Amazon.com: Heroes of Might & Magic 5: Pc: Video Games

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3.3 out of 5 stars (89 customer reviews)

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106 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Game is added to the Series, May 30, 2006

Herschel Greenberg (Chino, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

This review is from: Heroes of Might & Magic 5 (CD-ROM)

I started playing the Heroes franchise with Heroes of Might and Magic III. I am glad this new developer took many of the best features from III and made it new again. This game is immediately playable. I have already spent hours playing through the Haven campaign, exploring the entire map in each level. The graphics are fantastic, which makes playing the game enjoyable. The control mechanics are simple and straightforward. Because I was familiar with III and IV, I had no trouble jumping right into this game and feeling like I knew how to do everything, including building construction, troop recruitment, and combat. The combat in this game has improved--the difference in unit types and how they act adds to the overall strategy on the combat field. With the addition of many new spells and abilities, each Hero feels different in combat. Since combat is a major part of the game, I was glad to know the developer made the combat fun and straightforward as well, meaning you may spend countless hours in combat over the course of the game, yet each battle is not repetitive. There is always something going on to make it different.

However, the game does have some problems. A reviewer here on Amazon wrote a great deal about the game--turns out, he is correct. There are many strange things about the game--things I can't believe a developer would overlook. For example, in combat, you do know the result of your unit's attack before the animation even plays. If you look at the bottom of the screen or watch the initiative bar, you know the results before anything happens. This is an annoying oversight--I try not to look at those bars while I play. Also, the battlefield is completely scaleable in 3D as well. However, whenever an animation of the combat occurs, you leave your custom view for the animation. If that's the case, then why make the battlefield rotate and zoom? I play with it zoomed all the way out so I can see the entire battlefield. I am also surprised that in this day and age, the developer released a game that has missing elements. Like the reviewer said, how do you know what an object does without a description of it? Trial and error I guess, but that is not how a game should be made.

Like the other reviewer, I also experience some slow-down on the large world map. It seems that if you zoom all the way out, the game stutters as it tries to compute all the animation on the screen. I have a very fast Alienware computer, and if it stutters on mine, I can't imagine how slow it must be on others. I get around this, I usually zoom out to see where I want to go, then zoom back in to move. Rotating the camera at a closer range to your hero is not a problem, but it is slow zoomed out. Again, I don't know why the developer did this, but it is something I hope they can fix in the patch.

I also feel that this game has a very narrow market. If you played M&M III or IV, then this game will appeal to you. It is fun and addicting. Go buy it right now. However, the publisher needed to include better documentation to appeal to the non-fans. There is no creature and town hierarchy chart that always came with the other games. The manual is small--M&M III had a bound book for instructions that included a lot more information, back-story, and game play.

Overall, I think this game is great fun, and I look forward to advancing to the other campaigns. But I think this because I was already a fan of the series and because I am willing to over look a few of its flaws. If you can get past these issues, then I think you will enjoy the game. It looks great, plays great, and is an addicting turn-based game. If a patch comes out that fixes many of these issues, then I will put another star back into my review.

UPDATE: There is now a patch for this game that makes significant upgrades. It adds an Easy mode, the abilitiy to check for future updates, speeds up some of the slow down we have been experiencing when zoomed out, and fixes some of the leveling up skill trees. But most importantly, it fixes the initiative bar--now combat updates at the same time you attack, the way it was meant to be. There is a long list of fixes you will see in the Readme file when you download the patch. Since these fixes make the game so much better, I would give it 5 stars.

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340 of 376 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A joke of a game, with huge potential., May 25, 2006

MHW Weckseler "alias-hw" (Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

This review is from: Heroes of Might & Magic 5 (CD-ROM)

September 29 2006.
The second, and last, edit to this review.

Well, the map editor is finally out, and I must say that they did a excellent job with it. Sure, it needs a little trail and error to lean how to use it. But it is pretty much 90% the same editor like in H3. If you know how to use that, you know how to use this one.

Now, as for the rest of the game, have 3 patches changed it? Yes it definitely did. It still isn't perfect, there still are bugs in the game, but they are (relatively) small, and the kind you will find in any game nowadays.

Now this game is worth buying, and I would suggest that you do.

