Heroes of Might and Magic 4

Rating:
Summary: Great game!
Review: This is a great game. The first time I played it, I thought it was terrible. A while later, I got the expansion and looked into it a little closer. Now I play it all the time with my friend and single payer. It's a great game, like I said. Especially with the expansion (and codes, if you know where to look) you should buy this now!

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother.
Review: This game is ok. While they have added some pretty neat new features (mentioned above), they seem to have taken out everything that was so terrific about hmm3. I liked being able to upgrade my creatures and the random map generator was the greatest thing going. Gameplay is so much slower in 4, although the campaign scenarios have better stories and a little more action and mystery to them, ie you have to complete one task in a scenario before you can move on to the next as opposed to just find the grail kind of thing. Overall, I don't think I'd really recommend this game, stick with heroes 3.

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Summary: fantsy wars ala modern techonlogy
Review: i have played heros 3 and armageddons blade expanshion. haveing played heros 4 i half to say that the only real downside to heros is that your options to level them are quite limated. ex, i want to level my knight with order magic, i probly cant. other then that the heros work fine, although its rough on low level casters in battle, which makes sense. as for towns, i like the new town defences quite a lot, it makes much more sense now, for the price you pay you get VERY strong defences. as for spells, the verity and power has gone way up, which nearly cripples might heros. (if it werent for there godlike combat power, might would be helpliss) on the creature side of things, each side is pretty well balenced, also because you need 2 towns to get every kind, its a good push for expanshion. the decision to choose one over another is alwase hard on the player, which is good because it shows that the creatures are well balenced. caravans are probly the second bes improvement in this virshion of heros, that and heros actuly in combat. word of advice, dont mix towns creature tipes, you will lose, and for gods sake dont mix apposed alignments eg. life and death. also if you want to play every campagin its going to be a LONG haul, which is good, must stop now must play more heros 4...

Rating:
Summary: 1st time player loves the format and game play, a great buy
Review: This is a great game for D&D fans looking for a change. I haven't played HOMM up till now, so I can't comment on comparisons, but, it is still a great D&D strategy game. HOMM IV is unlike normal D&D character campaigns into dungeons but still has the D&D flavor of monsters in a strategy game. The game is huge with massive scenarios and campaigns to play with that is well worth the money compared to other games with great graphics.

I actually like the battle format and have enjoyed many hours playing the different scenarios and am just starting campaigns. I just loved getting the ingredients and then generating dragons to go out and fight with. I have read negative comments about battle format but like it anyway as the hero is so involved in the battle right with the underlings. The computer AI is good but not perfect because otherwise you would lose as you aren't perfect either. I also like there are 2 autosaves of current turn and previous turn so you can backup from a serious mistake.

negatives. There are a few like :
Memory leakage. It is best to stop the computer after playing each scenario as the winning and losing screen can kill the pc.

Lining up your character so he doesn't get shot is impossible and I always end up losing my mages at the start. But is sounds pretty realistic.

I have lost alot of sleep as I play just alittle bit more before realizing it is 2:30am and I am not going to get 8 hours, but what fun!

Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment
Review: What a disappointment. So far most of the rest of the Heroes of Might and Magic series has been great. However, this particular one brings nothing really interesting or new to the series. From what I've seen so far the big deal that has been made about it seems to be that you can now use your heroes in combat and strategy. New creatures, new maps, etc. not much else.

The AI is horrible, the computer cheats constantly, gathering massive armies in short spans of time that are either impossible or difficult to counter. The cd doesn't ship with a finished multiplayer mode, and 3DO has promised a patch to make this available, but I am unsure if it ever came out. The soundtrack is pretty typical for this series, nothing impressive. All in all, if you want to play a good Heroes of Might & Magic game go back to 2 or 3, after all there's not a huge difference in the games.

Rating:
Summary: This used to such a good game............
Review: If you are a fan of HOMM III and prior, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. You will hate it more than you have hated anything else in your life. The game has lost all of the charm and structure that existed in HOMM III, and was replaced with a visually chaotic, tedious and overly complex game. Do yourself a favor and avoid this game at all costs.

