Heroes of Might and Magic V Preview

The guys at Primotech have written up a preview of Ubisoft and Nival Interactive’s Heroes of Might and Magic V, based on some firsthand time they were able to spend with the RPG/strategy sequel. Check it out:

Speaking of turns, I’ve never associated the word turn with the word slow until I played HOMM V. Depending on the game settings, turns can end as soon as they start, or they can last until the end of time. In most games I played, turn time limits were set to about two minutes. While this may seem like a lot of time, it’s no where near enough to move your heroes, buy creatures, build buildings, trade resources, manage your town and attack hostiles. The other problem is that although your turn always feels short, your enemy’s turn feels like an eternity. While your enemy moves, you are forced to sit there and stare at whatever you were last staring at. I shudder to think how much worse it would have been if I had played against more than one opponent and had to wait for three other people to take their turns. Although I’m sure the final version will have a simultaneous turn mode, I would still like Nival to include something to do while waiting for your next turn. One recommendation I had would be to allow players waiting for their turn to enter their base and use the down time to work on base management. Even if all they gave us was a minigame to help pass the time, it would be better than staring at your opponent’s user name, as clever as I’m sure it is. I actually wrote half of this article between turns. I would alt-tab out of the game, write a paragraph or two (yes, I had that much time) and wait for my task bar to start blinking, indicating that it was my turn again. I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers anticipated this and designed the task bar to blink when your turn is up.