A few more things. In my initial review I said that the game was very stable; it is... for me. I never had a single crash, never had a problem with the game freezing; nothing like that. But I have read in the official Ubi forum that not all people are that lucky. Most interesting, the more... exotic... you computer is, the more change there seems to be for a problem. So it might very well be that someone with a beast of a computer all geared to playing games has a problem with it, while the other person that has a more common computer that only just makes the system requirements has no problem with the game at all.

If you do buy the game, my advice is to immediately download the patches and install them before even playing the game. This also because some save games didn't work anymore after a new patch was installed. Very importantly, DL the right patch. If you have the U.S. version of the game, you also need the U.S. patch. There is even a difference between normal and collectors edition. In total there are something like 7 patches for every version of the patch, so make sure you got the right one. If you try to install a patch and you are told that `Heroes 5 is not installed' then you are using the wrong version of the patch.

It took 4 months, but now I can finally suggest; go buy the game. It's fun, it's good, and it keeps you entertained. The map editor (btw no Random Map Generator, that comes with the first expansion) is out 2 weeks now at the moment of me writing this, and some good fan made maps have already appeared. So now you really will get those countless hours of fun.

H.W.

Edit: Somewhere in the last two weeks, the line `map editor provided' was finally removed. Notice the date when I posted this review (May 25th) and the fact that somewhere in the last two weeks that line was removed. So the line was in the description for two months after the game hit the stores. Also, just so that you are up-to-date, as of this date (August 4th) the map editor still not exists. It is rumored that it will be `provided' in the next month, but Ubisoft is NOT giving out a clear date.

Original review.
I'm sorry to say this, but at the moment this game is a joke.
(The reason for the never the less high rating is given at the end of this review.)
Even worse is that they lie to you. I don't mean a little bit of enhancing of the product that everyone does, no I mean lie. In the product information above it clearly states: `Battle opponents in exclusive Duel mode; map editor provided' and `Experience everlasting adventure thanks to the map editor provided.' See the `map editor provided'? Well, it's not. There is no map editor on the CD. Did you also notice the wording `map editor PROVIDED.' They don't say included, no they say provided. The reason for that is simple. The plan is to at a later point bring out a map editor and PROVIDE it to you through a patch. So, I guess if you wait long enough the words will eventually be true. That doesn't take away that at the moment of me writing this, there is no map editor. I bought the game retail, (so it's not some kind of demo or trail), I installed it, I also went to their site to look for patches. Nothing. There is no map editor at this point, so... they lie.

That's not the only thing that is badly in need of a patch though. Other things in the game as well. There are for instance items that have no description. Case in point, I found a necromancer helmet. Great, what does it do? I don't know. Why don't I know you wonder? Because the description of the item was... necromancer helmet. That's it. Does it enhance my necromancer skill? In that case I can't use it because my hero is not a necromancer. Does it grand me the necromancer skill? In that case I most certainly want it since my hero doesn't have that skill at the moment. See what I mean? A description would be nice.

Now, I'm not going to complain about how few artifacts and recourses there are on the maps that have been provided, nor about the fact that the maps seem incredibly small (the largest maps give you the same feeling of plying on a small map in Heroes 4, and a medium map in heroes 3. The reason I'm not going to complain about that is, frankly, I haven't played the game long enough to do so. It might very well be that in fact this time around they have the balance right and I simply have to get used to it yet.

I AM however going to complain about maps, or the lack thereof. There is a ridicules small amount of maps provided. In the product info above they boast that there are over 30 maps in 6 campaigns. Yes, that's true, but just look at that and ignore the big number. What you see is that in fact there are ONLY 6 campaigns on the CD. If you want to play a standalone map it's just as bad. There are 6, count them 6, standalone maps (or custom games as they call them) on the CD. Want to play multiplayer? Great, at least there you get more. Well, 4 more; 10 in total. So what you get is 6 campaigns, 6 standalone and 10 multiplayer maps, and no way to get more maps at the moment. See the problem? That's just enough to play so that you can get a feel for the game. In fact, the six standalone maps are each set to one faction, which you can't chance. So it really is nothing more than an opportunity to play with the different factions and see which ones you like. I assume that they think that by the time you played those maps they might have the map editor out and you can create random maps. I just hope that their wishful thinking time table works out.

