First Impressions

[Marine OKeefe]

My Short and Opinionated review of HoMM V, based on my expereince in the Haven Campaign maps 1-3 and a 10 hour long 8 player Scenario.

Packaging Presentation.
To me, a game's packaging and presentation mean alot about the game its publisher and devloper. HoMM V however was a digitally purchased game, therefor its physical packaging cannot be reviewed, however Direc2Drive can. As usual the purchase/download and intsall all go perfectly smooth. However patching did not. The 1.1 patch offered by Direct2Drive fails to recocnise the game's installation, a Google seacrh only helped me understand that if something doesnt work then everyone will accuse you of software piracy.
To get the patch to stop complaining that the game wasnt installed I tried to patch it while thagem was open and running. It worked for me and hopefully this helps others with the same issue. Get the 1.1 from www.filefront.com since that one is diffferent then the one offered at Direct2Drive and this one really works.
The UI graphics and main menu are very nice, although the game options are lacking, especially im comparison to the previous games in the series, and the Cutsom Game options are painfully limited.

Na%
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User Interface
This is mostly just opinion after opinion but.... I like this interface BETTER then the one used in HoMM IV, that interface felt too cluttered with too many buttons that do the same thing etc... There werea few buttons missing in this game however "Wait" is one of them, "Garrison/Ungarrison Group" another and finally "Split" all of these things can be done through the use of hotkeys, but I prefer shiney buttons.
Tooltips, they are awesome. You can right-click and get info on just about any object in the game. I think more games should include this, although you cant RightClick on the ground for info on its movement modifiers, So I'm not even sure ground effects anything although I do know Heroes prefer to take roads.

100% Best interface in any game, period.
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Graphics
Graphics do not affect a game's final rating at all, except in extreme conditions. Example: If HoMM V looked like HoMM I I would complain. The game looks very nice. Not as high-tech as some of the others out today which makes it easier on low-end gamers. The water is top-notch at least and everything looks great unless you zoom in very close.
The artistic style, while an improvement on HoMM IV had some questionable artistic choices included. For example Vine-Only wearing Sprites, Provacative 'Female' Angels and Fat Peasants .... These are all matters of opinion as well, but then again how much I like the game as a whole is also an opinion.

80%
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Sound
Not so great.... the sound effects are easily forgettable and the music and misc sounds are nothing short of annoying, at least this is in-line with the rest of the series which also featured crummy sound. I turned off the music and played WMP with my "Oblivion - Explore" Playlist which consists of "Battle For Middle Earth" "Divine Divinity" "Morrowind" "Oblivion" and "Titan Quest" soothing style songs, mush better in my opinion that if you have any/all of these games that you use their music instead. The volume could have used some adjusting. Battle-Crys and Cheers are too quiet, ToolTip clicking too loud.

50%
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Gameplay
The heart and soul of any game. (Unless your a console gammer ) This where the game shines and outshines any other. A create-a-hero option would have made this game perfect in this catagory, but everything it does has is very very good. A few gameplay features missed from the HoMM games should make a come back in a patch or something, such as Caravans, Non-Hero Armies, Garrisons and more Creature-Banks.

95% This game's gameplay is unparallel, although the above missing features make it inperfect.

Overall 90% - Because its awesome where it counts even if its lacking in the sound and video departments, I dont care! There is no other game I would spend 10 hours straight on!

PS: Yes I won the 10 Hour match, it was an 8 player game on Heritage, the final battle as an Epic fight with my Starting Hero (My fav) versus their Alastor who fingle-handedly destroyed three of my cities before I finally caught up with him with my main army and even then I had to summon in some reinforcements to ensure victory.

[PhoenixReborn]

Heritage is one of the best maps for epic battles. What difficulty are you playing on? If you played heritage than you know that the 'options' are much more available for the multiplayer maps than the single scenarios.

I use a mod which eliminates the tooltip click sound (thanks to whoever made that).

I don't think you need to attack console gamers but that is just my opinion. Why I was just speaking to a "console gamer" yesterday who had enjoyed heroes iv and recommended to me final fantasy tactics.

Anyhow nice review and I'm glad that you can see through some of the problems to see that there is a good game.

[Marine OKeefe]

Heritage is one of the best maps for epic battles. What difficulty are you playing on? If you played heritage than you know that the 'options' are much more available for the multiplayer maps than the single scenarios.

I use a mod which eliminates the tooltip click sound (thanks to whoever made that).

I don't think you need to attack console gamers but that is just my opinion. Why I was just speaking to a "console gamer" yesterday who had enjoyed heroes iv and recommended to me final fantasy tactics.

Anyhow nice review and I'm glad that you can see through some of the problems to see that there is a good game.

I was playing on Easy, since I was just starting out.

