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| Thread: Heroes V - Initial Screenshot Analysis |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 · NEXT» |
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ThE_HyDrA
Admirable
Famous Hero
The Leader of all Hydras
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posted March 31, 2005 11:20 AM |
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Heroes V - Initial Screenshot Analysis
As the rest of the world is slowly realising, Heroes V has been announced and is due to be released early next year. With the first 'influx' of four screenshots, it would be odd if we did not discuss the evidence of the new game after so many other discussions on small tidbits of information previously.
Obviously the very first screenshot has been showcased on many websites that are in correlation with the game, but what has been somewhat unheralded is the new heading and title font.
The font being used for the game at present has taken on a much more modern vibe, instead of the Old English medieval style that we are used to seeing throughout Heroes games. The silver reflects the concept of modernising. However, it is in a familiar layout, with the word "Heroes" again being the main focus, as one would expect.
Another familiar sight graces us to left of the font. We were already sent artwork of this particular 'creature' and the best guess is that it is a celestial being. While not confirmed that it is an Angel, there has been evidence, as you will see in the next screnshots, that suggest it is heaven's main warrior.
The background is reminiscent, for me, of The Lord of The Rings, with the contrast between Good and Evil quite evident. In the larger version, a floating castle can be seen, so too can another castle upon a hilltop, many mountains with structures placed on their sides, and a silhouette of 4 chains emanating from beneath the 'H' into the igneous depths below.
Screenshot 1
The first image is also the most enlightening. While some claim that it is a 'mockup' an in game picture taken from a perspective and with quality that would be unachievable in the published copy, but most think not.
The primary focus is on the Hero, and the first thing the eye notices is the undulating landscape before him, even more pronounced than that of Heroes IV. The landscape is bursting with colour, and it is presumed to be an adventure map shot.
The different types of grass and rock add to the diverstiy and splendour of the shot. The flag has a depiction of a Griffin on it, suggesting perhaps a town of Honour, (Knight, Castle, Haven, etc.) which would also give hints as to where the Griffin will be.
The screenshot itself is dotted with glowing items, possibly denoting treasures or resources, aswell as power ups. To the left of the hero, there is a sunflower field, which may just be for decoration, as fields were in Heroes IV, but the presence of a dwarf or other character in it's midst is already a good sign of increased adventure map movement. The lake beyond the field looks very well drawn, but is probably ornamenal since it looks too small to serve a real purpose. In the right foreground there appears to be a 'faerie ring' or power up of some sort, also with a slight glow to it. On the opposite side of the path (which clearly indicates the return of this feature) is a windmill, possibly for ornamental purposes, but its detail and previous depiction of it suggests something more. The left of that is another small glowing object, and across the path again is a small hut with what looks to be a peasant standing in front of it (maybe a recruiting dwelling?) Beyond the windmill is a wooden structure which could be a quest hut of some kind, but there appears to be another character standing in front of it (an archer maybe?) which could suggest another recruitment dwelling. To its right is a tower, which looks rather unremarkable except for its interesting layering of levels. My initial thoughts were that this was a lookout tower, but, given this style, they'd look more stereotypical, so it could be a keep because of its lack of entrances. Behind that and slightly to the right of it, appears to be a curved structure that is too far away to guess what it could be. There is light seeping through the top in a swirl pattern, though. Behind this still is another multi-layered structure which reminds me somewhat of the Heroes 2 Sorceress Mage Guild, and for this reason, a Mage Guild is what it appears to be. There are other glowing items to the left and right of it, also. Further to the right there appears to be a field, with another cluster of housing in it, too. There is also the remains of a fence, which is a good sign. The mountains in the background do not look like they are simply stuck onto the landscape as they were in Heroes IV, but more apart of it, and they blend in rather well with the rest of the countryside. The sky also looks very realistic.
Screenshot 2
In this screenshot we see the first deviance from the lighter side of the game into a more demonic one. We also take a look at a new type of terrain, obviously native to the castle that it holds. Due to the overwhemling presence of fire and heat, it appears that the inferno town is set to make its comeback on its own terms - as it was in Heroes III. The castle itself (if that is indeed what it is) looks very detailed and has patterns of demonic-looking gargoyles, possibly heralding the return of the Kreegans, or an entirely new race. Behind the castle is a slightly hazy view of what could be another castle or at least another structure.The presence of a lava moat around the castle is good news once more - that they haven't forgotten about this vital defence mechanism (where's the drawbridge!?) It could indeed be where the largest depiction is.
