| Messiah | |
|---|---|
 North American cover art | |
| Developer | Shiny Entertainment |
| Publisher | Interplay Entertainment |
| Producer | Stuart Roch |
| Designer | David Perry |
| Programmer | Michael Saxs Persson |
| Composers | |
| Platform | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | |
| Genre | Action-adventure |
| Mode | Single-player |
Messiah is a 2000action-adventurevideo game developed byShiny Entertainment and published byInterplay Entertainment forMicrosoft Windows. The game was promoted for itstessellation technology, which was claimed to drastically increase or reduce the number of polygons based on the speed of the system running the game.Messiah received a mixed response from reviewers.
Messiah is a 3D action game in which the player controls an angel named Bob from the third person. Bob has the ability to possess the bodies of other characters, which serves as a mechanic for progression through the game. When a character is possessed, a halo floats over their head. Bob is able to abandon these bodies, but if spotted, will be attacked by enemies.[3]
The player controls Bob, anangel sent byGod to remove the corruption and sin on Earth. The dictator of Earth, Father Prime, is conducting experiments into other dimensions on the dark side of the Moon. Soon after landing on Earth, Bob's existence is deemed illegal and he finds himself hunted by police, along with the military. Meanwhile, Father Prime's experiments succeed in bringing Satan into the mortal plane. After making his way through the cyberpunk city of Faktur, Bob confronts and defeats Father Prime. Bob is then asked to return by God, telling him that if humans are prepared to tamper with His creations, there is no place for Him on Earth and leave them to their own devices. Bob refuses, and this turns out to be a ruse by Satan to lead the cherub astray.
After making his way through the industrial parts of the city, Bob infiltrates a nuclear power station and transports himself to the facility on the dark side of the Moon, ultimately confronting and banishing Satan, which destroys the facility. The ensuing explosion launches Bob onto a barren part of the Moon. Bob repeatedly implores God to take him home but is met with silence.
Lead designerDavid Perry intendedMessiah to be targeted towards adults, in contrast to Shiny's previous games such asEarthworm Jim,[4] and predominantly towards males.[5] The game was developed by 10 people.[6] The development team heavily touted the game's tessellation technology, which they said could reduce or increase the number of polygons displayed in real time based on the hardware running the game, thereby maximizing the level of detail possible on any given hardware setup, stabilizing theframe rate, and enabling real-timeinterpolation andvolumetric lighting.[4][7][8] In a 1997 interview Perry said Shiny had filed for apatent on the technology.[9] The character models were built in3D Studio[4] and were all animated usingmotion capture, with a person withdwarfism serving as the motion capture actor for Bob.[4][8]
In February 1998, a couple years beforeMessiah was released, theLos Angeles Times reported a public outcry over the title. Perry explained, "It's crazy that all these people are already upset and they haven't even seen the game." Jeff Green ofComputer Gaming World stated, "You can't use the word 'messiah' and not know you're going to tweak the sensibilities of the religious community." The developers received upset responses from many Christian organizations as well as consumers, including one that commented, "The word 'messiah' is such a powerful word, I just can't ignore it or its connotations. I know there are a lot of things out there that already tarnish religious imagery. But I just can't support a company that would throw around that word so lightly."[5]
In August 1999, Interplay recorded several promotional commercials withHank the Angry Drunken Dwarf fromThe Howard Stern Radio Show. Hank would don an angel costume and wandered the streets of various cities with a sign to publicly promote the game.[10] Songs by the bandFear Factory are used in the game's soundtrack[3] and the game makes use of sound effects by composersTommy Tallarico and Joey Kuras.[11]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| GameRankings | 74%[12] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| AllGame |   [13] |
| CNET Gamecenter | 7/10[14] |
| Computer Games Strategy Plus |  [15] |
| Computer Gaming World | [16] |
| Edge | 7.5/10[17] |
| GameFan | 85%[18] |
| GamePro | [19] |
| GameRevolution | C+[20] |
| GameSpot | 6/10[21] |
| GameSpy | 91%[22] |
| IGN | 7.5/10[23] |
| Next Generation | [24] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 77%[25] |
The game received "average" reviews according to thereview aggregation websiteGameRankings.[12] The earliest review came fromEdge, which gave it a score of seven out of ten, nearly two months before the game itself was released in North America, and over two months before its European release date.[17]Computer Gaming World declared the title "truly repellent - I don't even like to think of the sort of sadist who would enjoy it." The review detailed that beside "a level of sexism that goes beyond the usual demeaning stereotypes" and "adolescent edginess" that "there's a general atmosphere of cruelty, of enjoying violence not for the adrenaline rush of the action or even for the fun of cartoonish bloodshed - but for the realistic pain it causes."[16] Jim Preston ofNextGen said, "If you can get past some technical glitches, awkward controls, and routine gameplay,Messiah will deliver – for a little while."[24]
According to author Erik Bethke,Messiah was a commercial flop, with "fewer than 10,000 units sold in its first three months".[26] The game was nominated forGameSpot's 2000 "Most Disappointing Game" award, which went toStar Wars: Force Commander.[27]
Throughout the game, the main character makes a sound (referred to as "oof"), which would later be used in the popular gameRoblox as a sound effect for when a character dies.[28] There was a subsequent legal dispute[29] over the use of the "oof" sound, which led to a compensation agreement betweenRoblox Corporation andTommy Tallarico, who worked on the soundtrack ofMessiah. On July 26, 2022, the original sound was removed fromRoblox and replaced with another.[30][31] The sound effect returned toRoblox in 2025.[32]