Heroes V Demo Impressions
Thursday, April 13th, 2006 - 5:05pm
Anyone played it yet? I gave it about 10 minutes here at the office and it definately has the Heroes feel. I'll have to get more into to it to tell if it's really good or not but my first impression is that it plays like heroes three with a modern graphics engine. The one thing I noticed that I didn't like was the interface seemed like it needed a lot of polish.
PSN ID: Stric9
I talked a little about it on the Press Pass, haven't had time to pop back into it yet though. So far, I like what I see!
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
Hey Certis, what protection did they end up using? Please tell me it is not Frontline.
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
Not anything, as far as I can tell. Aside from Star Force, I've never known a demo to have copy protection.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
Well, it's a demo. I've never heard of a demo with copy protection, besides the King-Kong one, which had Starforce, if I'm not mistaken. That was Ubi, pre-reneging. I'm going to check out the Condemned demo, then give this a whirl. Too many turn-based strategy games lately. Between Civ 4, GalCiv 2 and now this demo, it seems like my pc-gaming is rooted in either server wait times or end-of-turn buttons.
"PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TO MEN. PUBLIC SHELTER. ADMISSION 50¢"
A bunch of demos have had Starforce in them lately, I guess it makes it harder for crackers to use the demo .exe to crack the retail version.
Xbox Live Gamertag : Barab
EVE: Hannibal Dax
Now that it's Starforce free I gave it a go. I thought the game had a nice feel to it, but I HATE the gui. I was fiddling with the radial buttons for too long without being able to do what I wanted to do, in my opinion. I really liked the art design, and they have expanded the Hero skill tree, so far as I can tell, and I like that too. I wish the town screen didn't give me vertigo.
I believe the demo has a multi-play option, so if anyone would like to try that out with me shoot me a message.
Kat on Cally wrote:
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It's fun but I have some questions.
How do i get my 2 heroes that 'must' survive into the castle at the same time? I always end up fighting the bad guy outside the castle. My lousy 9 days does not let me build up too tough of an army and he has these 6 giant devils that can kill 30 guys in a swipe.
Any ideas how to extend the time you get to build or explore before he comes after you? You have to take a city and free the girl in 7 days and then like 3 days later he is on you. Does really even make sense to get another hero.
I don't think I've ever said this sentence before, but man would I love to hump that butterfly.-- KrazyTaco
One phone call and you're melting like butter over my kettle pop. -- Edwin to Mex
2005 GWJFFL2 Champion
I headed straight for the prison, and attacked nothing else on the way. Got the lady out, and then gave her all the critters... she's level 17. Had her attack and take the town, and then go around behind and kill that spectral dragon pile to get the gold mine. On her way back out, the bad guys showed up, so I hit them on the road... with the big stack of cavaliers, the mobility of the ground outside is handy. Lost about half my force, but won.
Then I went exploring with her while the other guy built up the city... and of course, right when she was too far away (over by the gem mine to the east), the bad guys showed up AGAIN with a force just about the same size as the original. No way to get back in time.. so I just quit at that point.
I cannot load saved games with this; it just freezes up. And starting a new campaign is _extremely_ slow... as in, go get a cup of coffee slow.
It doesn't zoom out far enough, and the targeting for move locations is inexact and frustrating. The 3d is pretty, but it really interferes with the actual gameplay. I find it quite annoying. And, in combat, the inability to cast spells and use powers when you want to is annoying. Either the hero should be a unit, or should be a disembodied force... this BS of having the hero be a unit that's not really there, but still has to wait her turn while her force gets slaughtered.... sucks.
It feels sort of HOMMish, but I'm not that impressed so far. Graphics don't make a game. Civ4 was an upgrade in every sense, and is just a joy to play. HOMM5 has a high initial WOW factor, but in terms of actual gameplay, may be a distinct step backwards.
Hey Malor, what do you mean you cannot cast spell when you want to? And please don't tell me the camera angels are fixed...
