Once, back in the dimly remembered golden days of PC gaming, there was a company known as New World Computing. This company, one of the giants of RPG development, was responsible for one of the best loved series of role playing games to be found on a cathode ray tube: Might and Magic. The series was famous not just for the quality of the gameplay, but for a sense of quirky irreverence that was made manifest in almost all aspects of the game. They were serious RPGs that didn’t take themselves too seriously. Fast forward to today, and New World Computing is long gone, but the Might and Magic name remains.

Unfortunately for fans, the current caretaker of the series, Ubisoft, has treated it like a dying mule, working it as hard as possible before sweet, merciful death finally comes. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements is the latest humiliation for this once proud series. The game is a port of the middling PC original, and the first Might and Magic game on the 360. Somehow, in the process of bringing the game to the 360, Ubisoft Annecy managed to turn a mediocre game into an execrable one.

In the process of porting, nearly every element of the game became worse. The graphics, not exactly cutting edge to begin with, look like they were redone with the PS2 as a target platform. For a game that is primarily a tunnel crawler, the low resolution of the textures is baffling. If you’re going to reuse the same textures endlessly throughout a level, as this game does, it would be nice if they didn’t look like a blurred mess to begin with. The problems don’t end with the textures, either - the game shows paucity in nearly every element of graphical design, as if they had to stretch a small quantity of artistic assets across a game two or three times too long for them. Get used to seeing the same enemy, exactly the same enemy, over and over and over again. The first enemy you encounter in the game, a black armored knight, is the only enemy you’ll be seeing for several levels, and every last one of them looks identical, barring their weapons. The similarity isn’t just skin deep, however - these black knights are apparently all brothers, as every last one of them has the same voice.

The surrealism doesn’t end there, however. The AI may be artificial, but it certainly isn’t intelligent. The game offers the chance to play as an assassin, capable of hiding in the shadows, but the AI is patently incapable of dealing with that stealth. Many times, after quietly killing the first of a pair of conversing guards, the second one stood there motionless, continually repeating his half of the conversation, talking to thin air. Those rare guards who didn’t feel inclined to continue talking to their dead friends instead often chose to run in circles, screaming threats, or ran headlong into doors and walls, as if they could force their way through by sheer persistence. These, however, are just the most visible flaws in the AI and scripting system - there are also occasions where scripted events fail to start, or stall halfway because of an AI bug.

When the AI does work, however, the combat system it reveals is as lackluster as the rest of the game. Whether you choose to play as a warrior, assassin, mage, or archer, you’ll find yourself shackled by an incredibly restrictive auto-aim system that cannot be adjusted or disabled. Once your cursor so much as nears a target, it will lock on until their death, unless you jerk your view far enough away to remove them from your sight. Presumably this was intended to help console players deal with the absence of precision mouse control, but in a game that primarily consists of tunnels and small rooms all it does is make dealing with groups incredibly difficult.

Still, AI and scripting are only problems in the single player game. Dark Messiah also offers a hypothetical multiplayer mode, where you can face off against other players in fairly standard deathmatch and conquest style games. I say hypothetical because while the game does include a multiplayer mode, the only way you’re ever going to experience it is by rounding up a group of friends and forcing them, at gunpoint, to buy the game. There are, quite literally, no matches to join at any given time. No one is playing this game online. There are no ranked matches, no player matches—no matches of any sort whatsoever. If there was anyone actually playing, however, they’d be able to pick from one of four classes, and they’d be able to register with Ubisoft online, in order to get a nifty helmet. Since there isn’t anyone actually playing, it’s kind of a moot point.

It’s sad to see a beloved series sink so low—like watching a childhood friend fall to drink and destitution, stumbling into the street to be hit by a truck. A truck hauling toxic chemicals. A truck that was on fire, and covered in spikes. All you can do is shake your head sadly, and try to stay out of the mess.