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Messiah (video game)

Messiah is a 2000 action-adventure video game developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Interplay Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. The game was promoted for its tessellation 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.

Gameplay
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. ==Plot==
Plot
The player controls Bob, an angel sent by God 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. ==Development==
Development
Lead designer David Perry intended Messiah to be targeted towards adults, in contrast to Shiny's previous games such as Earthworm Jim, and predominantly towards males. 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 the frame rate, and enabling real-time interpolation and volumetric lighting. In a 1997 interview Perry said Shiny had filed for a patent on the technology. The character models were built in 3D Studio In August 1999, Interplay recorded several promotional commercials with Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf from The 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. Songs by the band Fear Factory are used in the game's soundtrack ==Reception==
Reception
The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. The game was nominated for GameSpots 2000 "Most Disappointing Game" award, which went to Star Wars: Force Commander. ==Legacy==
Legacy
Throughout the game, the main character makes a sound (referred to as "oof"), which would later be used in the popular game Roblox as a sound effect for when a character dies. There was a subsequent legal dispute over the use of the "oof" sound, which led to a compensation agreement between Roblox Corporation and Tommy Tallarico, who worked on the soundtrack of Messiah. On July 26, 2022, the original sound was removed from Roblox and replaced with another new death sound. The sound effect returned to Roblox in July 2025 nearly 3 years after it got removed and replaced by a new one. ==References==
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