Rating:
Summary: horrible
Review: ok this is going 2 b extremely frustrating to write within the sites guidelines but i must. 2 bad there is not a no star or even -star options because this game deserves the worse possible rating. 3DO what happened to you guys? after MM8 and Heroes 3 and its expansions everything went to hell. Your new games are amazingly horrible. The graphics in this are disgusting and come on what happened to heroes riding on stallions? Now they get to ride zebras instead wow how exciting. The combat screen blows the music sucks. the last heroes three game had an amazing sound to it. The monsters in this game are about as intimidating as mickey mouse or goofey. how could you make something so horrible and put it under a heroes title. it sickens me that i had even had this in my shopping cart. lucky for me a friend got it 1st and he was just as dissapointed as i am. The graphics are so much worse. The town design is not near as good. All creatures have lost their appeal. the heroes have horrible portraits. then to top it all off they make new combat rules that are insanely stupid. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!i could go on for days about how horrible this game is but i dont want to waste any more of my life whining.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing special
Review: This is a good game, not a great game. I still feel Heroes III was a better game all around.

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Summary: I don't know what the deal is...
Review: Having played the game and its expansion for several months now, I find it very enjoyable with lots of new features. However, having read the other reviews, I don't understand what the big deal is. Like many others, I have played the previous games extensively. However, I am glad 3DO has changed several aspects and removed several spells.

First and foremost, allowing the hero into the party is the best change. The graphics are good, and there seems to be alot more interaction and depth to your hero or heroine because they acutally interact with the battles. In addition, the 3D isometric point of view is a big improvement.

In addition, they have removed some of the overland movement spells, such as town portal, flight, and dimension door. To tell you the truth, I am glad they did. I found in HofMM 2 and 3 I always tried to get and use these spells. They make the game way too easy and I never had to change my strategies. Now, the only way to move faster on the overland map is to get a hero with advanced pathfinding or seamanship skills, which focuses you on increasing a hero or two in this area. I definitely makes the game more chanllenging in harder scenarios and makes players modify their tactics.

In addition, it takes alot of experience to get grand master ratings in the spheres of magic. Therefore it makes it necessary to have several mages focusing on several spheres to get the high level spells. Gone is the idea of one superpower character, unless you cheat or play in one of the long campaigns.

The only disapointment I found was the removal of siege engines and the town combat. It seemed they could have spruced it up some, perhaps by adding the ability to destroy the walls like in the previous games. All you can do now is bust in the gate and attack from there, or fly over the walls. I thought this was kind of a let down.

The thing I don't get is what did these other folks expect? Did they want HofMM 3 with better graphics? I am glad 3DO tried something different and wish they would do this with their defunct HofMM role playing games.

Rating:
Summary: Different from Heroes II and Heroes III...
Review: First of all, I would like to say that I do not think this is a bad game. I played Heroes I, II, and III, and loved them, though they were all fairly similar. The *graphics* in Heroes IV are much better than the graphics in the others. However, the *artwork* in Heroes II and Heroes III is far superior. There are tons of new "innovative" features in Heroes IV that differ from the other games, some of wich I will list here:

Heroes actually enter combat (they can be killed).

You can have multiple Heroes in an army.

You can send individual groups of troops out of the army on the map and have them run around (without a Hero).

Caravans send troops from castle to castle automatically as they are produced.

You have to choose between two different units when purchasing certain creature dwellings in your castle (if you want them both, you need two castles).

There are a few bad sides to this game though, including a memory leak that wasn't fixed by the patch, and a quite inferior map-editor. I thought it was kind of annoying how there was no unit upgrades, but the game was very well balanced, in respect to the different castle types and their unique attributes. The campaigns are well done, and entertaining. Overall, this is a fun game, but it lacked the certain feel, or "magic" that Heroes 2 and Heroes 3 had... and the fans of those games will know what I mean.

*NOTE* If you are still unsure as to whether or not you want to get this game, keep in mind that the system requirements are much steeper than in the previous games, so it might not be very enjoyable if your computer isn't that great.