Heroes of Annihilated Empires

This is one of my favorite games from childhood, i had it as boxed version and it was awesome, but i have a bug in this GOG version, which is, that there are no cutscenes between missions.....

NOT RECOMMENDED. "The captivating campaign" involves infinitely spawning 50 - 100 enemy units every minute. The only units that do not get instantly owned by the weakest enemy units are 1) your avatar hero and 2) EXACTLY ONE tower surrounded by hordes of your units. The waves weaken only if you manage to plow through a lot of obstacle-like unit clusters to kill the summoners. The phenomenon of inifinite enemy spawns is also known as the Infinite Hole - this game is BUILT on it. One third-party summarized the single player campaign as "long chore", probably because of how much micromanaging and bad-AI exploiting it entails. BTW, the GOG release does not play the cutscenes (the .ogv files), which where a significant part of the original and its story-telling. Speaking of which, the voice acting is annoying with the messed up voice tones. Stay away from this de facto tower defense game. An RTS with this generic maps and repeated content is worthless.

The game is ok. It's basically Cossacs with a focus on heroes not unlike Warcraft 3. But unlike W3 hereoes here can get INSANELY powerful. Armies are gigantic and sometimes number in the thousands (the game is from 2005 so units are mostly 2d sprites). There are 4 factions each playing somewhat differently and neutral town/villages. My main gripe with the game however is the fact the story was never finished (no worries the game itself is finished but the story was to be continued in the sequels) so you get those hints of another powerful faction manipulating the events from the shadows and curiosity keeps you playing then... poof. the game ended you get a cutscene and have to wait for the sequel (that will never come). It's still a nice experience worth checking out however and maybe playing multi with a friend.

Good things and bad things: + Easy to get into. No tedious tutorials or unnecessary mechanics. You start the game in the middle of the action, without it being too overwhelming, then learn all the aspects along the way. + Great combination of RTS and RPG. You control a ranger, but you can modify your "class" by choosing the right items, spells and stats when leveling up. Although it's a little bit boring not to go for a spellcaster. There are not many abilities for a more fighter/archer oriented build. + Decent campaign. - The game is very slow and the AI is terrible. Maps are huge and you have to walk around all the time. Missions are extremely easy once you understand how the AI works. - It's easy to abuse the mechanics of the game. The main focus is allowing you to decide if you want to end the missions the way you choose: base building or more focused on the RPG factor and use your hero only. To make this possible your hero is, more often than not, overpowered. Most missions, if not all, are far less problematic done by the hero alone. - Considering the above, the base building aspect of the game is disappointing. You get the hold of it in one mission then you don't care about it. Most units are useless and the game and the game doesn't require any tactics or competing for resources (you have your one spot for resources and that's it, you only have to build around it). - Story seems a little bit lazy. Not only it's a dumbed down rushed version of Warcraft 3, you see tanks and airplanes for no reason at all and then they forget about them. Despite the flaws, worth buying for cheap.

Start with problems and glitches in game: - Only one campaign without any random elements; - Occasional when you load save game your camera may go outside map; - Investing level points in any other attribute that +2 to Attack is reckless; - In the end game you will only use magic and bow and items that add you +x to spell power. Some magic card are more powerful that you will be expected i.e Eye of Lighting, Pestilence, Statue of Outrage, Infection, Ice Sphere, Fire Ball; If you ignore mentioned glitches and problems you will get: - Some innovation like magic card, limit equipment that hero can have in backpack, attack rate, move speed, health and mana recovery speed . - Sometimes on map you can see cached F 16 or destroyed tank :] . - This is not SpellForce - you don't have to build base, produce unit and so on, to destroy computer (you required some summon magic and good bow and something to slow down enemies). It's really shame that game will be unfinished forever.