Reviews
- by Angelspit
RPGWatch links to the first review of Katauri's King's Bounty on CRPG.RU, in Russian. The game is apparently the greatest thing since sliced bread as the game gets a score of 9.5 out of 10.
Perhaps our Russian-speaking readers will be willing to translate some quotes for us.
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- by Darknessfood
From Round Table member darknessfood comes a quick review of Might and Magic II for the mobile phone (which has very little to do with the 1988 title). All critics of Gameloft's two Might and Magic games are very positive, so they are a safe purchase for anyone willing to go on a quest while on the bus.
You can find more fan reviews at the top of this page.
Read on: Might and Magic 2 Review
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- by Angelspit
Game Informer (8.5/10): "Peripheral fluff like picking up collectibles aside, Dark Messiah’s gameplay revolves around finding creative ways to dispatch your enemies. Coming up with and executing a plan of attack tailored to your abilities and the situation stays fresh and entertaining throughout the game."
TeamXbox (6/10): "The framerate in Dark Messiah is all over the place. In some areas, things move as smooth as silk, and in these spots the game truly shines. In other places though, the game slows to a crawl, chugging along sporadically with all the grace of a pregnant yak."
Eurogamer (6/10): "For everything that's good about the combat intensity, the flexibility of the skill system, the quality of the puzzles and the brooding, engaging atmosphere, it's undone by massive technical problems. After such a long wait, the last thing we expected was for it to be even more of a buggy, unoptimised mess than it was the first time around. But it is."
We had some good words for the PC version of the game in 2006, but now we can only recommend you avoid the Xbox version. Your money will be better spent elsewhere.
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- by arturchix
If you haven’t received the latest newsletter from Ubisoft, here’s some refreshing news. To celebrate the Dark Messiah release for Xbox 360 in 12th February, a new contest has been announced. To enter it just submit the registration form and a randomly chosen entry will win a weekend for two to Comic Con New York, including a night out with the hot Frag Dolls! There are some additional prizes for the runner-ups like Premium Xbox 360 Accessory Package, External Maxtor One Touch Hard Drive and a free copy of Dark Messiah Elements. The contest seems to be open for US residents only.
Meanwhile, GamesDog today published one of the first reviews of Elements, yet again classifying Dark Messiah as a RPG and comparing it with Oblivion. According to the reviewer “the story here is as dull as dishwater” and “Elements is staunchly linear”. At least slaughtering monsters and the power of the kick was fun. The verdict:
It might not be quite as depth filled as you could have hoped, and a single play through will only take a matter of a free days, but there’s little doubt that Elements can be a lot of fun if you’re into the whole bloodlust thing. If fantasy themed brutal first-person action is what you’re after, you could do a hell of a lot worse.
Final score: 7 out of 10.
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- by Angelspit
TVG has a preview of the upcoming Xbox 360 version of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, "Elements" (thanks RPGWatch). The author is not impressed to say the least, and lists the lack of balance ("the dependency on Mana if you're a Mage is so high thanks to inadequacy of the Wooden Staff, that all too often we were forced to kick enemies backwards time after time"), dated graphics ("The textures in the gameworld are wholly underwhelming in the build, reaching the standards expected in an Xbox 1 title, the animation is clunky and robotic, and the lighting/shadowing isn't convincing in the least.") and bugs in a late build of the game ("ong loading times, missing textures, unsynchronised sound, and the occasional critical crash") as problems which could seriously hurt the fun factor. In the verdct, he describes the game as a Bargain Bin Candidate.
I'm getting very worried about our chances of getting a Dark Messiah sequel anytime soon.
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- by Angelspit
YouGamers has a detailed review of the Tribes of the East expansion, written by someone who seems familiar with the series. The author describes the new features introduced by the game, lists some of the surprises that can be found in the campaign scenarios, talks about the Orcs and their blood rage... and blames the game for being resource-hungry:
"One of these is the fact that even on higher end dual core systems with 2 GB RAM and a top end graphics card, the performance can get painfully bad after several hours of gaming. Especially lengthy battles seem to have a huge impact on performance, so it seems to be a question of bad memory management (throwing more RAM into your setup may help for a while, but ultimately it will only delay the slowdowns and the time to when you'll have to quit and restart the game)."
Tribes of the East gets a 75% grade, with praises for the gameplay ("one of the best versions in terms of gameplay mechanics and the amount of tactics the players can use") and the art design, and complaints for the cutscenes and game engine.
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- by Angelspit
For some reason, reviews of the Tribes of the East expansion are taking a while to come up online. GameSpy, among others, is too busy playing Gears of War, Call of Duty 4 and Hellgate London. However, 1UP posted another short review of the Orcish expansion, giving the game a 7 out of time and a fairly positive bottomline:
"Nival took Heroes V in a new, elaborately lush artistic direction, which remains as beautiful as ever -- and well connected to the Dark Messiah look -- in this expansion. General game performance is unfortunately unimproved, and things sometimes slow to a near-crawl on the tactical map. Ultimately, Tribes of the East manages to gobble time as effectively as any good Heroes installment; it's an impressive final outing for Heroes V -- and another strong showing from Nival."
Elsewhere, arturchix spotted a reference to the December edition of PC Zone UK, which gives the expansion a grade of 58%. The article itself is not available online.
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- by Angelspit
The Games Radar review of Tribes of the East reads like a summary of the IGN review published last week. Again we are told how unfortunate it is that we only get to play the Stronghold campaign late in the game (what if The Two Towers movie began right in the middle of the Helm's Deep siege?). The game gets a 7 out of 10, the official score of the typical neutral review (but I admit I did it as well before).
I really didn't want to whine about reviews for a while, but that article makes me wonder how much the author got paid for the 509 words he wrote...
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- by Angelspit
IGN is the first to publish a review of Tribes of the East, the new Heroes expansion. The article is fairly positive with a score of 7.9 out of 10. The reviewer liked the Orc faction and its various powers, the improved cutscenes and the new visuals. On the other hand, the game lost points because the author was forced to complete the Necropolis campaign before he could try the Orcs. There is also a comment about the need for more automation, but there was no indication of what area of micromanagement could be eliminated.
A very generic article that reads like a preview, but still miles ahead of the trash that was published on 1UP last year. GameSpy usually has some of the best written reviews for Heroes games, so I can't wait to read what they think.
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- by Angelspit
Did you ever try to introduce a friend to a serious video game such as a RPG or a strategy game, only to find out twelve minutes later that your friend has the attention span of a hyperactive third grader and the only option is to quit the game in frustration? Well, this review is for you: part 1 / part 2.
Warning: there is a lot of foul language (but nothing your kid hasn't heard before in the schoolyard), it's silly and and you might be offended by the treatment given to the venerable role-playing series. But we don't see the Might and Magic name on a popular Youtube video every day. Thanks to Ya5MieL for the links.
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