Most gamers have probably heard of Heroes of Might and Magic. The game is set in a medieval world filled with orcs, magicians, spells, treasures, knights and castles.

Heroes of Might and Magic are built around exploration and battles. There is a building part too but it’s not that hard to master and is mainly there for producing and improving troops. In the game you are presented with a map that is packed with different areas to explore and tasks to do.

Some of the tasks might be orcs blocking the path to a treasure, other times you need to take over a mine or something similar. Most of the battalions give you something in return, usually gold or a resource. The gold and resources are then used to recruit more troops and win more important battles.

The more important battles are usually against some of your computer opponents, named after colours (not very innovative). What you are after is to crush the opponents and then take over the whole map for yourself.

Battles in Heroes of Might and Magic are not as you first expect. There is no real-time top down perspective, instead the view is from the side and resembles the battle systems seen in many RPGs. Your units can give different amount of hit points to the enemy when attacking; they also have points for defence. The more units you have the more advantage in the battle.

But the outcome of a battle is also based on what kind of units you have, peasants are not as strong as orcs or cavalry. There are also several magical elements that determine the battles, you can choose different spells to protect units, give more attack points and so on.

The development of magical spells is done in the cities as much else in the game. Each army has to be led by a hero, you can select heroes that are more barbarian or more into magic. The hero you select has a huge impact on how your army will operate, so choose wisely.

Each building you build in the city has a maximum number of units that it can build. Maxing out the number of units to build is not a good idea since you can only build a couple of units a week. So if you are the middle of a week and you have maxed out and sent your units far away from your capital you can easily fall in to big trouble fast. Often the enemy tries to go directly to your capital, and if you have no units there it will fall and your empire will fall.

It’s constantly a balancing act in Heroes of Might and Magic between sending away units and keeping units in the cities.

What I really love about the game is the graphics and maps. They are so detailed and there is often so much to explore and find out, that’s why you can all this a part strategy part adventure game.

It’s easy to see why Heroes of Might and Magic has been such a huge success. The game features a great concept, great game play and interesting battles. This is one of my absolute favourite games ever; it should be part of your collection.

Requirements:
N/A
Tested on:
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon Graphics Card