Legends of Might and Magic Review

What happens when a prosperous project overgrows its initial developers and starts evolving spontaneously in a direction that is bound to end in a catastrophe? In a certain phase of its development, Legends of Might and Magic promised hard-core first-person action with a variety of role-playing elements, composed in a way that should please any Might and Magic fan. Instead of that, we got a multiplayer team-based shooter, set in the medieval atmosphere, nothing more than a battered and flawed version of Counter-Strike in a time machine.

The very first contact with the game will remind you of Counter-Strike: instead of the sophisticated "contemporary" choice between the terrorists and CT forces, you are given a choice between the good and the evil team, each of which supports up to sixteen players. The good team features three possible character classes: Paladin, Druid, and Sorceress, and the evil team features the Archer, Warrior, and Heretic classes. The classes are different, but it seems their differences were insufficiently developed and refined. The archers are proficient with bows, the Warriors and Paladins excel in mêl'e combat, and the Druids and Heretics are good at spell-casting. There are no other features that might seem typical for FRP games. Another thing less than typical for an FRP is the fact that practically all classes can use all weapons (with a slight exception of several highly expensive and exotic ones), which hinders diversity, and the need to create balanced teams. Experienced players will soon realize that the long-ranged fighters have substantial advantage over the melee fighters, which is typical for all games of this type, but it also makes half of the weapons redundant. Fortunately, LoMM does have quite an assortment of weapons (which are bought at the beginning of each round with the money you made in the previous round). Many of those weapons are pretty much the same and even though their price and performance may vary slightly, their appearance, sound and feeling is the same.

Most weapons are unsuccessful copies of weapons from other games. The magic weapons include three rods, three staves and three wands, each of which has a primary and secondary attack (Unreal Tournament anyone?). These are but medieval interpretations of missile weapons, which cast a bolt of lightning, ray or fireball. The secondary function of these weapons is clairvoyance, which gives you the ability to spot the enemy from quite a long way away. The Might arsenal consists out of throwing weapons like hammers, axes and knives, three bows and three crossbows. The secondary functions of these weapons are blatant copies of weapons from other games - for instance, the eye bow, lets you guide the projectile to your target (like with the Redeemer guided missile from UT). Apart from the standard, you can also buy special weapons like powerful scrolls and artifacts.

The most important elements in this type of games are the mods. LoMM features four mods altogether: Rescue the Princess, Warlord Escape, Slay the Dragon, and Sword in the Stone. In the Rescue the Princess mod, the good team has to save the princess from the clutches of the evil players, which is done by coming up to her and pressing the "use" key (hostage rescue mod from CS); Warlord Escape is a direct copy of the assassination mod from CS or Hunted from Half-Life - one player assumes the role of the Warlord and has to reach the other end of the map while one team defends him and the other team tries to kill him; Slay the Dragon is simple: the first team to kill the monster wins; and the Sword in the Stone is nothing else than a capture the flag mod. I shouldn't even mention that all the mods soon turn into a deathmatch as you can also win by annihilating the opposing team.