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
Loading and saving works fine for me. You can change the camera angle in battle by holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse.
I didn't know she was 17, I was using the guy as the main one. I'll try again.
I don't think I've ever said this sentence before, but man would I love to hump that butterfly.-- KrazyTaco
One phone call and you're melting like butter over my kettle pop. -- Edwin to Mex
2005 GWJFFL2 Champion
lethial, the battle camera is moveable, although it's not quite freeform... it seems fixed a bit too close to the battlefield, both vertically and horizontally. I'd prefer to be able to move a little farther along all three axes. You also can't rotate to just any angle... it stops at, say, 0 degrees, and if you want to go to 1 degree, you have to rotate all the way back around the circle... you can't push through 0. So you can get to any compass heading, but not always smoothly.
I assume the main camera is rotatable too, although I have not felt the need for that. I do wish, very much, that I could zoom quite a lot further out on the main map. Like the battle camera, it feels vertically constricted, but the problem is more severe, as there's a lot more to look at.
You don't seem to be able to cast a spell just anytime, like in all earlier HOMMs... that was, of course, one of the key strategies to spellcasting, and countering spells; you couldn't cast a spell until your fastest unit moved, and if you could suppress all the enemy units, you could keep the enemy helpless. Absolutely central HOMM strategy, and it appears it's gone out the window... now your hero has a turn, just like your creatures. But the hero can't be directly targeted or taken out, just like the old method. So there's much less of an advantage to having at least one very fast creature with a strong spellcaster, and you can't neutralize the enemy hero completely.
It feels like a bad idea to me... they should have either just made the hero another unit (fine with me), or kept it the old way... this halfway state where they can blow you to pieces and you can't target them in any way _really_ sucks.
I dont remember the old HoMM that much butt his seems kinda cheap. Not being able to do this makes the game more challenging and difficult. Whether this is good or bad only time will tell.
I don't think I've ever said this sentence before, but man would I love to hump that butterfly.-- KrazyTaco
One phone call and you're melting like butter over my kettle pop. -- Edwin to Mex
2005 GWJFFL2 Champion
I haven't been able to find the system requirements for the demo anywhere, does anybody know what they are, is it XP only?
Posting on the boards is easy. The trick is to kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch. Chiggie Von Richthofen on how to transition from lurker to poster.
Here you go, ferret.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
Damn my antiquated gerbil powered computer.
Posting on the boards is easy. The trick is to kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch. Chiggie Von Richthofen on how to transition from lurker to poster.
Hmmm... The whole camera thing reminded me of Etherlords... It was cool at first when the camera zoomed in to the units that is performing an attack. But after watching the animation a hundred times, the zooming became annoying...
I prefer having the hero targetable. Looks like I will be waiting for Disciples 3
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
You can disable that in the options.
If you can't do it, neither can your enemy. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me, it's just a change.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
I didn't know that... Then again, I didn't give that game enough play time, since I found out that it used Starforce and had to quickly remove it
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
This is a new demo, there's no Star Force any more.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
Doh! I am making a confusing mess
I thought your previous comment was geared towards Etherlords, not the HOMM V demo. I do have the demo installed, I just need the time to try it...
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
I haven't seen enough of the game to decide whether the change is good or not. In a general sense I think it's a more logical way of doing things and had they made the heroes actual units they would have incurred the wrath that heroes 4 received. While heroes 3 was a great game the above scenario you describe was one of it's weaker points in my opinion.
So yeah I like the idea that the hero has a turn but that's based on the assumption that it's balanced well.
PSN ID: Stric9
Don't know if you guys saw this or not, but IGN has a pretty good preview of HOMM V.
Only thing that bothers me from that preview is that for some missions heros don't carry over.
Decisions are just decisions, there are neither "good" or "bad"
LobsterMobster wrote:
And how did you know where this was? Trial and error? Or have I missed some further information somewhere.
It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive. - Jawaharlal Nehru
They show you the enemy city on the map; it wasn't hard to figure it out from there.