Now, is all about this game bad? No. There are some very good points. First, it's stable. In a time where games are brought out with flaws in them so big that you can't play them without crashing until a patch is provided, such a stable game like this a welcome change.
Second, they clearly used Heroes 3 as the basis of the game. If you don't know Heroes 3 or 4, trust me, it's a good thing they used 3. You are once again back to Heroes being part of an army and that those Heroes can't go outside the town without those armies, nor can creatures go out anymore without a hero to lead them. You are once again back to building your city and upgrading structures so that if you want you can still buy the base or the upgraded creature. Gone are the choices of just which creature you want to build and where choosing one means that you can't make the other anymore. I really do think that they did very well in getting the Heroes 3 feel in to a 3D game.
Third, the graphics are truly stunning, but come on, doesn't it say enough that you need to use great graphics as a selling point instead of a great game play? As wonderful as the graphics are, they get boring. When I saw the first battle I was in awe about the beauty they managed to get in there. By the tenth battle however, I had set the computer to `quick combat' (skips the fight and just tells you what you lost or won in the battle.) Why? Because as wonderful as the graphics are, they are still just the same thing over and over and over. A blade warrior uses the same `slice, slice' move over and over. You are tired of it after having seen that a couple of times. By that time you are more interested in the game play, and then great graphics don't take away from the fact that this game still needs work. A drawback to these great graphics is also that they battles themselves are boring. With Heroes 3 and 4 the battles were more of a chess game with the focus on which creature should you have attack which other creature. The graphics of the fights there were just to dress up those `chess moves.' Now they take their good time to show the move. As I said; great at first, boring later.

So, where does all of this leave us? It leaves us basically with a half done product that has been pushed in to the stores too soon. I honestly think that this game does have the potential to be absolutely great. I do think that with a little bit of extra work this game can even surpass Heroes 3 in popularity. But...
We aren't there yet. This review was about the game that you get on the CD, and as I started out; that's a joke. Now, you could say that in a time where there are games being sold where the CD only enables you to get online and play the online game that it's not a big thing that you have to download patches. If you think that, than you are right, BUT, the problem is that these patches don't exist at the moment of this writing. If you buy one of those `online game CD's' the online game is there and you can play it as soon as you installed the rest of the software on your computer.

With Heroes 5 you buy a half finished product and HOPE that they will add the rest in patches. What if they decide that the map editor isn't needed since the sales are good enough? You aren't sure, and that's my point. You aren't sure what they will hand to you for free in the future. Why would they spend a lot of time on patches if they don't make any money from it? Because of that, if you buy the CD you have to look at... Read more ›

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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heroes is Back!, June 2, 2006

Jeff Travis "Stormfury" - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

This review is from: Heroes of Might & Magic 5 (CD-ROM)

Being a fan of the series since King's Bounty, way to many years ago, I was really excited to hear that UBI was bringing the series back to life.

You'll notice right off the bat a few changes. Having played every game in the series, my favorite was Heroes III and I absolutley hated IV. So if you had similar feelings, you'll be pleased to know that this game to me feels almost identical to Heroes III.

With that said, there are a lot of changes some good and some bad. Combat in this game is a lot of fun and feels better than even Heroes III. It appears that a lot of thought has gone into the balancing of the various units and even some nice changes given to make all of them worth using. Even Heroes III had units that were worthless.

Combat has several features that are nice as well, as you hoover over targets the screen displays where that unit can potentially move as well as your range for units killed. This might be None to a range of numbers like 2-15. Catapults, Healing Tents etc all take care of them selves and the nicest feature added might be the initiative bar. It's really nice seeing the units next few rounds and as morale bonuses change the order.

While there is a lot of positives, there are a few negatives. I personally don't think every game on the planet needs to be 3D. Combat is really nice due to the 3D graphics, but the main map suffers in a few areas. First, it's really hard to tell what's eye candy and what you should be running around picking up. Second and most annoying is the option to invert mouse is limited to 1 checkbox that inverts both the horizontal and vertical camera movement. I'd really like to have these as seperate options as I want to invert 1 but not both for my style of play. I'm sure that the fact that map is 3D is also why a map editor and randomizer haven't been included. It's a lot harder to program these things with 3D maps. Part of me wishes that the main map had been left 2D with the combat engine being 3D. Don't get me wrong, the screens are beatiful but the game does feel like it might be a bit small as is and in need of some additional maps.

My advice is to give the demo a try, it can be found on file planet and perhaps a few other sites. This does feel a lot like heroes III and I've enjoyed playing through the first 5 scenarios. I'll be interested to see how multiplayer and custom maps play out. That is where I got the most enjoyment out of the heroes series.

This one is worth giving a try and possibly a purchase.

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