Onto the creatures. From the top left, it appears to be a cerberus with wings, and it certainly has an evil look about it. The next creature - look familiar? It should. It is the fully rendered version of the fiery behemoth that we speculated could have been a replacement devil or balrog. It seems to have lost some size and could even be as lowly as an imp. The central figure appears to be a figure of authority, but it is most likely not a devil. For one, its face is helmeted, and is coated in armour. More likely, it is a death knight or an entirely new creation. Next to it appears to be some form of female gargoyle, but it doesn't look as igneous as the others. Perhaps it is more like the obsidian gargoyles of Heroes III? To the right of the gargoyle creature looks to be a fairly familiar sight. After a few glances at it, I've come to the conclusion that it is probably the Heroes V version of a Nightmare. It too is englufed in flames, and looks quite similar to its Heroes IV counterpart.
Edit: News divulged by Nival interactive reveal that the central creature in this screenshot is a 'demon'. The most popular consensus is that the female gargoyle is indeed a succubus.
Screenshot 3
This is possibly our first look at a battle scene. (If the previous screenshot was not a battle screen, then we may well see creatures back on the adventure map as in Heroes IV). It looks to be a classic good vs. evil scenario, where, on the left, is a devilish character which may in fact be a devil, and on the right, there is the current Heroes V publicity figure, most likely an angel. Seeing as good is facing evil, it would seem rather odd to put two second string creatures on an introductory shot of such magnitude.
The battle scenery itself is quite similar to that of the adventure map, raising the question that the battle field will just be a closer zoomed-in version of the adventure map. This would certainly add to the realism of the game. Again, it is very detailed and looks very lush, too. However, there seems to be a slight lack of obstacles, and the ground looks very flat, too.
NB: The 'angel' is carrying a different sword to that of its lookalike on the Heroes V official page.
Edit: Nival Interactive, the developers of the game, have announced on the Heroic Corner forums that the creature fighting the Angel is a 'Balor'. Seems to be an original creation. In the screenshot, it is draining life from the Angel
Screenshot 4
This screenshot clearly shows the hero shown in the first picture crossing paths with the small impish creature from the inferno town in the second shot. This is all being overseen by a strange looking fairy in what looks like another fairy ring power-up.
The fact that we see a hero and a creature meeting either gives two possibilities:
-> They are meeting on the battlefield, which means heroes will be involved in battle someway
-> Or, what seems more likely, is that they are meeting on the adventure map, and therefore reveals that the creatures can once again roam the map
The lack of evidence and the inability to differentiate between adventure and combat map means that the screenshot is still inconclusive. The prospects do look promising for at least one of the two possibilities listed. There is also a lake in the background with a slight glow behind one of the nearby trees. Treasure? = Adventure map?
Regardless of what we've seen here, nothing will be finalised until we are actually playing the game. The fact that we have not started to scratch the surface of the game, and not even gazed upon the town screen points toward a very busy and exciting time in the next year or so.
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"Dragons may breathe fire, but Hydras have many heads." - The Creed of Hydras
"As the Dragon drew its breath, the Hydra pounced, swiftly but powerfully, and the Dragon was defeated.”
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RonaldMcD
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 01, 2005 01:26 PM |
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I believe I have identified one of the structures!
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted April 01, 2005 01:32 PM |
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A couple more pics of concept art
Here, here and here.
It looks like Warcraft 3 and Fable made babies, and this is the product.
The 3D graphics on the knight/monsters looks very Warcraftish, and very different from all the other HoMM games. I dunno about that, a good decision?
You can't really tell until you play the game, it seems. I suppose you're gonna have to take a step back to take 2 steps forward, Ubisoft isn't gonna keep using 2D static images. Hopefully it will look better than the Warcraft counterpart, it should if they release it when they say in early '06.
They've said that they're introducing a new battle system, it looks almost RTS from the pictures there but I'm not sure.
Also a new graphics engine as you can tell.
Anyway, looks good.
