At last, a
worthy new version of the classic Heroes of Might and Magic! It’s been a long,
long time since HOMM II, the best-ever turn-based strategy game. HOMM III was
good, but frankly just wasn’t as much fun. HOMM IV was too different. This
time around, Nival has played it safe and produced an updated, but still
essentially similar game that plays pretty much the same as HOMM II and HOMM
III.
The most
immediate feature worth noting are the graphics. The camera rotates 360
degrees and allows players to zoom in and out around the map and also to
rotate and zoom inside the towns. This all looks really great, but it requires
a high-end graphics card. Not only that, if the game doesn’t like the card, it
just won’t play, no matter how updated the video driver. If you’re unfortunate
enough to have the GeForce 4MX card (which I did have), just get ready to
shell out the bucks and get a new card. My new card is an ATI Diamond S9250
256, and it is simpatico with the game.
Even on the
lowest video quality settings, the environment and objects are very appealing.
At the highest setting, the graphics are better, but the difference isn’t
dramatic as they were already very good. The characters are all distinctly
drawn, and great care seems to have been taken to give each unit an appearance
befitting their actions and descriptions. The Imp, though, looks more cute
than evil and closely resembles Stitch from Disney’s Lilo & Stitch. In the
battles, the characters are animated and have a wide range of motion as they
fight or move across the board. When an enemy stack is killed, often the
opposing units will cheer, which is neat.
But enough
about the pretty pictures, what about the gameplay? Well, it is a solid
turn-based strategy game that focuses on collecting resources, building up
towns in order to have strong armies and basically trying to get a bigger,
better army more quickly than the computer’s guys. Yep, it’s all about who has
the biggest and baddest units, especially in the first portions of the game.
Later on, it becomes more balanced with the need to defend and protect against
marauding enemies. Don’t let your castles remain undefended, or they’ll be
lost.
The
single-player mode consists of six campaigns, each with five missions. As each
mission can take a while to complete, this is a nice, long game that will take
some time to play. The first campaign is a tutorial designed to introduce
players to the main features of HOMM. All five missions are included, and the
pacing of the tutorial seems almost dawdling at times, until the fifth and
last mission. This slow pace would be just fine if all the necessary
information about the game was included, but unfortunately for players new to
the HOMM world, it’s not.
This
tutorial can take even longer to finish due to an often obtuse and confusing
English translation. For instance, one tutorial mission states that enemy
scouts have to be cleared from the map. Well, to my mind, a scout can move
around and therefore should be one of the opposing heroes. However, it turned
out that the “scouts” were actually the various dark magical units (as opposed
to the knight/haven units) that were stationary guards in front of resources
and buildings. Another tutorial mission has an objective of upgrading the mage
building to level three. Well, again, I was confused and thought that the
buildings that were unlocked after the second mage upgrade were actually the
upgraded mage buildings, but this turned out not to be the case. Instead, the
upgrade was obtained by building on the same picture as the previous building.
Even for
pros there is much that is left unexplained, such as an easy way to see all
the resource mines players own at a glance, just how exactly do the
characters’ special abilities work during battle, and any information at all
about all the opposing units in the game. These and other similar burning
questions will have to be learned during the course of the game. The most
pressing question for many players will probably be about the various units’
characteristics, which really should have been included in the manual. I mean,
how hard would it have been to include a couple of pages describing them?
However,
despite the sometimes ho-hum pace of the first campaign, it’s still a whole
lot of fun to get reacquainted with the Heroes world! And, the slow pace
allows everyone to get used to moving around the freely rotating maps, which
can sometimes be tricky. It’s very easy to come up unexpectedly against an
unseen enemy horde behind a tree, or to get all turned around by rotating the
camera view on one hero, then discover that the next hero to be moved is now
oriented differently than previously, because the whole map moves with the
camera. There is a mini-map that can be displayed at the bottom left of the
screen, but the exact direction is still problematic as the line drawing that
encloses the view around the current hero is a weird geometric shape that has
no distinct north/south or up/down direction. Just having an “orient North”
option on the mini-map would have been extremely helpful.
The
interface is streamlined and intuitive, despite the lack of detailed
information about resources and opposing units. The main two menus consist of
a basic movement, building and battle menu at the bottom right, which can be
toggled back and forth between hero movement and town building, and another
menu on the left that is a collection of frequently used commands that access
the tavern to hire heroes, and also link to the marketplace, magic guild and
blacksmith buildings. The menu on the right will turn into a building and
unit-purchasing tool when players are in the town, a movement menu when
players are traveling, and a battle menu when fighting enemies. These menus
are easy to understand and use.
While the
interface is kept simple for ease of use, a game this complicated needs a
little more information for players. While pop-up menus are available for
information on heroes and objects, more information on opposing units and
resources would have been greatly appreciated. One good addition (I don’t
remember this feature in HOMM II, but it may have been in HOMM III) is the use
of icons on the town menu pictures that let players know if a building is
being currently added or not. This is very handy, as it is easy to forget
what’s being built where and when during a turn and to inadvertently end a
turn before everything that can be done, is done.
