I picked up a copy of messiah at a local discount story and was surprised at its design. I was wondering if other people here would agree or not and thought I''d bring the matter up. Good parts of the Messiah design: 1. There were very VERY few places where you could get truly stuck if you saved it there (at least in easy mode). Also once you knew how to get past something it ussually didn''t take very long. 2. You are given a couple of tools at the start and use them to solve puzzle''s all throughout the game. 3. Most equipment lies at logical spots (only very occasional weapon at the top of the shelf where you can only get by making 5/6 good jumps). There were weapon dispensors where you could request a weapon from if you were in a humanoid form. 4. It was very linear. Although this could be both an advantage as a disadvantage, I liked that I nearly never was in a large place, not sure whether I had missed that special character, the hidden key or switch or maybe a door. *****POTENTIAL SPOILER***** 5. The ending for most people would be very unsatisfying, but to me it was great... I really like bad endings. However it could have been made a little longer, because at the end you just want to relax and think of your achievement. You should expect a bad ending either way for defying god 6. There was an interesting plot twist. You might have missed it somewhat if you didn''t explore your surroundings/ read the manual intro. 7. The setting, apart from disadvantage #3, was quite good. I really liked the way all surroundings contributed to this: there were screens that actually portayed news (including sound), there were screens portraying things that were being studied (satan, you, behemoths) and most of all I liked the lottery screen with texts of all the things you could win "Win, the will to live" "Win, ideals" "Win, motivation". It was a plain tool of saying what the world lacked. Bad parts of the Messiah design: 1. I wasn''t too fond of the whole red light district. Yes, I live in Holland (where it is legal). No, I wasn''t offended by the sprites/sound. Yes, I was offended of being treated like an adolescent. 2. Sometimes you just had to change stuff to get something to happen. You weren''t sure of what you are doing pressing all the different controls, but apparantly your character did. You''d think he would share his info. This hurt the getting immersed part. 3. God and Satan are both subjected to the strength of humanity it seems. I rather disliked their weakness though. Satan dies if he doesn''t keep drinking blood all the time? God doesn''t care about his subjects? 4. The controls were a bit awkward to start with... an optional tutorial might have been nice (at the beginning of the game you do get introductory texts that help out, but a little more help on combat & holstering weapons would have been appreciated) Well to those that played it... how did you like it?

plasmadog, definitaly a serious disadvantage I forgot!
That was a real problem.

I too had some hardware problems but that''s not part of the design I suppose.