There are games, and then there are games: fiendish concoctions of programmers, skill, artists, bag of tricks and designers’ wit that grip your mind with unnatural force. I’ve run into a few such games in my day, addictive video opiates that consume every moment of my free time. Heroes of Might and Magic is just such a game.
Combining the best attributes of battle games such as Warcraft II and role-playing games such as Dungeon Master II or the shareware Realmz, this witches’ brew of a game involves you in long, brutal, and fiendishly difficult battles for glory and power.
Programming Wizardry
Heroes of Might and Magic is a port from the PC side, but you would have to really look closely to discover this. A joint effort between port masters Lion Entertainment and PC company New World Computing, the game includes a Mac-friendly manual, Mac-standard keyboard shortcuts, and dazzling high-rez graphics. Even better, the Mac version does not include manual look-up copy protection, a definite bonus.
On my Power Macintosh 7500, the game is fast, fluid, and makes efficient use of CD access. Memory and hardware requirements seem reasonable for a game with this much detail, and there are several options to improve game speed on slower machines.
A Feast for Eyes and Ears
Let’s not mince words, Heroes of Might and Magic is drop-dead gorgeous. I’ve never seen any team of artists get so much mileage out of a mere 256 colors. Brilliant, sharp and creatively-drawn characters and backgrounds make up the game environment. The top-down playfield is a diverse landscape of snowfields, savannahs, grasslands and forests, each with its own obstacles and movement penalties. Villages, castles, resources and treasures sparkle and invite rampant plundering. Monsters and militiamen stomp across the battlefield in smooth animation, attacking without mercy. Every aspect of the game is animated, from the sparkle of forest streams to the ripple of flags on the battlements.
 
More than a simple tiled top-down battlefield, the diverse and complex scenarios reveal unique configurations and features such as river deltas, lava fields and mysterious gated castles. Exotic features such as windmills and lighthouses are important resources to discover, while many a cache of treasure lies behind a mountain pass.
As if the eye-candy wasn’t enough, this game has a soundtrack that is just as diverse and richly detailed. Each landscape feature and terrain type has its own associated sounds, the rushing of the sea, hammers in the mines, the night sounds of the forest, and the creak of the windmill that activate as you travel near the area.
In turn these ambient sounds are mixed with the soundtrack, which is recorded as Redbook CD-quality audio. There is a different soundtrack for each terrain type (forest, swamp, plains, lava, etc.) plus a key song for each type of castle, all in crystal-clear surround stereo. If you canπt get enough of the music, you can pop the disc in your stereo as well! Featuring both live and synthesized instruments, the songs are complex and Medieval-sounding, very dramatic and far from boring. I found myself playing with headphones so I didnπt miss a note.
Combat sounds are also crisp, complex, and realistic. The trudging sounds of the packs of cyclops and the ring of steel on steel echoing over the battlefield is crystal-clear and definitely adds to the excitement.
Familiar Tools, New Uses
Heroes takes the time-tested traditional RPG to a new level by combining traditional character development and quest plots with battlefield management and tactics. You begin as one of four character classes, Warlock, Knight, Sorceress, or Barbarian, with a castle that matches your class. Each class can gather armies of a certain type of creaturesãsoldiers and archers gather in the Knightπs castle, Dragons and Hydras in the Warlockπs stronghold. With limited gold and few resources, you must quickly venture forth and capture mines, villages, and other castles in a struggle to build up a strong enough army to rule the realm.
Sometimes the object is simply to conquer all the opponents (up to four teams play at a time, 3 computer-controlled) while other times you must quest for a certain magical object or try to conquer a key city. The maps themselves have random distribution of resources and special items, so the each map is different every time you play.
 
As you fight, each character (known as a ’Hero’) gains experience and abilities, and these abilities add to the strength of heroπs army overall. In addition you can acquire magical objects which add greatly to your power. Each map contains an Ultimate Artifact hidden underground which may be found by visiting magical obelisks that reveal parts of a map. Finding this artifact may tip the balance of power greatly, or even end the scenario.
You can play one of 30 pre-made scenarios, or embark on a Campaign, where you must survive map after map, as they grow more difficult and complex each time. However, it is disappointing that you start each campaign ’fresh’, and cannot carry over any artifacts, armies or experience to the new scenario.
The computer opponents can be quite wily, often going on suicidal charges in a desperate attempt to capture resources. They use magic well and never waste a character movement during battle, even on the easiest level. Having all three attack your lands at the same time is no picnic!
Magic and Might
Heroes also includes an interesting twist on the magic systems of the past. In this game all heroes are magic users, though some (such as Warlocks) are more capable than others. You learn spells by building mage towers, which requires lots of diverse resources in budget-busting amounts. Spells are transcribed in your spellbook, and must be recharged after a certain number of uses (determined by your characterπs knowledge level.) The upshot is that magic is pivotal to the balance of power, and you can gain spells by conquering enemy castles or spending your own gold. The battlefield animations of spells at work are really amazing to behold.
You can have up to five different types of creatures in your army, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. There are far too many types to explain in detail. The better armies require huge amounts of gold and resources to create, but are well worth the cost.
Victory, Death and Frustration
Make no mistake, this is a difficult game. Playing against 3 computer opponents is quite a challenge on even the easiest settings. The games are long and involved (6-8 hours at least for some maps!) and often have huge shifts in the balance of power, as one opponent gets spread too thin and is torn to pieces by the others. Often the hero who begins with access to a gold mine and a seaport will surge quickly ahead, only to be clobbered when one of the other heros finds the Ultimate Artifact or manages to buy dragons. As if your opponents arenπt tough enough already, many of the resources and magical items are guarded by large groups of lethal creatures.
