Messiah

Remember playing the demo way back, and after the graphics hype and all those new 3d techniques, it felt kind of boring, with some strange demonized characters and somewhat strange stuff going on around, so many years after the real deal, not my cup I have to say.

The game didn't even start for me. I am not tech-savvy so I did not change anything during the installation process, aside from ticking "Add a shortcut" option. Am I the only one having this issue?

Explaining the concept to make it sound fantastic is very easily done, but the lack of an open world really ruined it for me. I played the game start to finish when it came out, but only to see if it really did get any better. And it didn't. A less linear, bigger world would have done the idea justice, but I really don't think it's worth playing for more than 15 minutes.

I have been on GOG for a long time and this game does not deserve to be here. From the very start this game doesn't even run properly, you will find people in the help forums trying to help GOG users out since the version on this site is so bad (800x600 graphics locked in for most people). The actual game play is extremely underwhelming starting with the fact that the basic game mechanics aren't explained and once you do learn them you'll find that you're often in a situation where you save, jump around like a moron and hope you are lucky enough to continue. Oftentimes you aren't that lucky and then you'll be forced to re-load and try the spot you were in again. Not what I'm used to on this site and hopefully a title which will be either fixed or removed.

As someone seeing it with fresh eyes, this is a pretty dismal game, with horrible immersion. The levels don't feel even vaguely real; they're just organized set pieces to make you do things in a particular order. The interface is remarkably awkward for a shooter, and they don't really explain anything, leaving you floundering. I mean, the whole idea of the game is that you possess other creatures, and have them do your bidding, right? They DON'T EVEN TELL YOU HOW TO POSSESS CREATURES. (You have to jump into them from the back.) This is probably partially my fault for not reading the manual, and perhaps I'll get more out of it after doing that, but if you just sit down and play without finding outside help, you're likely to be extremely frustrated. Further, the controls are really strange. It's hard to aim where you want to, it's hard to shoot, it's hard to move. Basically, in every way imaginable, it's just awkward as hell, and frustrating. On top of THAT, your possessed character has an 'aggressive' mode and a 'non-aggressive' mode; you stay in the aggressive mode after shooting until you hit your use button. ANYONE WHO SEES YOU in attack mode (including your putative subordinates, after you take over a commander) will immediately turn hostile and start attacking. SHOOTING doesn't make them hostile, just having your gun up does. This is extremely frustrating and stupid, and it was this one decision alone that soured me on this game. Overall, I'd say to avoid it. It's just not very good.