Messiah

Herald rating: *****

Shiny Games

PC

$99.95

MA Restricted (15+)

Review: Peter Eley

Could this be the most controversial computer game to date?

Take the blurb on the box: "Bob is a working-class angel ordered by God himself to clean up the putrid, disgusting sleazy world of the future. He has been given the power of possession so that he can sneak up on any person and leap right into their soul!

"With your help, Bob can then use their bodies, their weapons or their bare hands to strangle, cripple, impale and incinerate the cities of sinners sent to stop you finding Satan himself."

But wait, there's more. Just in case extreme violence and blasphemy aren't enough, there are sado-masochistic bondage girls, prostitutes and sleazy nightclubs where priests run the bar and nuns serve the drinks.

And Bob, a deceptively cherubic figure clad in a nappy, despatches the bad people with weapons ranging from a welding torch to a rocket-propelled harpoon.

This is hard-core stuff, especially in the post-Columbine era where the content of games is under intense scrutiny. Straightforward Quake-style shoot-em-ups are deemed bad enough, but adding blasphemy and sleaze to the mix is almost begging for it.

And some of the social comment is questionable. Working-class people are sewer-dwelling cannibals with rugby-score IQs, while middle class folk are portrayed as pathetic slaves of self-help propaganda.

The depiction of the game's women characters - all butch uniforms and questionable morals - will be especially offensive to many.

So the content is dodgy, but what about the game? It's great - beautifully presented, a quirky and original plot, super graphics, lots of depth and laced with black humour of the darkest hue.

Messiah has a lot more going for it, especially in single-player mode.

While at its base level it's very much a first-person action game, many situations can't be solved by simply blasting away. You need to possess the right people, and doing this is the key to the game.

Bob is a distinctive character, as angels tend to be, especially ones wearing nappies. To be inconspicuous in a security facility he has to possess a worker, in a nightclub he has to possess disco dancers of dubious sexuality.

It's a top game with highly dubious content - so be warned.

Required: Pentium 11 233, 64mb ram, 8mb 3D accelerator.

E-mail: peter_eley@herald.co.nz