Heroes of Might and Magic 4

by 3DO

Product Features

• Heroes of Might and Magic IV 4

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005NSUQ
• Item Weight: 4 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: March 29, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (120 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,354 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC

Amazon.com Product Description

In Heroes of Might and Magic 4, players will command armies composed of skillful heroes and fantastic creatures that fight enemies, capture towns, and collect vital resources and artifacts. Strategic planning and tactical cunning are instrumental in your goal to be the undisputed ruler of the new world. The game features heroes who are active participants in combat, six massive campaigns and dozens of standalone scenarios, a campaign editor with a map maker that allows terrain deformation, and an all-new magic system with five highly specialized schools of magic.

Product Description

Highly addictive mix of exploration strategy andconquestProduct InformationHeroes of Might and Magic IV is the latest chapter in the Heroes series. Thisstellar new addition combines proven award-winning gameplay with an all-newstate-of-the-art engine. It showcases a highly detailed fantasy world whereplayers will be immersed in a battle for territory and resources.   Riseto the challenge by commanding armies of skillful warriors and fantasticcreatures. Collect vital resources and artifacts. Fight enemies and capturetowns. Strategic planning and tactical cunning are instrumental in your goal tobe the undisputed ruler of the new world!Product FeaturesMiscellaneous For the first time ever bring hero-characters into battle as super-soldiers in your army! 60 varied creature classes to control. All-new game engine! All-new isometric viewpoint and informative interface. Tweak the new personal scenarios and map editor to make levels and quests for your friends! Over 140 hours of gameplay and 6 unique campaigns. 11 starting Hero classes 37 advanced classes - choose the specific classes of each member in your army! All-new magic system - Complete Hero customization at your fingertips.Towns Each combat screen grid can be a different terrain with associated bonuses and negatives for Hero Classes/Creatures. Hero Classes can participate in combat; they can move attack defend and retaliate just like creatures! Combatants can face in 8 different directions on the Combat Screen. In siege combat Creatures at the base of a town wall can attack defenders at the top of a wall and vice-versa!Adventure Map More than 300 Adventure Map structures to interact with. Resource mines appear in multiple states: undeveloped resource deposit working mine abandoned mine (guarded by creatures) and run-out mine (no longer producing resources). New "Fog of War" map effect: clear for recently exp

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 110 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Step Foward.. then a Step Backwards, April 9, 2002

By 

Seymour Lu (El Monte, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heroes of Might and Magic 4 (CD-ROM)

Heroes 4 Does have many wonderful improvements that makes it more complex and in sum, more compelling than S3, but there are these little problems in the game that Heroes 3 didn't have. I don't understand why 3do chose to take away certain elements of Heroes 3 that were already perfect.

Steps Foward:
*I have to give it to the creators to add the "Heroes in Combat" function. This makes the combination of your armies a lot more complex. 3 Heroes with 3 monsters.. or An army of 6 heroes in all.. You choose!! And Each Hero can be specialized in his her own way..

*Skills- Each hero can have 5 major skills and 15 minor skills.. That's a whopping 20 total skills. That makes the heroes unique enough, huh?

*New Monsters!! - Need I say more?

*New Spells!! -Need I say more?

*Potions give a nice little addition to the game. Allows for more dynamics during battle.

*Monsters are a bit more complex in Heroes 4. Many of them have more skills.. and more specialties... Mages can cast different spells.. and there are choices to what type of monsters your town produces.

*Monsters are generated in each town per turn instead of per week.. makes more sense this way.

Steps Backwards:
* Like some other posters.. I don't understand why they don't tell you how much experience you get after each better.. makes it hard to keep track of the levels of your heroes.

*Heroes no longer have their own little specialization. So for example, it doesn't matter whether you start out with a priest named bob or a priest named Rob.. there's no difference. Remember, in Heroes 3, every hero had a special skill?

* Um.. graphics seem to be worse in some cases.. better in others.. yes.. 3d graphics.. but still worse in some cases (combat).

*Combat is worse. We need the squares!!! It's so hard to calculate the number of steps your units can move without some square indication. And the graphics are worse... Combat was a lot better in Heroes 3.

*I just like the monsters in Heroes 3 more.. they looked nicer....... maybe they need a new graphic designer.
* No upgrades for Monsters... arggghh.. why are there no upgrades for monsters?

