Might & Magic Heroes VI Review

There haven’t been a lot of English reviews for Black Hole Entertainment’s sixth installment in the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise, but people who are interested in critic’s opinions on the title may be interested in reading this piece from RTSGuru, which awards it a 7/10 and calls it “horribly frustrating fun”.

One of the most surprising additions to the game comes in the form of boss fights. Not something you traditionally see in a strategy title, these bring a new twist to the game that comes as a pleasant surprise. There are eight bosses throughout the game such as the Abyssal Worm or the Dragon Eel which all have their own unique battlegrounds, spells and abilities. They’ll push your strategy and army building abilities to their very limits and really add an interesting new level to the game/franchise. Standard combat has received a couple of tweaks as well. Occasionally you’ll be given special objectives you have to meet during the battle. The example given during the tutorial campaign is that you have a stack of Orc Maulers which have to survive the fight. On some battlegrounds you’ll also find strategic points, such as enchanted statues, which can provide any units near it with buffs which can drastically alter the course of battle. Units can also make use of cover by being positioned behind walls and such which will affect opponents ranged attacks.

And now, we get to the bad: UPlay. Sure, I love all the bonuses that the whole social network aspect of it brings to the table. You get some great bonuses such as the dynasty weapons, which level up and develop over time. There’s a whole meta-game aspect to it that adds to the depth of Heroes 6 and in general is a very cool concept. But that upside comes with a HUGE downside, required internet connectivity. I cannot begin to express how absolutely annoying and frustrating it is to see the popup message (You’ve disconnected from the internet, exiting game to main menu) while you’re playing a single player game. Especially when you have a less than stellar internet provider like I do; I’m looking at you Time Warner. And it doesn’t even take much, I’ve been booted from the game on occasions when I didn’t even notice a loss of connection in any other manner; IM programs didn’t reconnect, etc. And to make matters worse, once you restart the game, it takes forever for it to (synchronize save games), whatever that means. And once that finishes, and you actually get back to the menu and select ‘˜Continue Campaign’ you find yourself several turns back from where you were. even though it is supposed to be auto-saving after every day/turn. I’m as against game piracy as the next guy. I’m not anti-DRM in general by nature, but there HAS to be a better way to do it than this system.

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Even though UPlay keeps pissing me off to no end, I find myself steadily returning to the game, even if it means replaying several turns each time I get booted. In a lot of ways it brings back great memories from the earlier days of the franchise, and in others it feels updated and modernized. Sure, some of the changes are hits and some are misses, and dealing with UPlay is a major migraine inducing mess if you have a less that reliable internet connection, but when it’s all said and done, Heroes 6 is a solid entry to the franchise and one I’ve been waiting on for a while now.