Heroes of Might and Magic® 5: Bundle

First of all, let me say that i've always preferred homm2 to 3. Ok, the third one plays better and is better balanced, but it lacked the spirit of the second game, the cartoony looks that were fun and overall i really enjoy the second game more even to this day. So what does this have to do with 5, will you ask? Well to me, HoMM V is the spiritual successor to the 2nd game. It managed to get that spirit right AND use innovations from the other games in the series to make a truly unique game. The art is great, the graphics are still pretty good even now in 2012 and the game plays even better than HoMM 3 ever did. The gameplay revolves around your starting race choice as they each play differently. For instance necropolis relies heavily on raising dead troops after the fights, orcs are using rage, dwarves can spend gold to get boosts from runes and are very magic resistant, etc. The hero evolution/personnalization system is also insanely good and depending on your choices you'll end up playing totally differently. The 2 expansion packs are great and add races with unique concepts and gameplays (orcs / dwarves). Overall, i think this is the best game in the series and it's only natural that it's Nival Interactive, the guys that made Etherlords, that made it. Grab it as fast as you can if you ever played and liked any HoMM game.

Favorite game

Its awsome game!

Much better than HMM 3!

It feels like homm3 on steroids, beautiful graphics and sound, interesting scenarios, engaging maps, but... the core game feature, computing AI turn, takes ages. You spent most of time look at progress bar. This kills whole immersion. I know you can download unofficial homm 5.5 mod or hack it with cheatengine, but I try to avoid using unverified software. I was hoping gog version would be fixed, and mod homm 5.5 included and virus tested. Sadly I can't recommend this game, as this one crucial feature makes it simply unplayable. It becomes apparent in some scenarios when there are lots of opponents and there is more waiting than playing, it just drags on for ages. Giving it 2 stars , if gog includes mod to fix AI turn time I will raise score.