For those who're interested there's a HOMM5 forum here:
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=frm&s=400102&f=1851065692
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John says to live above hell.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted April 01, 2005 05:23 PM |
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being as impolite as ever: the landscape is nice, the creatures not nice.
the landscape has a fairy tale style which is imho one of the styles that could make homm fun to play. landscape almost identically resembles homm4 2d landscape and seeing it becoming 3d in such well-finetuned way is really pleasing.
and now we let this knight trample that fairy-tale landscape. not enough integrity, i would say. the knight looks too rough wouldn't a more graceful knight have been better?
my faint hope is that they just reused the warcraft 3 engine because they didn't want to exceed the budget and reasonable time limits, and this is not their most perfectionistic view of the game.
why i don't like the warcraft3 style monsters is: (1)they are in much more dirty colors than the landscape and (2) the design of the monsters makes them look like different-colored piles of various trash. with 2d you get used to the limited images a creature would create, but in 3d you see it from a new angle every time and if a creature looks like those on screenshot2, it will look too nonsensical for the eye to interprete it. and.. well.. (3) there doesn't seem to be much to interprete. meaning that those details are too dominating on their own rather than merging into and creating the whole, and if they are exposed in endless repetitions, they become unsavoury. not only details of creature on screen2 foreground, etc, but also e.g. the shoulder guards of the knight.
ok, back to the lighter topic, i hope we might be able to see 3d versions of the homm4 lava fountains here and there sometimes as lava decorations. those were a little pleasant surprise for me in homm4, i wonder if anybody else liked them?
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RonaldMcD
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 01, 2005 05:23 PM |
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I feel I need to apologise for my post up there.
I don't want to alienate any members on my first day, and I just realised how passionate you guys are about this game, and hopefully McDonalds.
I hope I didn't offend anyone, just wanted to add a bit of humour.
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted April 01, 2005 05:28 PM |
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Edited By: Consis on 1 Apr 2005
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Here's What I Posted In Another Thread:
Quote:
Back to HOMMIII Ethos?
If you notice, the Inferno town would appear to be back to its old self. I mean to say that they didn't merge towns the way they did in HOMMIV. In that game they basically put all the good guys in one city and all the bad guys in another city. HOMMIII had something like 9 seperate town types while HOMMIV had something like 5 right? Perhaps they've gone back to having more HOMMIII influence as far as town types.
I'm guessing they've made the distinction if they have indeed looked at the WarcraftIII popularity. Even in that game, which only has 4 races to play, you can clearly see the troops are very much a part of the race they represent. I had always personally felt that Undead Vampires and Arch Devils shouldn't be in the same town. I think this bodes well for the games' potential popularity.
Further Observations:
~If you look at the Angel fighting the Balrog, you might notice the abundance of clover fields. Perhaps this is similar to the special terrain found in HOMMIII where neutral creatures gain a luck bonus when fighting on this type of terrain.
~Roads seem to exist in some terrain while not in others. Perhaps it helps movement such as it has before.
~If you compare the two pictures of Balrogs, you might notice he has more armor and a different weapon in one picture. Perhaps this is evidence of creature upgrades.
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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Asmodean
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Heroine at the weekend.
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posted April 01, 2005 05:58 PM |
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Are they fighting? Or about to fight?
Remember in all versions when two heroes meet the attacking hero has an animation as the two gamesprites meet. Perhaps this is what we're seeing before the battle screen would load up.
I don't see any creatures surrounding either unit, or in the background somewhere if this is a zoomed up view.
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To err is human, to arr is pirate.
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Daddy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
and why not.
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posted April 01, 2005 06:32 PM |
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@Consis: I dont think that the Balor in the fight-pic is the same as the armored guy in the other one. [Didnt they say, the latter is a demon or sth?]
@Ronald Mc D: No need to apologise, imo  You made me laugh  thx^^ (but I had to search a while for the "building  )
reg
Daddy
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DragonFury
Hired Hero
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posted April 01, 2005 07:07 PM |
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From what I see on the screenshots it looks like the TBS foundation of HMoM will be abandoned.
Hope I'm wrong. May be the main reason for my loyalty to HoMM is its laid back turn-based-strategy atmosphere. If that changes we will be playing a much different game. Or may be not playing it at all...
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drlucifer
Adventuring Hero
The Surgeon of Death
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posted April 02, 2005 04:11 AM |
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Judging from the Ubisoft release (there is a link to this on another thread) Ubi is making a big deal about how HOMM has always been turn-based. They even have a nice little blurb talking about how wonderful TB strategy is- "deeper adventure and combat strategies and giving more weight to each individual move and action than in real-time strategy"
All of which seems to me as if HOMMV will be turn-based! Yay!
