Sports Games

Where once it was all camp ... real-time strategy, now prosperous, and the kingdom of tower defense clones of Dote, whose success is even more glaring when we consider that the - few - bastions of tradition (Relic, Paradox, The Creative Assembly) stand out on a flat calm creative and commercial seems to have no end. The natural ebb of the PC market, with the appearance of the last generation of consoles, has been accompanied by the emergence of platforms "touch" and created a situation too uncertain, and pushes that prompted many publishers still do not dare production a big-budget RTS. And here is disappear the Age of Empires and World in Conflict, while Dawn of War takes hard and Heroes of Might & Magic is allowed even the luxury of the sixth chapter. Hats off to Ubisoft's courage, then, in the hope that the genre finds new life in the future.

Before evaluating the goodness of the game itself, it made a small introduction about the online features now virtually merged with the concept of DRM (i.e. anti-piracy): Heroes VI it can be started online or offline, and this setting can not be changed from within the game. In addition to saving remote, but with a limited number of slots, online gambling offers content expanded slightly in the single player campaign, weapons and abilities, or "persistent" that goes hand in hand with the growth of their characters, with charts and achievement. In contrast, when the connection gets lost - for whatever reason - to Ubisoft server, the game is stopped abruptly and without being able to save anything. Not only that, it is also impossible to continue last saved until the connection is reestablished. Playing offline, but the contents are lost on the persistence of the character, but you earn endless bailouts, and not likely to have stopped the game at the climax: the choice is yours, of course.

This mode online, together with the new name, is not the only innovation devised by Ubisoft and Black Hole to justify the existence of a new chapter of game play the entire system was subjected to alterations, additions, and some simplifications' in all areas. Just think of the control points at the strategic, allowing you to conquer all the mines and carpentry of an area at once, or complete reorganization of the management of cities and heroes. Although the series has once again changed the developer, and in spite of the numerous upgrades, what made it great old episodes still survives today in the diabolical alternation between broad strategic tactical battles is tight, so that we have no hesitation to label even this sixth chapter as very dangerous for those who tend to develop tolerance and addiction to video games. The spirit of the glorious Heroes of Might & Magic by New World Computing survives, in short, even in this evolution, which can be viewed as a heartfelt tribute to those masterpieces, but it has its reason for being stripped of any surplus also nostalgic.

To keep alive the spirit of the series Black Hole developers have done a lot of clever choices in terms of game play, in particular as regards the "appearance" is the component of the strategic tactics that convey a distinctive feel and old fans will feel right at home. At the same time, the campaign tutorial and soft learning curve should allow anyone to become a new passion without losing his mental health. This delicate balance is dramatically broken, unfortunately, lead to the ridiculous and the grotesque, as soon as the dialogue in the form of text window replacing the cut-scenes with the characters framed by near here, unfortunately, stands the smell of crisp production low-budget (or budget spent everything to make the game and not for video) due to the almost total lack of animation, the more painful because people associated with that "voice" scream, laugh and inspire a lot, but then are struggling to turn their heads slightly or move an arm.

And to think that some of the plot developments would not be bad either, and the chance to experience them in the shoes of various characters makes it even more complex and potentially interesting. The slips in the dialogues, especially when you try to be ironic, is perhaps the most of all helps to break the immersion and convey a sense of incompleteness, doing - so here - a little 'regret the austerity of the old chapters who could count on a much more general art facility thickness. Not being opposed in principle to the saturated colors and styling, we are even able to appreciate the style particularly "happy" graphics, but not always: the campaign "hell", for example, could benefit from a lot darker and dramatic characterization and it is tacky to do so instead of regretting every single two-dimensional sprite of the old chapters. Fortunately, we think the music to rehabilitate part of the atmosphere and to ensure that continuity with the past that the management of Ubisoft failed to maintain elsewhere.