Heroes of Might and Magic V

The Good
As you may already know, after 3DO "failed" in their quest to continue the HOM&M Franchise, Nival decided to take care of the HOM&M future, and so, they created HOM&M 5. Nival made Heroes 5 look like Heroes, play like Heroes, sound like Heroes. In short, a great game that keeps the feeling of the famous series. That is one of the things I liked in the game. The graphics are now much more improved, and H5 now has a 3D engine, a camera position, and a zoom options. The environment looks quite good, and the design of the characters and buildings in the game is again, good. The AI is okay, it does act according to the Difficulty level you selected. The Voice acting through the cutscenes is okay too. Not the best, but okay. The in-game sound is absolutely PERFECT. The music is nice too, and combined with the sound effects it offers a unique atmosphere, that only a HOM&M game can offer. I also liked that Nival kept most of the gameplay aspects intact. So, as usual, we have a hero, an army commanded by the hero, tons of artifacts, resources, mines etc... The most important thing in this game is the FUN. The game is so damn fun and addictive, that I play it every day. I've been playing it since I got it off the shelves and I don't think I will stop soon :D

The Bad
I didn't like the new combat system. Even if it is quite the same as the old combat system that we found in Heroes 3, it suffered some modifications. The hero cannot move on the battlefield, but can attack or cast spells. Also, while moving the "attack cursor" over an enemy you will see the estimated number of enemies your creature can take down with that attack. So no more damage counting, no more calculations... it's over. You will know from the very beginning what will happen next. There are some minor bugs present in the game, and some artifacts have no description. So you cannot know how they affect your army, only if you look at every change on your creature/hero stats. That's annoying. Also, the game has no map editor. That's quite bad, since one of the franchise's strong points was the possibility to add custom made content to the original campaigns and single-player scenarios. Also the UbiSoft multiplayer servers are laggy and it isn't worth a multiplayer match on internet. Nothing can compare with a good LAN game with your friends.

The Bottom Line
Even if it has it's bad stuff, the game is fun and addictive. And that makes it better than any other game in the world.