Much of the struggle is over resources. You may find yourself claiming the local gold mine dozens of times, or defending the same castle nearly continuously from a stream of enemies. While this can get monotonous at times, rebuilding your army again and again only to have it crushed by a strong enemy each time, another opponent may weaken and leave an opportunity for you to grow. When you add the dynamics of special items and terrain types, the game gets way too involving for its own good.
Play, Play again
Basically you move your hero with the mouse by clicking on a goal. The first click sets the goal and plots the course, the second click gets you there. A cursor reveals how many days (turns) it will take to arrive at your goal. This is the way you capture resources, enter battle, and return to your castle to rebuild your army. The interface is entirely point-and click and could not be more intuitive. You can trade with other heroes of your banner, visit monuments and even cruise around in a boat. Spellcasting, map reading and resource building is all handled with the mouse. Intelligent cursors reveal actions, encounters and areas of limited movement.
Network play is possible over modem, serial connection and Localtalk. Unfortunately, I was unable to test this as it requires a game CD for each computer. Two human opponents may play, but the manual was frustratingly unclear as to whether computer players were involved, what maps may be used, or how the rules of combat might be set. In the game box was a coupon for a network CD for just $15, a very nice offer indeed. Also included was a laminated full-color quick-reference card, very handy.
Cheaters Always Prosper
It didnπt take long to realize that the computer cheats. Fans of MacPlay’s Castles: Siege and Conquest will get a familiar sinking sensation as they play, knowing how it feels to start out in the hole. However, I’m not disturbed or angry about the cheating after all, computer AIs are no match for human brains. The only way to make them competitive was to give them the edge in resources. However I won’t soon forget the time when I gained the spell ’View Mines’ and discovered that one of my opponents had 10 mines captured a mere 5 days into the game! The computer also gets extra peeks at the Ultimate Artifact map, some scenarios require you to visit
often find the Artifact without visiting all of them.
Obviously this makes the game quite tough. It can also be an advantage, however, when the computer players decide to go after each other instead of you√£while they battle it out, you simply clean up behind them, grabbing battle-weakened castles and villages. Often the best strategy is to wait and see who is under attack on two fronts, and throw your forces on their flank.
Sometimes the computer’s cheating takes such sundry forms that it may be evidence of bugs in the game, such as having 2 groups of the same monster class (impossible for you) or using magic when no hero is present. This happens infrequently, not enough to seriously disrupt game play.
Every Diamond Has a Few Flaws
Besides the cheating described above, the game has several quirks. There are a few key shortcuts for certain actions but they are inconsistent from screen to screen, and you must rely on the mouse for many actions. Scrolling the map is similar to WarCraft II, accomplished by putting the pointer at the edge of the screen, but scrolling up involves a fight with the menu bar. Also, There is no way to get out of combat once it has started, you must play until the end or surrender.
Game saving is also buggy. When you begin a campaign it over-writes the old games you may have saved in the past, and does not save reliably unless you change the filename. Game names have lame DOS-style limitations (12 chars, all caps) and are in an ugly pseudo-script font. There is a very nice auto-save feature that pulled my armored butt out of the fire a few times, but this slows down game play slightly.
With my full extension load (Speed Doubler, Ram Doubler, Kaleidoscope, many more) Heroes was slightly unstable, but when I trimmed it down to just a few extensions the game was crash-free. Like most CD-ROM games, Heroes benefits greatly from lots of RAM and few extensions, and suffers with CD-ROM accelerators and virtual memory.
There is no way to chose which character class you begin as, unless you are on a campaign, and no way to chose which spells you get when you upgrade the mage tower. While this seems somewhat reasonable, it still proves very frustrating at times.
Sometimes much of the game is simply random chance, if you start out in a bad position occasionally there is just no way to win, especially if all three opponents decide to go after you instead of each other. Also, dragons are just too powerful. Immune to magic, an army of just 10 dragons and a good spellcaster can clobber anything on the map. Many scenarios pivot depending on whom controls a Warlock castle with a Black Tower generating dragons.
The End of the Tale
Heroes of Might and Magic is challenging, infuriating at times, a sight to behold and music to the ears. Fans of games such as Warcraft II, Realmz, Dungeon Master and even Spaceward Ho will love the combination of RPG and strategy elements, and the huge complexities that arise when you combine the variables of terrain, resources, opponent behavior and magical spells. Besides the campaign games there are many single-map scenarios to chose from, each with unique features, and each offering 2-6 hours of gameplay. This game will provide hours and hours of play, so keep a clock nearby because time flies when you’re clobbering peasants with your Cyclops!
Pros
• Gorgeous artwork and complex, original CD-quality sound & music
• Complex and involved gameplay with dozens of variables
• Diverse terrains and resources
• Well-designed maps with subtly balanced resource placement
• Character classes each have certain strengths and weaknesses, which balance out over time
• Many spells with devastating effects
• Random resource & item placement means nearly endless gameplay
• Second CD available for a mere $15
Cons
• Computer cheats! Necessary to make the game challenging, but that doesnπt mean you have to like it
• Some scenarios too tough to be believed, even on ≥Easy≤
• Dragons way too powerful, and unbalance the game
• Magical Heroes and castles have a definite advantage in the long run, though they are weak early on
