Reviews
- by Derek
Gamespot reviews Dark Messiah and is less than thrilled about it. Their main complaint stems from glitches and the like.
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- by Angelspit
Thanks to ambivalentvince in the official forum who links to the X-Play review of Heroes of Might and Magic V, which originally aired in June. The game received a rating of 3 out of 5 from the lovely Morgan Webb. Watch it from the comfort of the forums.
I will confess that the fart noises that were added to the cutscenes made me giggle like a little girl. It just seemed... appropriate, for some strange reason.
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- by Angelspit
Battle for Androna is a new Heroes of Might and Magic V map created by Myythryyn. Once again it is an extra-large map with a pretty underground ("Too Big For You," says the mapmaker), this time for six players. The backstory of Androna can be found in the map's readme file, but also in the town descriptions and on the various sign posts scattered across the land. Myythryyn worked really hard! If you'd rather play an old-school map (nothing wrong with that!), Dracon Island might be what you are looking for. It's a medium-size Heroes III: Shadow of Death map with no underground where you must find the grail.
In related news, Qurqirish Dragon posted a review of Two Coasts: "What at first seems to be a standard battle map turns out to hold an interesting strategy twist." The map gets high grades for graphics and design, but loses some points because of the lack of plot. If you'd rather create maps than play them, check out Pitsu's Mapmaking Tips at the Round Table. They should help you resolve problems even before you encounter them.
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- by Angelspit
The official Might and Magic portal has word of the first review of Dark Messiah. The U.K. edition of PC Gamer magazine gave the game a 'Must Buy' award, in addition of several praises:
"Developers Arkane have succeeded in their goal of making the combat feel like a particularly violent pub fight. Dark Messiah’s fighting is a purely physical thing: there are no dice rolls governing the success of a smack on the face; just timing and brute strength."
"There’s really nothing that can match Dark Messiah’s combat. The mixture of weaponry and convincingly cause-and-effect physics really does take firstperson fighting to new places. The sense of speed, power and control over what you’re doing is unmatched. A superb and brutal action RPG."
The cover of the magazine describes the game as Half Life meets Oblivion, which is definitely a game I'd like to play. Let's wait and see if other publications feel the same way about the newest Might and Magic game. If that's the case, Arkane and Kuju will deserve our eternal love.
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- by Kalah
A new Dark Messiah trailer can be found over at ShackNews, along with a reference to the new comprehensive preview by Bit-Tech.net. The preview talks about general impressions, boss fights, gameplay and many of the cooler features in the game, like being able to kick your opponent:
In addition to the expected slashing and chopping, you can kick enemies away from you, sending them stumbling. This is great if you fancy impaling them on a pike, or want to see them fall off the edge of a cliff or building.
The reviewer has some worries about the shortcomings and various multiplayer bugs, though he is assured by the producers that the little things he came across will be mended before the release of the final version:
These are problems that I was assured will be fixed in the final version of the game, but nevertheless are rather worrying considering the game is only one month away from release .... Chances are the multiplayer will be released with a lot of bugs, but because of Steam updating and patching shouldn't be too big a problem.
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- by Angelspit
IGN had another look at the single-player campaign of Dark Messiah. They were allowed to play the prologue and two other missions, and posted their impressions.
GameSpot posted a transcript of a community chat they had with three members of the development teams (and it's quite unfortunate that we missed it). Fans asked questions about the over-powered mage, server-side options, endings, downloadable content and much, much more. Some of the questions and answers, such as a reference to the beta being open soon, hint to the fact that the chat happened a couple of weeks ago.
Last but not least, Valve announced on Friday via the Steam news that "Prepurchase starts in a little over a week (...). The countdown has begun." Preloading Half Life 2 took me forever (in addition to busting my monthly bandwith limit), so I think I'll wait for a boxed copy instead.
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- by Angelspit
Another look at the recently updated list of Heroes V reviews (scroll down after the first picture) reveals that a lot of Web sites review games these days, and the quality of some of these articles are questionable to say the least. The average score remains about the same after nearly three months: most critics seem to agree that the game deserves a rating in the low 80s, which is about the same as Heroes IV and lower than Heroes III, according to the GameRankings.com averages.
What about you? Three months later, are your impressions more positive or more negative? Do you agree with those reviews?
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- by Angelspit
Ubisoft was kind enough to allow me to publish my impressions of the Dark Messiah of Might and Magic multiplayer beta test. As a veteran of the Heroes series, I saw very little Might and Magic in that game, but a very high potential. Even two months before its expected release date, the Dark Messiah beta is more polished and stable than most game demos I have tried.
Read my report, which includes several never-seen-before screenshots, here.
- by Angelspit
A series of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic previews have appeared on various gaming sites. They are all very positive and enthusiastic about the single-player component of the game. Here are a couple of quotes:
- GameSpot: "This demonstration, though brief, gave us a good idea of the exciting and diverse gameplay that Arkane Studios has designed. If Arkane and Ubisoft can make good on this intriguing game's potential, Dark Messiah will offer fast, brutal, and varied gameplay powered by highly interactive physics and environments in a lush fantasy world."
- IGN: "We're pretty pleased with how the single-player action is heading right now. It's pretty difficult to create a really satisfying first-person melee combat experience but Arkane certainly seems to have their heads on straight."
- PALGN: "Words can’t describe how enjoyable this game is, and just how good it looks in the flesh. Part of the fun for us was just exploring the different ways of approaching battles and killing enemies – there’s so much at hand."
Celestial Heavens has a hands-on report about multiplayer in the work (as long as you consider a few notes on a piece of papers a work-in-progress). It should be online by Monday.
| Comments (6) |
- by Angelspit
The review of Heroes of Might and Magic V at GamePro is very short, but it takes into account the 1.1 update that Ubisoft released several weeks ago. The final score of 4.25 out of 5 is also slightly higher than the current review average so far. The author highlights a couple of concerns that fans currently have:
"The lack of non-campaign mission maps is similarly frustrating: for a franchise that has long given its fans a wealth of replayability via standalone maps and a do-it-yourself editor, the reliance on well-executed but still stingy multiplayer features to provide replayability just feels cheap. Maybe we'll need another patch for that."
As usual, the graphics get a lot of praises. The sometimes frustrating camera is seen as the price to pay for a beautiful and immersive environment:
"But it doesn't look like a traditional HOMM game and I mean that in a good way. No, in a very good way. The 2D rendered maps and units of yesteryear have been booted in favor of a glittering 3D game engine that creates a simply gorgeous gameworld and injects the chessboard-style battles with new life. While the exploratory nature of the gameplay encourages you to reveal the map in order to grab more resources and snag more goodies, the beauty of the game prods you along as well if only to uncover the next beautiful swath of landscape."
Links to other Heroes V reviews can be found here.
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