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Главная » Статьи » Heroes 4 » Герои 4

Heroes of Might and Magic IV (PC) previews


Heroes of Might and Magic IV (PC)

GameSpy takes a peek at the fourth incarnation of the fabled Heroes of Might and Magic franchise.
By - Carla Harker


When people think of turn-based strategy games, the Heroes of Might and Magic series is the first one that comes to mind for many. It's unique in its ability to get people who normally dislike the genre to spend countless hours playing turn after turn after turn. The last of the series, Heroes III was an excellent, addictive game, but very little was changed from its predecessor. Now, the developers have revamped the series to bring an updated title sure to cause many a sleepless night as its numerous fans take "just one more turn."

Game Statistics

Game Type: Turn-Based Strategy
Developer: New World Computing
Publisher: 3DO
Platform: PC

Preorder Heroes of Might and Magic IV
The core of HoMM IV remains the same. You control heroes and send them and their armies to gather treasure and resources, fight enemies and gain towns. The story spans six massive campaigns and should have dozens of hours of play time in the campaign alone. Once the campaign is over, you can try out the single-player scenarios or go head-to-head with friends, either over a LAN, the Internet, or by Hotseat. The game will also ship with a scenario and map editor to guarantee a nearly infinite amount of game time.

Towns are the primary places you recruit heroes and troops. The six town types in HoMM IV are Academy, Haven, Preserve, Asylum, Necropolis, and Stronghold. In addition to yours, and your enemies' towns, you can also capture outpost towns and convert them. Because the playable beta did not have any enemy players, I wasn't able to see how castle sieges worked, but the developers intend to allow creatures atop the castle walls to attack the besiegers and vice-versa. The look of towns has been improved to add plenty of detail. Each town screen is a beautiful piece of art in itself.


A new feature of HoMM IV towns is that choosing to build some creatures means not building others. You can't have both champions and angels, for example. This adds another level strategy to town building as you now must decide whether to go for the faster, cheaper troop with first strike, or the one that lets you resurrect other troops. Another feature that will hopefully remain is that troops are not generated only at the beginning of a week. A few troops are created each day. It's also now possible to click a single button and buy all of the recruitable troops at once.


Outside of the towns, the adventure map is the part of the game where you move heroes and troops to gather resources and treasure and attack enemies. In HoMM III one common tactic was to hire a couple of heroes with no troops and send them out to gather resources. The developers have made this easier in HoMM IV with the ability to create hero-less armies. These armies, which can be as small as a single peasant, can attack, gather resources, and interact with many of the over three hundred adventure map structures, but they're never as tough as hero-led armies and they can't use objects such as Learning Stones or Schools of War. Creatures do carry backpacks which lets them carry, though not equip, artifacts. One new item type is the single-use potion or vial that has spell-like abilities. Potions and vials can be bought in certain structures or found in treasure hordes, backpacks, campfires, and the like. These are excellent for non-spellcasting heroes.


As you might expect from a game series titled Heroes of Might and Magic, heroes are the heart of the game. You start with characters that are one of eleven starting classes, but through experience, they can become one of thirty-seven advanced classes. You can have each of your heroes specialize using the nine primary skills and their associated secondary skills. Heroes are also not limited in the types of artifacts they can equip. They have stats damage, speed, movement, spell points, shots, luck, and morale --just like their troops. Enemies often chose to attack the heroes over the other troops if given the choice, but killing both heroes did not cause the battle to end when it happened to me. I ended up winning the battle even after both heroes were dead.


Many of the heroes in the game existed in the previous incarnations of the series, so expect to see familiar (if graphically updated) faces in HoMM IV. Now, instead of using them only as spellcasters, heroes are involved in the heart of battle. They can advance and attack just like their troops, or they can stand back and hurl powerful spells to weaken the enemy. Since you can also have more than one hero within an army, it takes the place of a stack of troops, but it's an excellent way to get a weaker hero across the screen and into another town. A total of eight armies can be created, each with a combination of seven heroes and/or troop stacks.


Another new addition to HoMM IV are wandering monsters. The first time you see this happening, you'll wonder what's going on. If you move next to a monster army that thinks it can take one of yours, it will move toward you on its turn and attack. This means care must be taken not to stand too close to the random monster armies that appear on the screen. Only the toughest creature type is represented visually on the adventure map, so what initially seems like "just a few behemoths" may actually be an entire platoon of troops. You can right-click on a creature to learn what troops are present in the army, and possibly even how many of each.


When developers create a sequel to a popular title, the biggest challenge is deciding what to keep and what to add and change. Remove or change the wrong things and risk the wrath of the fans; don't add enough and people will complain that it doesn't feel like a true sequel. But if the developers can find that happy medium, they can easily create a game that will be lauded as the best of the series. If the beta is any indication, Heroes of Might and Magic IV should be able to bear that title easily.





Источник: http://archive.gamespy.com/previews/
Категория: Герои 4 | Добавил: Ксюшка (23.12.2008) | Автор: Ксюшка
Просмотров: 1126
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