Reviews
- by Kalah
Eurogamer have posted a positive review of Might and Magic: Duel of Champions:
"Might & Magic: Duel of Champions is a great card battling game, and only a few **** details hold it back from being even better: the lousy locked decks, the half-baked multiplayer tournaments, the quick and dirty iPad port. Nevertheless, it offers something fresh and creates battles that feel like two massed armies clashing across their ranks. It's a game that doesn't just have clever rules but keeps on surprising you with new depths to them, twisting things around with a brand new card. You can never quite tell with these things until months later, but right now, Duel of Champions feels like a keeper."
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- by Kalah
The Penny Arcade Report have dragged up something interesting. PA have had a sit-down with the game research company EEDAR and gotten some data on the importance of positive reviews:
"...the results are startling: a game with an average review score in the 90s will sell three times as many copies as a game rated in the 80s. Lower scores can sink a game. The influence of game reviews also extends into word of mouth and user reviews. The critics have more power than we thought."
Read the whole article here.
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- by Kalah
Celestial Heavens have just posted our final review of Heroes VI, taking the game's current state into consideration as well as development over time.
To read the review and comment, go here.
- by Kalah
Might & Magic: Heroes VI Review
September 2nd, 2012
Kalah offers the final review of the sixth instalment of the Heroes series, looking at the campaigns, gameplay, graphics and much more.
The Timing
Unlike reviewers like Gamespot, who had to do their work with what they had, I have the cheat sheet. I have the benefit of hindsight, having had the game for a year rather than just a couple of days. However, I have always believed that reviews should be based on what a game is, not what it has the potential to be. Therefore, the fact that game reviewers are forced to write reviews of games before they're released is far from ideal.
Here, then, is the review of the game based on what can be regarded as a final version. Our final review.
Campaigns
4/6 – Really not bad, but nothing legendary.
The story is really good. Murder, intrigue, betrayal, a civil war and family feuds – above it all, a greater threat looming on the horizon and long-term plans designed to face it. So where does it fall short? Well, the dialogue is one thing. It's ... not good. Do I have to say more? All right, I will: The writing is like it was done by a twelve-year-old. Or, if I'm being serious for a moment, by a non-English speaker... which is ironic, since the writing of the DLC, which was, is better. It's also quite out of place: a campaign series in which you can choose which part/faction to play first needs to base its dialogue around this fact. As it is, many things just don't make sense. There are also inconsistencies based on character developments. One of the exciting bits of this game is the blood/tear system, but the actions of the characters don't necessarily reflect which such school you belong to.
For a game placing such emphasis on the campaigns, I had expected more. I must admit I never played all of them. You may criticize, but the thing is: I would have played them all if they were good enough. You may say that I shouldn't make up my mind about them until I have completed them all, but really ... are the rest so good that they'll completely convince me? If that is so, I would submit that as a distinct weakness in itself. The fact that I only completed two thirds of the campaigns before moving house might have something to do with my never finishing the lot, but the fact remains that if they were really enticing, I would have wanted to keep playing. Instead, I started up a new round of Football Manager. What does that tell you?
Editor
1/6 – a powerful, useless tool.
When the game was announced and we were offered the chance to give advice on its features, I told Ubisoft from the very start, just as I have been banging on ever since: "Use us. Use the Community." Elaborating, I wanted the producers to use the various gaming sites for everything from news releases to information gathering and suggestions. In short, UbiHole decided to ignore this advice and I believe this contributed to many of the problems we have been experiencing.
For instance, the Community sites were unanimous in their request that the map editor should be prioritized. Ubisoft and the original developers chose to ignore this advice. This has yielded the result that the current state of the editor is so poor and the code so complex that the current developers are lamenting the fact that they can do little to correct it.
