, nobody seems to be playing crusade anyhow, even though it has some appealing ideas; you can battle over multiple maps and reduce respawn tickets by holding control points similar to the Battlefield series on PC.
Itās unfortunate that despite the poor reception that the PC version received, the Xbox 360 version of the game didnāt turn out any better, and is actually worse in several ways. If youāre looking for an action-packed hack-and-slash game, you may just want to move on to a different game worthier of your time and money.
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Where to buy
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements (Xbox 360):
$9.00 - $19.29
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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$19.29 | Yes |
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$16.14 | Yes |
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$9.00 | Yes |
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