The AI of
the computer opponents is difficult to judge. Sometimes they seem very
intelligent and hard to beat, and sometimes they seem rather stupid. The
opponents make good decisions during battles for the most part, although they
don’t seem to choose to retreat before the end of the battle, which was a main
feature of the AI in HOMM II. This would ensure that the hero would survive
and be able to be recruited again from an enemy castle, powers intact. This
feature seems to be lacking now, or at least, I didn’t experience it. A few
times an enemy hero came charging at one, hot for battle, but with only a
pitiful few in his or her army against the hordes stacked up in the player’s
army. This only happened sometimes, though, so the AI just appears slightly
erratic at times.
The maps are
designed very well and aren’t crowded. There are still the same resource
mines, resource goody piles, money and artifacts to be picked up as before,
but there appear to be less artifacts lying around. Collecting powerful attack
and defense artifacts was part of the fun previously, and is a little missed.
The maps also don’t seem to be as large, either, but that may just be my
impression.
The three
main modes of play are the single-player campaign, the custom maps (standalone
scenarios) and the multiplayer mode. Many will be disappointed about not
having the map editor mode for sandbox play, but that will probably be added
by an expansion. The multiplayer option can be on a LAN or on the Ubisoft
site. Players can choose to start their own game, or join another in the
lobby. There is a ladder at Ubi for game-ranking purposes, but players can opt
to join a game in Training mode, which ensures the results won’t be ranked in
the ladder. Besides regular game play, there is also a duel mode available.
A new twist
to multiplayer has been added with a Ghost option, which is a neat way to
while away those down moments during other players’ turns. This ghost can
curse opponents’ mine sites and the other heroes, and also weaken the other
ghosts’ negative influence.
Music is an
important aspect of HOMM and I’m happy to report that the musical score is
very nice and pleasant to hear. Just as in other editions, it has a classical
flavor. The sound effects are not designed as well, though, and the sounds of
sawing and hammering are strangely missing.
The hero
classes are the familiar ones that have been the most popular in the series,
such as the knight (Haven) and elf (Sylvan) races. The barbarians are gone,
though, which is sad, I liked the barbarians. Archers, steel golems, titans,
bone dragons, griffins, angels and other favorites are here, and some new
creatures are also added, like the pit lords, blade dancers and horned
overseers. One new aspect is that not everyone is on a horse this time around!
It’s disconcerting at first to see an opposing hero bounding toward one
mounted on a dragon, but it’s cool!
I was very
excited when I learned that Ubisoft had picked up the rights to HOMM. While
many people preferred HOMM III over II, I just couldn’t get my heart into HOMM
III. The maps were crowded and unappealing in my opinion. HOMM IV doesn’t
count. With HOMM V, I was hopeful, but apprehensive. Well, fans of the series
can be happy, this game is almost everything it should be, with only a few
drawbacks. Basically, if the design team had spent more time on the game, it
would have been an almost perfect game. But, as it is, there are too many bugs
and rough edges to get the highest ratings. Even though the launch was delayed
to fix some of these problems, the end product still feels rushed and a patch
had to be fashioned almost at once after the release. The most problems center
on the video cards, but the patch is supposed to fix some of those video card
conflicts. Also, there is a lag issue with some people, even if they possess
the minimum system requirements. However, I’m currently playing with below
minimum system requirements for RAM and while some of the saved games do take
a while to load up, once loaded, gameplay proceeds at a fair pace.
Heroes of
Might and Magic has always been about strategy in a board-game setting, where
players take their time making decisions on each turn. Building up a huge
army, amassing tons of money and resources and beating those pesky enemy
heroes is what it’s all about. This is the same HOMM as previous editions and
most fans will be satisfied. The good features have mostly been left intact,
and the new features are welcomed additions. Much of the new content is
centered around the units and heroes, with things like special abilities
added. There is still the depth of gameplay and hours involved, and the same
“just one more turn” that will eat into the nighttime. People new to the
Heroes’ universe who enjoy a good strategy game should definitely give this
one a try, as well.
As a
long-time fan of the HOMM series, I absolutely recommend this game with only
one caveat: make sure your system will run the game before purchasing. Take
the warnings about the non-compatible video cards seriously. There is a demo
available, download it and try it first. If it works on your system, the
retail game will run as well. Good luck and enjoy!
|
|
Gameplay: 8.0
The gameplay is
deep and involving and will eat up the hours as players continue to take one
more turn. Pretty pictures, fun items to collect and plenty of chances to
level up all add to the general fun. For those who enjoy online play, there
are many options available. However, the sandbox mode is missing so fan-based
maps won’t be possible. Also, there are way too many technical bugs involved,
which can definitely affect gameplay.
Graphics: 9.0
It all looks
wonderful!
Sound: 8.0
The music is
great and is of a classical style. While I have heard better scores in a few
games, the musical score here is very enjoyable.
Difficulty: Medium
The difficulty
level ranges from four choices of easy (added with the patch) to heroic. This
basically ups the ante on the opponents’ AI, and sometimes makes resource
allocation choices more problematic.
Concept: 7.0
It’s the same
HOMM basically as before with nothing startlingly new or innovative added.
Multiplayer: 8.0
There are many
options for multiplayer and the ghost mode is a fun addition. There are
currently a few connectivity problems reported, and also some issues with
different versions of the game.
Overall: 8.0
A great
turn-based strategy series has gained a worthy addition. HOMM V is everything
a strategy fan would want, and remains faithful to what made it great in the
first place. While some things could have been better, like bigger maps, more
uniform opponent AI and a sandbox mode, what is present is more than enough to
warrant getting the game.