The Community of M&M fans are what drives the franchise forwards. The reason people still play (and buy) old Heroes games is the fact that the players have hundreds of maps at their disposal – also that it is possible to create mods. When H6 was made, work seems to have been put into creating ready-made campaigns for story line play, not build the game in such a way that players could develop their own maps and stories. The editor was designed as a powerful tool for developers, but is too hard to use for most people.
That's a problem. The Heroes series is based on longevity. A long life-span. People don't buy them just because they want to play the campaigns. They don't buy the expansions for the continuation of a story arch, but for the extra factions, units and artefacts added to the already well-functioning game. Heroes VI has the longevity of your average fruit fly. The choices made when designing the editor; the lack of user-friendliness, the lack of an RMG and campaign editor are to blame. The developers never understood – despite Communities screaming it at them – that we don't just want to play these games; we also want to add things to them.
Creative Director Erwan le Breton himself said that there are many players (a "silent community") who buy and play the game without actually playing a big part in the Communities. This is true. However, what kind of player is more likely to contribute to the quality of the series; someone who buys it because it's been well-advertised, plays the campaigns and then puts it on a shelf before moving on to something else, or someone who enters the forums with his/her opinions and wishes for improvement? Sadly, Ubisoft have made a game to suit the casual players, not those who want to spend more time developing the series. It took a steady storm of complaints to get the town screens changed. This was – no doubt – a change for the better, but who were responsible for getting it done? The "silent mass"?
Gameplay
2/6 – In some ways mysteriously enjoyable, but bugged, unbalanced and suffering from poor infrastructure for online play.
I have to say that once I got started with H6 a while after its release, I found it fairly enjoyable. I found it much better than H5; it ran better on my PC and the graphics and videos were a lot better. So why only a grade of 2? Frankly, the game places too much emphasis on the campaigns and the online experience. There should be more than that. The game should be such that you can start up a single-player game and play different maps when you want, but because the game was built around the campaigns, not much was done to ensure that players had the chance to do this. The game was also made with giving players an extra online experience in mind. The fact that this experience has been full of interruptions, such as servers going down (usually during the weekend), must be considered a huge drawback. Just as Gamespy concluded in their review: "the horrendous UPlay system's draconian requirement that you be connected to the internet at all times to play" became more of a liability to the game than the "added bonus" it was supposed to be. It gave the fans a reason to stay away from the game altogether, rather than encourage them to play it online. The Dynasty weapons too were malfunctioning.
The Conflux was coined a revolutionary move upon release. It turned out to be a fallacy. Not because the concept in itself is flawed, but because the infrastructure offered by Ubisoft failed to support it – just as I predicted last year. What I said back then was that Ubisoft had a poor track record in supporting online features, and that the Conflux was a good idea since it also meant you could play offline. That turned out to be wrong: the lack of online/offline savegame compatibility meant you couldn't really jump between the two at all. The Conflux sounded like a good idea ... but in the end, it failed to work in practice. It failed. Abysmally.
Also, the game was not properly balanced when released. Of course, that's to be expected. Even the great Master of Orion II was out of balance when released. It, however, was fixed. Heroes VI, after a year of patching, still is not. That's not good. It may not be noticed by the casual players, but for those who take it seriously and want to compete, it certainly is. When an amateur player like yours truly notices during simple campaign play, I'd expect that most people do.
Then there are the bugs, of which there were a lot: critical bugs in the Dynasty system; spells and special abilities (especially for creatures) not working; alt-tabbing and saving games causing the game to crash; campaign bugs; hotkeys not working ... the number of patches (8!) released so far and their respective sizes should be an indication of how big a problem this has been.
The AI is not much to speak of either. Stories abound on the AI not using its potential in battle, not flagging mines and cheating on the adventure maps. To most players, a mediocre AI is enough if you just want to play the game for its story and not have too many problems finishing it; it's a bit like playing on a low difficulty. For the more experienced player, however, a proper challenge is wanted. Given the lacklustre AI, most such players would rather play online against human players ... but given the lack of balance, that the online system doesn't work very well and due to the lack of maps to play, they can't.