I use that mod as well for the tooltip sounds, but It doesnt count in a review anyway.

I dont think you need to accuse me of attacking console gamers, period. Especially since I did no such thing.

[armakh]

I very much disagree with you about the music. I love it. In fact, the music is one of the parts that makes the game and the whole series so good for me.

[Sh33m4]

Yeah, the music is good if you ask me (which you didn't but...), especially Haven and Sylvan towns have some great music with them.

[Marine OKeefe]

Yeah, the music is good if you ask me (which you didn't but...), especially Haven and Sylvan towns have some great music with them.

Meh, I prefer mellower (Is that word?) music, the Haven music especially is just too "Energetic" she sounds like an opera lady running away from something chasing her. The Two Haven Battle songs are catchy though, too bad there is no super-easy way to replace the songs used by the game.

[Lady Farquad]

I very much disagree with you about the music. I love it. In fact, the music is one of the parts that makes the game and the whole series so good for me.

I Absolutely agree with you. Have you ever waited at the game menu for the whole choir? It's great and as far as I know, it's original too (composed for the game right?)

[Zombie_Inc]

Yeah, the music is great, throughout the series. I really like in this one that it's always the same theme, but when you're playing Necro it's a sinister variation, and when you play Haven it's more noble music...

[PhoenixReborn]

Gameplay
The heart and soul of any game. (Unless your a console gammer )

I apologize if my words came off harsh. This is what I was referring to. You must have been making a joke.

I'm curious about why you shouldn't include a mod in a review? Isn't modability a plus when it comes to a game?

[Marine OKeefe]

Gameplay
The heart and soul of any game. (Unless your a console gammer )

I apologize if my words came off harsh. This is what I was referring to. You must have been making a joke.

I'm curious about why you shouldn't include a mod in a review? Isn't modability a plus when it comes to a game?

Modability isnt the same as any particular mod. I would have mentioned any modability, but there is no official modding support, not even a mape maker yet. If moddability was something supported and included by the game Officially then I would have mentioned its modability as a plus.

[asandir]

and the point you just raised, lack of map editor, is the reaseon i could not rate it above 70% (that and the bugs) for the initial release, after 1.1 it would have been about 80% and after 1.2 back down to 70%, but otherwise not a bad review

[Marine OKeefe]

The map editor would have added Official moddability, which would have been a huge plus to me.

[asandir]

not to mention immediate replayability!!! especially considering the "massive" number of scenario maps in the game on release

[Marine OKeefe]

There werent ANY team maps on release, which is aggrivating. Iv'e downloaded some unoffocial ones since then, but they do not count.

[asandir]

and hence my rating of the game would have been significantly below yours, yes the gameplay is good, but there are a lot of negatives there as well

[PhoenixReborn]

I suppose I'm nitpicking here but the fact is that you can use the team maps. The net effect is the same regardless of whether it is official or not. I mean they could just as easily have 'locked' the game like they just did with multiplayer cheats.

The fact that it is possible to do team maps is a big plus, since it isn't already present in the game on release. It's also a good sign for the map editor which will also have the capability for creating linked campaigns. Was that possible in previous Heroes games? I don't remember anything like that for Heroes 2 and I'm only just now playing 3.

[asandir]

maybe im nitpicking too, be we don't actually have a map editor yet .... i would hold off on acclamations until we see whether it is worth it

i truly hope so

[Caradoc]

I suppose I'm nitpicking here but the fact is that you can use the team maps. The net effect is the same regardless of whether it is official or not. I mean they could just as easily have 'locked' the game like they just did with multiplayer cheats.

The fact that it is possible to do team maps is a big plus, since it isn't already present in the game on release. It's also a good sign for the map editor which will also have the capability for creating linked campaigns. Was that possible in previous Heroes games? I don't remember anything like that for Heroes 2 and I'm only just now playing 3.

As I recall, there has always been a campaign editor.

[Marine OKeefe]

As I recall tehre hasnt always been a HoMM V and therefor couldnt have always been a HoMM V Campaign Editor. The tools used by the developers to develop a game are not going to be included in the review, what nonsense.

[soupnazii]

i would assume that he was talking about how there had always been a campaign editor in the series, not in Heroes 5.

i comppletely disagree about the music. the music was absolutely great, cheers to the composers. there was one exception though - the tune after you end your turn and are waiting for the computers when you are playing Sylvan. at first it was great, had me thrumming the desk to the beat, but after a few turn i had to turn the volume off because it was too... you know, catchy....

Dont say that Ubi doesnt support moddability, they have said a few times i think that they support it and think it adds color to the game and stuff. they only said that a patch might not work if you have a mod installed.

what do you mean "downloaded unofficial maps"? how can you do that? who out there other than nival has the power to create Heroes 5 maps?