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Resource hog but otherwise great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: August 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Disclosure: I'm a huge fan of all the Heroes of Might & Magic (HoMM) games going back to HoMM1, AND, I'm a huge fan of Macs, so much so that I don't use a Windows machine at home. For me, I *had* to buy this game simply to "vote with my dollars" and encourage future Mac HoMM development. But, I will try to put aside my biases and rate the game on its own merits.

If you are unfamiliar with HoMM games, stop reading this review and *run* to buy HoMM2 and HoMM3 immediately for the Windows platform. (Why not get them for Mac? More on this later.) I won't get too involved in describing the games, as there are plenty of sites with great descriptions. HoMM games are turn-based strategy in a fantasy setting. The player manages heroes, armies, castles, resources, artifacts, spells, and quests, and competes with other human or AI players to conquer the map. As heroes gain experience, their primary stats improve, and they can learn specialty skills that help them in unique ways. This description hardly does them justice, but suffice it to say, HoMM games are incredibly addictive. Over the years, I've returned to HoMM2 and HoMM3 many times, as they are among the best games ever made, and highly replayable.

In fact, all I really want is HoMM2 and/or HoMM3 ported to work natively under OS X. I would pay dearly for such a privilege. This would allow me to avoid the hassle of Windows and still have access to some of the best games of all time. True, HoMM2 and HoMM3 are both available for Mac, but both are pre-OS X, so you need to run them in Classic mode. That would be acceptable, except for the fact that Apple doesn't support Classic for modern, Intel-based Macs, and is phasing Classic out entirely under their upcoming operating system Leopard. Though I haven't tried this yet, I recommend just using the Windows versions of both classic games and running them under Parallels/Fusion/Boot Camp, hence my earlier recommendation. (HoMM4 was written natively for OS X. Unfortunately, it's also the worst of the entire series and doesn't compel replay years later.)

This left a hole in the Mac HoMM experience. HoMM5 fills that hole nicely. First off, HoMM5 undid some of the failed experiments of HoMM4. Your hero no longer can fight and die directly in battle, you can't have a band of all heroes, and you can't have a band of just monster units. This restores the most interesting gameplay aspects of HoMM2 and HoMM3. It's been said that HoMM5 is just HoMM3 in 3D -- so far, I concur. HoMM5 has all the interesting exploration, empire building, skill-acquiring, and great mini-game combat of the earlier classics. I'm particularly intrigued by HoMM5's interesting primary and secondary skill system. With the release of the v1.5 patch, the game is plenty stable enough.

I downgraded the game to 4 stars because of the steep system requirements. I have a maxed out Mac mini, I've turned the game down to its very minimum settings, and still the game is tediously slow to respond. Frankly, I would have preferred a 2D version of the game if it meant the game would run well on normal hardware.

But overall, a very strong game and worthy successor to the classics of HoMM2 and HoMM3, and it's native OS X to boot.

Lots of Fun, Just not Perfectly Tuned

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: May 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Heroes of Might and Magic V (HOMM5) is an amazing game. Its everything you would expect from a HOMM game and more, although the Mac version is somewhat lacking. Of primary concern is the fact that the game doesn't come with a Map Editor since the PC version of the game didn't have one either while the game was being ported to the Mac. It is still possible to use maps made by PC users that are posted online, but it would still be nice to be able to create/edit your own.

Another large problem with the game is that it likes to crash. A lot. It doesn't matter what your computers specs are, the game is going to crash after prolonged periods of play. In my case it usually happens every two hours or so. Of course all you have to do is start up the game again and continue from the last autosave so you never really lose that much, but it is still definitely a hassle that makes the game somewhat less enjoyable.

Ignoring the downsides, the game has an excellent storyline carried out through a series of six campaigns, each focusing on one of the new factions that the game was divided into. For multiplayer the game of course has Hotseat as well as connection with other players via the internet. However, since the Mac version and the PC version are currently different it makes internet PvP only possible with other Mac users.

No patches have been released for the Mac version yet, although Freeverse has stated that they are working on it. All in all the game is still quite enjoyable and I'm very glad that it was ported to the Macintosh, something I thought would never happen.

INTEL PROCESSOR REQUIRED!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 27
Date: April 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I pre-ordered this item late last fall and couldn't wait until it was released. I received it in the mail but waited until I finished my Masters thesis to play it. I went to instal it and it required an Intel Processor. The intel based computers weren't even being sold when this could be pre-ordered. It doesn't say anywhere on Amazon's product info that this is required so be aware. I figured since I got the Mac version, it would be okay but I was wrong and unfortunately I had to open it to find out I can't use it. So please make sure you have an intel processor before ordering this!

An excellent continuation of the series.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Having played HOMM 2 and HOMM 3, gameplay is very familiar. The campaign mode is heavily scripted, with a good number of cutscenes both before and during the chapters. Visuals were always good, but are now in eye popping 3D with even richer detail than before. The only drawback is the sometimes tricky camera angles in the underground areas.

While HOMM 2 and 3 were for MacOS 8 and 9, respectively, this one is for MacOS X 10.4 or later, on Intel processors, machines which can't run the earlier games.

It's not entirely stable, with the occasional force-quit required, but not very often.

I'd recommend it for any fan of the earlier games, but there may be a slight feel of 'been there, done that'.

this game hates macbook "air"

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I can not play this game with out two weeks of back and forth comunication with there tech support and on top of that I still cant play the campain with out the game crashing at the end of the first senerio. I have played tribes of the east on my brothers PC and it is way better then this game. it has two options for upgraded units instead of one and gives you an idea of how much threat a group on the map is to you based on the hero you have highlighted and what kind of force they have with them.

these companies really need to get on the ball and understand that there are going to be a lot more mac users and if they want to take advantage of those users they need to start making games that can be run on those systems.

this game is a joke compared to heroes of might and magic tribes of the east (for PC).

Great game but a little glitchy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: August 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a very fun game. It almost never gets old. The only problem that I have come across is that the game has a proclivity to crash during gameplay. But luckily it auto-saves frequently so you don't lose that much of your gameplay. The only time this becomes a problem is if it freezes you lose all of your saved information for that mission or map so you have to completely redo it.

************UPDATE******************
The developers for Heroes of Might and Magic have released a patch that fixes all the bugs including the crashing and freezing.

Get set to ... Crash!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: February 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have been a fan of this game series since HoMM II. This installment is actually fun to play, for as long as it runs. It crashes. A lot. As in you will actually have to restart your Mac by holding down the power button at least once because the game will lock up and you won't even be able to exit to the desktop. Most of the time it just quits. Good thing it autosaves frequently, but I have had saved games crash as they are being loaded. At least a few of my saved sessions appear never destined to be finished because of this. There are no troubleshooting options build into the program. The so-called programmers ought to be ashamed. The mac platform deserves better performance. And for this we waited over a year.

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