Graphics
5/6 – Excellent.
I was really upset that the previous game never gave us value for money in this department. They introduced 3D, yes, but the resource requirements were so high that you could never really run it at 100% without ending up with a choppy game. I ended up really annoyed with this and eventually stopped playing altogether, wishing they had dropped the 3D thing so the game would run better. This time, I have no such problems, despite playing on the same PC.
Great landscape, beautiful creatures and scenery, good-looking artefacts and very nice animations are just some of the words I can use to describe the feel I get when looking at the screen with H6 in the drive. A slight drawback is (just as in H5) the cutscenes, which are rubbish. The less said about them, the better.
Music
6/6 – Considering the team responsible for it, you kinda knew it would be great.
The Rob King/Paul Romero duo is responsible for much of the series' music and the news that it would be them who would design the music for Heroes VI also, is some of the better news I have been able to post the last couple of years. Sometimes I just shut off the music in games because it becomes repetitive, but in some games, it gives something extra to the atmosphere of it all. The music of the Heroes games usually does just that – just think of the opera music used in town screens. The sixth in the series is no exception to the rule: the music is really quite good.
I just have to mention that I also have Tom Salta's "An Ancient Storm is Rising" on my stereo and I always find myself humming along when it gets to the middle theme. 
The Conclusion
Rating: 3/6 
The developers said back in June that the game has a lot of potential. However, it is not reasonable that a game's potential should be released a year after its original release. Seeing as the game is still suffering from serious flaws, I expect that this "potential" will in fact never be released.
To be fair, there are good points. The graphics are excellent, the music is good, the story not bad at all. The interface was poor but has been changed for the better and (as I said before) I judge the game as it is now, not as it was. In the end, though, the game's lack of balance, horrible online features and a complete absence of replayability became its downfall.
In short, Heroes VI was a game that could have been, but never made it because of poor design decisions, a lack of support and a refusal to involve the fans in anything important. The game's broken features, the lack of a functioning online system and lack of a good editor and random map generator ... are simply too much to ignore.
Discuss in the forum.
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- by Angelspit
It took a long while, but GameSpot have finally published their review of Might and Magic: Heroes VI, giving it a score of 8 out of 10:
"Whether you're embarking on an epic contest with friends or adventuring through the dozens and dozens of hours of campaigns, Might & Magic Heroes VI is very entertaining. The appeal of Heroes games has always come from the three pillars of exploration, development, and combat, and the action is in fine form here. Beautiful new lands and creatures provide a welcoming world to explore, streamlined development makes it a pleasure to build up your towns and heroes, and tactically rich combat fills your fights with potential. Though the name may have changed, the allure is the same, and Might & Magic Heroes VI is bound to entice both veterans and newcomers alike."
The score might be lower than the previous game of the series (III had 9.1, IV had a surprising 8.8 and V had 8.2), but the positive bottom line comes as a blessing for Ubisoft/Black Hole after several review with mixed feelings. GameSpot overlooked the technical issues experienced by many players and focused mostly on the gameplay.
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- by Angelspit
The big English gaming sites are taking their time to review Heroes VI. GameSpy is the first to publish its review in which they praise the familiar turn-based gameplay but highlight the visual bugs and UPlay online requirements. Here is the bottomline:
"If I wasn't punched in the face by UPlay every time Heroes VI's engaging campaigns get rolling, I'd be in love. There's a great game hiding underneath the wet blanket of visual glitches and connectivity issues. Heroes VI strikes the right balance between subtle innovation and faithfulness to the core elements that make the series so excellent, but the experience is nearly ruined by the poorly implemented online infrastructure."
GamePro has a review as well here. In both case the final score is 3 out of 5. Let's wait and see what GameSpot and Eurogamer have to say now.
