Having long been a fan of the Heroes of Might & Magic (HoMM) Series I was extremely disappointed in HoMM 4 - the last release of a then floundering 3DO and New World Computing. The game was however given a new lease on life when almost three years ago 3DO Declared bankruptcy and put the franchise up for sale. In steps, French publisher Ubisoft, purchased the franchise and turned the game over to Nival Interactive, a Russian developer best know for their WWII games Blitzkrieg and Silent Storm. Fans like me have waited with baited breath since the announcement that a new chapter of the story would be released in 2006 to see if the franchise could be given new life. A few weeks ago it became clear that that wait was nearly over when Ubisoft released the HoMM 5 Open Beta. We eagerly queued up to download the beta, and found that it was only a multiplayer beta!. Undeterred, I dug deeper in to the game, and found a gem, but like a gem it has its flaws.
Starting the game the player is met with a wonderfully rendered battle between a cleric and a demon locked in the grip of never-ending battle. The player choices here are limited to playing Multiplayer though Ubi.com matching service which, at the moment is sadly lacking in complete features but will hopefully be fully fleshed out before launch (crossing fingers).
Upon entering the Ubi.com, the player is presented with two types of servers to choose from Duel or Training. The Duel Server allows the player to choose a pre-generated 15th level character and fight a one on one duel against another player; sadly, I could never get this feature to work as it would always end up with my computer frozen while trying to join a game. Training is the other option available at this time. This includes two maps: the first a two player map named Peninsula which starts the two players on opposite corners of the world with the simple objective of defeating the opposing player; the other map is a large map named Lost Town, pits two to four players against each other with the objective of capturing the central town first.
Entering either game you start with one hero next to your starting city with only your city in your control. Here is where another flaw of the beta begins to rear its head. The beta only includes turn based combat though there is an option for simultaneous turn based combat but it was apparently not finished in time for inclusion or intentionally left out of the game. This means games can take hours, as player turns can last a long time especially when factoring in the time it can take for battles. Though the game is painfully slow, when the simultaneous turns feature is added to the game it should dramatically decrease game times and move playing a full game back in the realms of possibility for most gamers.
The game looks phenomenal! The graphics are much improved; the game has been given a makeover with a new 3D engine. This new engine has several new features that most users will not only find useful but will help increase their enjoyment of the game - first and my personal favorite is the rotate feature. This allows the player to rotate the maps and opens up all those hidden items that in days past would have gone missed. Another addition to the game is the new beauty added through the engine.The environments are lush with trees, fields and amazing water features. The graphics of the game are tremendously improved with a detail that brings some life to each of the faction. That said there are some missing elements for the game, some features of the UI are missing and some of the graphics have a tacked on feeling but much of this I am sure will not only be finished but much more polished on release.
I have had the opportunity to play with the Dungeon, Academy and Haven factions and I must say that Nival has gone a long way to bring a unique flavor to each of these factions. From their cities to units, each piece is unique to its faction. Adventuring is without question my favorite part of the HoMM series and there is no lack of it in HoMM 5. I can attest there are hours upon hours of exploring and adventuring that can be done on even the smallest of maps. Thankfully, this game has retained the flavor that makes HoMM so much fun to play with artifacts, dungeons, monsters, and resources scattered though out the map the player always can find something new to discover.
Perhaps the most striking addition to the game is the 3D representation of the cities. Each city has an amazing level of detail. For example, with each increased rank of a building, the player adds an additional piece to the city that is represented in tremendous detail on the faŠ·ade of that city both in the city and map views. This was most apparent to me when playing as Haven. As the city expanded along the central peak each major structure was represented on the map view. Along with its addition the city would grow, starting from a fortified town into a nearly impregnable citadel.
The game is buggy and while technically a beta it's not as polished as one would expect of a game shortly scheduled for release. There are many annoying graphical bugs and more serious crash issues; parts of the UI are incomplete, truncated and out of alignment. This, when combined with the limited client were a huge disappointment to the HoMM community (I spent quite of time on the community beta boards). Thankfully Ubisoft has listened to player complaints and has pushed the release of the game back to a now unspecified street date (one can assume it will still be in Q1 2006). It's with this reprieve that one can hope that Nival will not only have time to polish the games more obvious flaws but also narrow down its more annoying crashes.
I'm rather in the dark of where Nival and Ubisoft plan to go with the games single player campaign, though the HoMM V website promises a vast game with six factions featuring in six individual campaigns (persuadably one for each faction) and more then thirty missions, an included map editor, and more then 80 unique units available to players. I have to admit, that while the game was extremely frustrating at first once, you manage to get in and play it you realize this may be one of the better RTS games of 2006. I for one am looking forward to seeing the final product.
Raised in Massachusetts and made move to south of the Mason/Dixon line to the lovely state of MD. I have been working Desktop support for the last 2 years for Games Workshop. When not working for the Galactic Toy Company I am playing any one of 8 MMOs or Numerous console games.
