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Patrick Carroll
United States
Carver
Minnesota
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." (GK Chesterton)
"That's how the light gets in." (Leonard Cohen)
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Now that I've got a new computer that can run it, I installed Heroes of Might and Magic V and tried it out last night. It had been sitting around for a few years, after freezing up on our old computer system.
This is a game series I'm familiar with. I played Heroes II when it was new, and then I bought and played Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete on someone's recommendation. My wife now plays the latter all the time (with the Wake of Gods mod). I can't say I ever loved any version of the game, but it's pretty good.
I'm undecided about Heroes V after last night's experience, though. I may end up turning to some other game.
For one thing, the "special effects" are over the top, as far as I'm concerned. Some team did a nice job with the animated 3-D graphics, the story line, the voice-overs, and all--but none of it really means a thing to me. I'd prefer to do without it. If there were a way to switch to plain 2-D graphics, I would. I'm finding that the graphics slow down my scrolling just enough to be annoying. In battles, the video fight scenes look good but happen almost too quickly to catch; and yet I'm glad they happen quickly, because otherwise they'd slow down the game too much. I may have to tinker with preferences and turn off some of the animation.
Fog of war (uncovering the darkened map as you explore) is always another love-hate thing for me. I like exploring and discovering things, but I hate discovering that I've been heading in the wrong direction. Last night I moved to an observation tower, from which I spotted the town I'd been looking for--but it was a day's march away, and I ended up annoyed about that. If it hadn't been for this "fog of war," I'd have gone directly to the town and saved time.
In other games (and maybe in this one too, though I haven't encountered it yet), fog of war often means being ambushed by enemies. There's very little that irritates me more than being the victim of a surprise attack. Supposedly, I can use that to my advantage, setting up surprises of my own. But I hate doing that too; it's just not fun for me to think that way or do something so "underhanded," even in a game.
The tactical battles in Heroes V are an improvement, I think, over earlier versions of the game. Apparently heroes can get more directly involved now, and there's more room for maneuver. My only reservation is that maybe there's too much room for maneuver in a strategy-level game like this. I kinda miss the simplicity of earlier versions.
So far, the battles have been all too easy, but I suppose that's because I'm just starting the basic campaign, with the tutorials, to get a feel for the game.
Back in Heroes III, my biggest frustration was getting halfway through the game and expecting to win, only to be suddenly beset by an enemy army many times bigger and stronger than mine. That clued me in that I should be optimizing my builds and greedily accumulating the best troops I could find--but the clue disappointed me, because I didn't want to have to do that. I wanted the game to be about exploring and building and clever positioning, not about overpowering enemies with vast numbers and brute force. (The more I play games like this, the more appreciation I have for Chess--where the two armies start out even and out in the open and clever maneuver is everything.)
It looks like Heroes V will end up being more of the same. Already, I'm being guided to amass armies and conquer towns, so the old pattern is coming back to me.
I'm a version behind now, since I notice Might & Magic Heroes VI is out. Maybe that's good, since most of the bugs have likely been worked out of Heroes V by now. So far, though, I like the look and feel of Heroes III better. So, I'm not sure I can look forward to anything "new and improved." Video games are lately being "improved" in directions I don't like.
Next on my list to try will probably be Medieval II: Total War. That's another game that got set aside a few years ago when our system would no longer handle it. I seem to remember hating the tactical battles but seeing great potential in the strategic game. And since tactical battles can be switched to automatic, I'm free to play the game more or less like Risk. I might enjoy that.
Waiting in the wings for me to get back around to is Disciples II: Gold Edition. I've played it quite a bit, and I like it. I got stuck in the middle of a campaign last time, I think--but I must've gotten past it somehow, because I seem to recall finishing the campaign and getting ready to try the next game in the series. Anyhow, it'll be fun to get back to that again.
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