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- by Kalah
Our old buddy Elvin has posted his preview of Heroes VI on RPGWatch:
"Heroes 6 has plenty of worthwhile additions and improvements over its predecessor, this cannot be denied. Despite its success, Heroes 5 was not without its issues - including a highly abusable and sluggish early game, battle outcome largely tied to chance, hero build being more decisive than your tactical skill, first turn slaughters being a very real possibility, certain factions dominating in early or late game, a non user-friendly editor, poor campaigns, even worse AI, poor optimization and problematic camera rotation. Heroes 6 is free of those issues."
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- by Angelspit
The reviews are in and, not surprisingly, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is getting some excellent scores:
Ars Technica: Verdict: Buy
Game Informer: 7.75 out of 10
Destructoid: 9 out of 10
GameSpot: 8 out of 10
Official Xbox Magazine UK: 9 out of 10
IGN: 9 out of 10
The links above are for the Xbox 360 version, but the articles and ratings for the Playstation version are pretty much the same. We'll have a review of our own (of the HD version specifically) in the coming weeks. Follow me on Twitter for more Clash of Heroes news.
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- by Kalah
Znork has written a short preview of Heroes VI, following his trip to Budapest last month. Here it is.
Also, don't forget to vote in our poll - scroll down the page and find it on the left.
- by Znork
Znork's Heroes VI Preview
I was invited by Ubi to go to Budapest and test the press teaser version the last weekend of January.
What I got to play I would say was a pre beta version of the game and it was just to get a feel for what they where trying to do. So we have to remember that this was for tired press people who are not hardcore fans who have beta tested a lot of games.
In my opinion, I feel that the game has a lot of promise. I believe that some of the things they have changed are very good and makes the game better. But there are also some issues that worried me. But all these things set aside I had fun playing the game in the 3 hours I played - it was just gone to fast. And in itself I belive that sums up what is most important in any game. So yeah I had fun playing the game - I truly enjoyed it. But there is a long way to go before we have a finished game. So there are still lots of things we can change.
The good stuff then:
I liked the story outline they have made for this game. It's credible and it keeps to all the other stories in Ashan. I also liked that there was only 1 rescouce; it worked well while playing the game. There are som really awesome creature graphics in the game - the attack, the movement and so on. The maps are stunning; you have seen the screenshots already, but when playing the game you truly feel it. Other good news is that you can choose which race's campaign you would like to play, and you play them until they are finished.
There were a lot of things that concerned me too. The gameplay was too slow - its maps must be a lot faster, it just takes too long and there is to much to do and to little movement speed. I believe that this has something to do with the fact that the heroes just see to much of the map. There is also a big issue with the level up; I did get the feeling of my hero becoming stronger. This might have to do with the complicated skill system. There were just too many choices and aspects to think about. This should be cleaned up and simplified. The user interface also had some problems; they where not user friendly enough. I think this will improve becuse it was in large part unfinished.
We also got to see the cutscenes for the first map, although they were not finished. What we saw had a better quality than in H5, but it's not Blizzard quality either.
New things that the Ubi people were very proud over (but I'm not really sure how important this will be) is the introduction of two different moral ways. The way of the the Blood and they way of the Tear. If you follow the way of the Blood you are more aggressive. You will use force to solve problems and you will attack fleeing creatures and so on. If you follow the way of the Tear, you like to heal, you like to buff the creatures and so on. These choices will lead to your hero changing and getting different skill sets. And will also lead to a different map that ends the whole campaign.
There will be castles and there will be forts. Forts will control the area around it. You can take the mine but when your hero leaves, it will go back to the owner of the fort. So you need to control the fort to control the mines and the other buildings.
So will this game be better than HoMM 3? That it will not. Because now it's fighting against a memory of what that game was. It's like a good childhood memory. And H6 will not be able to compete with the icon which is Heroes 3. I always said H5 should be judged on its own merits and so should Heroes 6. Heroes 6 will be different becuse there is a lot of new stuff in it. My hope is that with the feedback we have given Black hole, and with Ubis deep pockets, we might be on to something. So to end this post - this might be good, people.
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