More Good Old Games

[Kalah]

<img src="/http://www.gog.com/upload/images/2009/0 ... e21_bb.jpg" align=right vspace=10 hspace=10>Joining the existing sale of <a href="/http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/heroes_o ... c/">Heroes I</a>, three other games from the Might & Magic franchise are now being made available on Good Old Games - all compatible with Windows XP and Vista (32 and 64 bit), all for the price of $9.99.



<a href="/http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/heroes_o ... on">Heroes of Might and Magic II</a> Gold edition is available right now. For your money you get to download 558 Mb of game goodness, as well as access to a 143 page manual, the soundtrack and a high resolution wallpaper.



<a href="/http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/heroes_o ... on">Heroes of Might and Magic III</a> Complete edition is listed as a "coming soon" feature, with the manual and soundtrack available along with the 800 Mb download once it is released.



Then there's a limited edition of <a href="/http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/might_an ... ion">Might and Magic VI</a> up for release soon as well; and this appears to be a bit of a gem. Along with the 450 Mb download you get loads of extras, including soundtracks from M&M IV and VI, manuals and maps for M&M I-VI, cluebooks, avatars... niceness.



I really like this trend of old games being re-released and made compatible with new machines, because - as we all know - games were better in the good old days...

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1250951226

[berntie]

Hm, I already own HII Gold, but I'm curious about the wallpaper. Would be nice if someone could let us know what it is like.

[Deadguy118]

I guess this is good for people who don't own it, but I'm pretty sure that anyone who goes to CH regularly already owns Heroes II, III and Might and Magic VI

[Falsted]

I actually wouldn't mind getting Heroes 2 again (even though I own it already) just for the fact this version is 'compadible with vista 64 bit'. I recently got a new computer and had to switch over to Vista 64 to take advange of more than 4 GB's of RAM, and ever since I've been unable to play all of the older heroes games under the new operating system

[klaymen]

Hm, I already own HII Gold, but I'm curious about the wallpaper. Would be nice if someone could let us know what it is like.

Red background and polished HoMM2 shield with lion in the middle.

[GreatEmerald]

Along with the 450 Mb download you get loads of extras, including soundtracks from M&M IV and VI

There is an official Clouds of XEEN soundrack? Wow, are they MIDI or CD music?

[Kalah]

No idea... it's all download, so I suppose it could be mp3?

[berntie]

Hm, I already own HII Gold, but I'm curious about the wallpaper. Would be nice if someone could let us know what it is like.

Red background and polished HoMM2 shield with lion in the middle.

Thanks. Oh, and what about the soundtrack? Is it mp3 or some other format? I assume the Might and Magic soundtrack GreatEmerald is talking about will be the same...

[klaymen]

Yes, it is in .mp3 format.

[GreatEmerald]

Interesting, what did they use to record it, then? It's originally MIDI, so each sound device sounds different... I guess they should have used Roland Canvas, yet it could be SoundBlaster or even their own synthesizer...

[Ryder]

I think I might have to get Heroes I and II.

[berntie]

Interesting, what did they use to record it, then? It's originally MIDI, so each sound device sounds different... I guess they should have used Roland Canvas, yet it could be SoundBlaster or even their own synthesizer...

Don't know about Xeen, but for HII they probably recorded the CD audio tracks as mp3.

[Shad0WeN]

I'm curious to know what they did for the music in Heroes 2 since it played the tracks off the CD. Do you suppose they converted them to MP3 and integrated them into the game like Heroes 3?

[berntie]

I'm curious to know what they did for the music in Heroes 2 since it played the tracks off the CD. Do you suppose they converted them to MP3 and integrated them into the game like Heroes 3?

My guess is they disconnected the soundtrack from the game, so that you'll have to play the mp3s separately.

[klaymen]

Interesting, what did they use to record it, then? It's originally MIDI, so each sound device sounds different... I guess they should have used Roland Canvas, yet it could be SoundBlaster or even their own synthesizer...

Heroes 2 soundtrack contains MIDI version of menu theme (also in .mp3).
Probably any sound capturing software should do the trick.

I'm curious to know what they did for the music in Heroes 2 since it played the tracks off the CD. Do you suppose they converted them to MP3 and integrated them into the game like Heroes 3?

Probably they just added the music to the game directory and rewrote some .ini files (if there are any), or something like that,

[Richard Hallas]

I bought this so I could play it in DOS Box on my Intel Mac (and it works brilliantly, just like a native game, with easy window/full-screen toggle).



To answer some questions:



1. The wallpaper is a single image in multiple sizes up to 1920x1200: the Heroes shield on a striking red background. It's actually pretty nice (though the bright red background texture is a surprise), but not worth buying the pack for!



2. The soundtrack is *just* the original Heroes II game music: all the original audio tracks from the CD turned into MP3s. Unfortunately, (a) the six new Price of Loyalty town themes are absent, and (b) it sounds as though the CD they transferred the music from was slightly faulty, as there are a handful of little pops and crackles that aren't there on my Heroes CD. But luckily they're only minor blemishes; it's a pity they're there, but they don't ruin it. There's also a good quality rendition of the MIDI title music, which is completely different from the normal CD-audio title music. You *don't* get the soundtracks for M&M IV and VI; I think they're coming later, when those games are released by GOG.



3. Here's the BEST BIT: Heroes II has been updated so it PLAYS THE MUSIC DIGITALLY, WITHOUT THE CD! This easily makes it worth buying again by anyone who loves Heroes II. Install it and you get the exact same with-music experience as you got from the original game, but without needing the CD in the drive. Brilliant.



The only down-side of the new music system is that (a) the transfers have a few small glitches in them (as noted in point 2), and the files used by the game aren't MP3s so you can't just drop in replacement transfers; and (b) there's no way to listen to the Price of Loyalty tracks any more, if you have them on a CD somewhere.



What I'd really like is for the game to play the original Heroes II town themes if the user is playing an original-format map, and to play the Price of Loyalty themes if an expansion-pack map is in use. That'd be perfect. In fact, I've written to GOG support to ask if they could update the game in that way. You never know.



Anyway, whatever, this is *well* worth buying.

[Metal Wolf]

Thats weird: It says that the gold edition includes "558 Mb of game goodness"... But how come its that big?

H2 on Hard disc weights 60 MG, + 237 MG on CD (Music, video). Im not sure about Price of Loyality, I guess its another 30 MG (probably less) on HD and probably some 100 MG on CD (no new music). Even if we add a few more dozens of MG in order to adjust the game to windows/vista (im not even sure that it takes more HD space to do that, but whatever), the game still barely reaches 450 MG. So How come it's official size is 558 MG ? 100 (or even 50) MG are a LOT when considering games from that era. Any extra maps? Modifications? map objects? Fixed bugs? (though never been a problem in H2 anyway.. )

[klaymen]

There can be another additional files copied from the cd, not only audio/video.
But feel free to ask GOG support for more information, they are always helpful.

[Shyranis]

Most likely the audio is lossless uncompressed audio if it's that big. It's like they converted the CD to uncompresses .wav files and hid them in data files.

[Metal Wolf]

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Edited on Mon, Aug 24 2009, 10:42 by Metal Wolf