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."
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.
