Might and Magic: Heroes VI

[Rub'Rum]

Or "Heroes of Might and Magic VI" for the traditional gamers around here

What's going on with this game? I was a huge HoMM 2 and HoMM 3 fan, still play them sometimes along with Age of Wonders games... Now this new game comes out today on PC and it seems to be going on in a sea of apathy and no-one-cares. Despite being published by Ubisoft.

I've tried to find reviews or anything about it but... It seems there's nothing substantial from any of the major outlets, or even random gamer reviews. I was kind of looking forward for the game to come out and people convincing me to buy it full price... Which is something I rarely do these days... But dang, I almost forgot it actually is available today! When someone expecting the game and liking the series like me, and following game news quite a bit, almost forgets about today's release, it doesn't exactly spell out "awesome promotion campaign".

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Hoo boy, sounds like a promising start.

I've played HoMM 1 through 4; I think I touched 5 once, if that. I-as-well-as-a-lot-of-other-people still believe 3 to be the gold standard, so word that it's aspiring to the old school model is encouraging. I've read it's simplified, but at the same time that it's not 'dumbing itself down', so it could go either way.

Here's hoping it's good.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

is that a HOMM 5 pic or what? they look very similar tbh... I played it some, good game but like many others couldn't keep me coming back for more for very long... played too much of that genre so I'm spoiled AoW: SM was GOOD, and there were some very nice mods for that...

btw give Rub'Rum if you're into the genre you should give Master of Mana a try... great civ4 mod, a new beta came out yesterday

relevant wiki info on HOMM 6... not quite outstanding it seems

"Post release issues:

After the initial release on 10.12.2011 a couple of fatal bugs still remained in the game, and a lot of laptop users were complaining about the game crashing at launch. Ubisoft Technical Support commented on this by saying "Unfortunately the game is not [supported] on laptops". There is currently no word to when this will get fixed.

Reception:

The game received an aggregated score of 80% from three reviews on Metacritic. "

 

[Rub'Rum]

is that a HOMM 5 pic or what? "

You're right! I actually was careful not to pick a HOMM 5 pic because I had a hard time finding a HOMM 6 pic that was decent... And I still did!! fffff-

Anyway changed it.

A huge title like HOMM6 having 3 reviews on Metacritic is pretty sad.

 

[Yeekim]

HOMM V was actually pretty good.
But over time I've grown to like Paradox games more...

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well doesn't that city look a lot like one straight out of AoW2

it's too bad about the poor interest though, just goes to show this genre is dying a slow death... sigh.

 

[Till]

For me the problem is that AOW and HOMM3 are just so good that it's hard to justify buying more games of the genre, unless they mix up the formula. King's Bounty was fun for a while due to significant gameplay differences (you don't have any cities and play one roaming hero). Unless HOMM6 offers a new angle as well, i don't think i'll be interested.

 

[Rub'Rum]

For me the problem is that AOW and HOMM3 are just so good that it's hard to justify buying more games of the genre, unless they mix up the formula. King's Bounty was fun for a while due to significant gameplay differences (you don't have any cities and play one roaming hero). Unless HOMM6 offers a new angle as well, i don't think i'll be interested.

And the truth is good old fashioned drawn 2D graphics and/or pixel-art are still much more appealing to me in this genre than 3D. There aren't many games where I honestly think older graphics were better, but this specific genre is a notable exception. Making them 3D... I dunno... It just feels like any other game out there.

 

[Till]

For me, the nice thing about the old graphics is that they run fine on my Linux laptop.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Played for a bit. First impression was bad but not terribad. However the skill system is HORRIBLE. There are a lot of things i'm still confused about tho - hopefully when they'll clear up i'll like it more.

But then again, my first impression for H5 was bad (but not this bad) - slowly but surely things started picking up after the first campaign (don't care about the non-campaign part of the game). In the end H5 turned out to be almost as awsome as H3 (the absolute best of the series).

 

[Adam7Eight]

So, if you're new to this series like me, where do you start? With 3 because it's the best? Or the first one? Are these true sequels where a story is involved or does it not matter?

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

From a purely gameplay perspective I'd say Three: it is the perfection of its predecessors. That said, if you start with Three and then decide to visit the older instalments, you might be turned off by their comparative simplicity. I didn't play enough of 1 and 2 to comment on the campaigns; they do follow a loosely connected narrative, but it's not crucial to understanding the universe.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Two or three. I'd probably say three.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

if you can stand the outdated graphics, 3 is great... but homm 5 is also good.

 

[Rub'Rum]

if you can stand the outdated graphics, 3 is great... but homm 5 is also good.

I'd say HoMM2 and HoMM1 show their age a lot more than HoMM3, which is still looking pretty crisp today. And there is the Heroes of Might and Magic III "HD" mod to use a larger screen resolution. Really, HoMM3 never gave me that "omg that's a lot more pixelated than I remembered it" feeling that often comes up when you boot up an old game you haven't played in ages.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

eh, you guys are making we wanna play some WoG

 

[Yeekim]

it's too bad about the poor interest though, just goes to show this genre is dying a slow death... sigh.

Well...imho the problem with this franchise is not with the latest installments per se - e.g. I don't think V was worse than III. It was probably better even.

The problem is that competition has went way past them. That franchise is very... limited. No diplomacy. No research. The world is static. You have (nearly) non-customizable troops, built in (nearly) non-customizable towns. Each consecutive game can fiddle with few things like graphics and city types and troop types and spells and skills and new artifacts... but if the idea is to have generals lead armies across the map, give me one reason to prefer HOMM over TW?

...actually, a TW style HOMM game would be pretty cool.

 

[Rub'Rum]

...actually, a TW style HOMM game would be pretty cool.

You should probably check out the King Arthur game series, although there were some points you could buy these for 2-5$ with all DLC. A new game is coming in that series too.

 

[Yeekim]

You should probably check out the King Arthur game series, although there were some points you could buy these for 2-5$ with all DLC. A new game is coming in that series too.

Heh, so even that's been done!

 

[Kyriakos]

Thank you for the pic Rub'Rum, excellent concept art for an elven set i plan to make

And i will have a look at the game as well i guess.