Hammers of Fate doesn’t really feel like an expansion, since there are no additions to the units or the buildings to all the old factions, but it really made heroes of might and magic 5 playable. A new race have been introduced, the dwarves, which fells like a combination between the Dwarves and the barbarians, and the unit models portrayed this very well. The units are short and heavily armored, similar to the dwarves in warcraft 3, and still there is barbaric felling in their town, units , soundtrack, and the hero. They have a unit named the berserker, which shatters all the hopes of seeing a stand alone barbarian faction in any future expansion pack. Sorry fans. The expansion also added what all the fans have been waiting for. A random map generator, and it is working pretty well. The maps generated are pretty unique, and kinda remind you of Heroes of might and magic 3 maps, with the treasures scattering all over the place. You may even level up you hero to level 5 in your third turn. However, the generated map needs some polishing which can be made in the map editor outside the game. It’s just that the mines tend to have week units guarding it. You may see for example a level 1 unit guarding a crystal mine. But it’s nothing that the map editor can’t handle. The Campaign introduced, now is more polished than the original. The mouth of the characters now moves as they speak in the cut seen. The voice acting is improved. However the missions are not very challenging, but this is compensated by an interesting story though. The game now is faster online since there is the simultaneous game mode. You can now play with the other players at the same time, and then you hit end turn you wait for the others if they did not finish their game yet. However there is a problem mentioned in the manual called “the conflict”, which happens when you and one of the players are trying to access a treasure at the sometime for example. What happens is that the automatically changes to be turn based again in the middle of the play The only thing that is not seemed to be improved is the AI, Which is still the main problem in the game.
The expansion is really a great addition, and should satisfy the fans of the series. However if you didn’t like the original, don’t bother with the expansion, since the gameplay is basicly the same
Other Helpful Reviews for Heroes of Might and Magic V: Hammers of Fate
Ubisoft's latest release in Heroes of Might and Magic series, HOMM V: Hammers of Fate will be a great addition for whoever enjoyed the original HOMM V. In this new release, Ubisoft included a new Dwarf race, a couple of ... Read Full Review
Hammers of Fate is a great addition to Heroes of Might and Magic V. What I like most about this game is a Random Map Generator feature. This adds a lot of fun and replay value to the game. So this expansion pack is not j... Read Full Review