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great game with a few flaws, May 4, 2002

By 

M. Gold (Tukwila, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heroes of Might and Magic 4 (CD-ROM)

First, let me say that I've played all of the Heroes games since Heroes 1, and this game has the potential to be the best of them. The graphics and combat interface have been improved substantially from Heroes 3, and there is an increased emphasis on the role and development of your heroes. A few additions, such as caravans, help to minimize tedious micro-management. Also, the available factions are well balanced. Even though there are a few extremely powerful units (such as genies, vampires, and cyclopses), I don't feel like any of the six sides are particularly short-changed.

However, there are a couple of flaws you should be aware of before you buy this game:

1) My biggest criticism is that the AI is very weak compared to the previous Heroes games. In fact, I haven't lost any of the games I've played against the computer yet. I found the campaigns to be rather linear, with the computer being given huge advantages in terms of troops to make up for the weak AI.

2) Some people have experienced technical problems, such as crashing and slowdown, with the game. Personally, I haven't had many problems in these areas, but a lot of people have so you should be aware of the potential bugs.

3) No TCP/IP multiplayer. Personally, I think they should have waited an extra month or so to release the game with multiplayer. You can still play multiplayer "hotseat" games (two or more people taking turns at the same computer) but for many people the main draw of the Heroes games is TCP/IP multiplayer.

Hopefully, a lot of these issues will be resolved with future patches and/or expansion packs. Heroes 3 was certainly not perfect when it was released either, and I hope that 3DO/NWC continues to develop Heroes 4 into a worthy successor.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost got it right, but not quite, April 5, 2002

By 

Matt Price (NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heroes of Might and Magic 4 (CD-ROM)

HOMM IV almost got there. Almost. And in not getting there, it very nearly falls completely flat. The Heroes franchise has built up quite a following, and rightfully so, it's a good series of games. However, with each new edition, up go our expectations. Heroes of Might and Magic IV is what HOMM III should have been. Let's start with what I liked:

- Character development. Excellent job. It's fun, and the heroes don't all become identical by the end-game. Plus I really enjoy actually using them in combat. I cannot believe they didn't incorporate this in HOMM III.
- I like the fog of war. Cool addition, though it's a mistake to make it mandatory (you can't turn it off if you don't like it) as some won't like it.
- The music ain't bad, I kinda like the operatic stuff.
- Nice new spells, and schools of magic. Well done, forcing each race to use it's strengths independently; you can't use the same strategies across races.
- Quick combat (calculations, doesn't even go to the combat screen) is rather nice

Now on to the litany, some minor, some less so, of complaints. I respect that some would say I'm nit-picking, however, they really seemed to drop the ball on a lot of these:

- no multiplayer! It took me forever to find the Hotseat function which is hidden under SINGLE PLAYER!!! Was this interface designed by children? This angered me so much I nearly took it back. There are repeated interface issues: clumsy, poorly designed, that still irk me, long after I've gotten used to their idiosyncrasies.
- Does not show you your experience after a battle, and there is no exp bar that "fills up" as you close in on your next level. You need to right click. This is a minor complaint, but gets really annoying
- Several times I've noticed that my kingdom gold income is incorrectly calculated. A simple arithmetic error? Also maddening.
- You get no reminder of having visited shrines/temples/sites by right clicking as you did in the other games (this may actually require the "scouting" branch of skills, so I may have to rescind this complaint!)
- WHERE IS THE COMBAT GRID??? The new combat is AWFUL. It is impossible to see who is going, where they're going (one accidental click and they're off...), the range of units, the animations are 1995 (HOMM III actually looks better). They better get a patch out soon....
- There is no combat log. You have no idea what the enemy is doing, unless you want to tediously right-click all your troops or you've memorized each and every spell graphic and sound
- Overall graphics are poor. The adventure map looks cluttered and awkward, the combat map is downright horrible. A shrub with no foliage will block an archer, a tiny log prevents a titan from moving. ARG! Can't tell you how it boils my blood to have my pieces walk three turns around something that doesn't even register to me... And don't try autobattle. All your archers will charge the enemy. Um, excuse me? What the hell? I'd bought disciples II to tide me over until HOMM's release, got bored of it quickly, but now its artistic graphics and stylized yet FUNCTIONAL combat is drawing me back...
- NO RANDOM MAP GENERATOR! That was the value of HOMM over Disciples II.
- And it locks up on exit for me. Not a terribly stable game.

OK. I've bitched quite a bit. This is still the HOMM that you've all played and loved. It's not bad, it's just a disappointment. And definitely not as different as some would have you believe. I still recommend going out and getting it... What can I say? I'm hooked.

M Price

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