And even if it has already been done many times I must applaud Ubi's artists. Those screenshots make H4 look like Solitaire.
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Doctors are not necessarily your friends.
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2XtremeToTake
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted April 02, 2005 05:47 AM |
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excellent observations.
Perhaps they may not even be screenshots, but from a campaign cinema.
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I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
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a_rebirthing...
Supreme Hero
with rebirthing power
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posted April 02, 2005 06:40 AM |
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pic 1: to me the is from a trailer showing the graphics of HOMMV
pic 2: the armored guy looks to be a hero who is celebrating his armies success at defending the castle OR the hero is celebrating his success at capturing the castle since they are well outside of the castle walls
pic 3: a battle, angel-like creatures sword may be glowing a different colour since the creature may get a bonus when fighting the balrogs particular alignment
pic 4: looks like a battle is about to take place and the shot is zooming in
just some of my thoughts
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'Tis better to rely on the the wit of your brain rather than the speed of your hands and mouse -me
Being happy isn't just an emotion, it's a choice!-Leo_Lion
It's Gortex!!!
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vladpopescu79
Promising
Famous Hero
a vampire of taste
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posted April 03, 2005 09:35 AM |
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I can only see disaster in the much appraised screenshots that all of you are talking about. I've counted exactly one opinion that noticed how ugly the creatures really are, and that was Gerdash's.
Some say to be patient and wait for more, there much to be larn still is (as Yoda would say). But that's how people usually deceive themselves and we all know that hope's the last to die. If you look back, you probably can tell now that the first glimpses of H4 artwork matched perfectly the reality of the game and so do these screenshots of H5. This game seems to devolve rapidly into an idiotic game where bulky ugly creatures club each other with horrific weapons (there cannot be a good explanation for that thing that the so-called-angel is carrying).
Hydra, you have a fine sense of detail, but looking to much into them might blind out the whole picture: do you expect to plan tactics from such a point of view on the field? Where could strategy find it's place on a map that looks like that? The absence of buttons from the screen might suggest a movie, but this cannot save us however from the nightmare of the 3D view. And it certainly cannot make the disgusting angel go away, no matter how beautiful the griffin on the banner is.
In fact, does any of you find any resemblance between H1,2,3,4 and H5? ...besides the griffin?... the screens have nthing in common with H series and everything in common with stupid RPG games.
Those who have been long enough around remember probably the fuss made around the first images of creatures before H4 was released. There were marks given, critiques and appreciations, suggestions of improvement (we should know by now they are never heeded) and personally, I am proud to be one of those who had one of the worst impressions on them. Because I still do. I hated and still hate all that those leprechauns, centaurs, unicorns and many others stand for. I had the power to speak against them, but this time I am stunned. Is there anything to say about that incredibly disgusting angel? Can I really like an "incubus" or whatever the hack that is with steel breasts? No, let me reformulate: can I stand it?
If I'd be into manga or playing Barbies and Little Ponneys maybe I'd cope with all that, but I'm past the age of five, and not really appreciating japanese cartoons.
H4 tried to bring 3D into the game and was not prepared for that (leading to bad rendering and totally smoothless movements of creatures) but at least they perpetuated the correct concept of "might and magic" creatures. I could never really forgive them for bringing satyrs instead of pegasi, I know, life is cruel, but H5 has steel-breasted women, big-belly demons, large-palmed little red shmucks and, beware, teen-aged angels. This is more than disgusting, and they can do anything to the map, seed as many clover fields and sun flowers as they please, make beautiful lakes that would shine in the light of the sun or other pseudoartistic smart moves, it will not be enough.
And somenone was making a big joke, I hope, when comparing H2 with H5 when talking about cartoonish style, right?
I hope people still post H3 maps on the net, because I'm afraind that's where I'll find peaceful refuge from this growing stupidity of Ubi. And they dare to talk about legacy.
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MANE, TEKEL, FARES
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted April 03, 2005 01:04 PM |
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true, 'disaster' is the suitable word for creature graphics.
it is most clearly visible when you compare the knight and the fery at the faery ring on screenshot4. no way they could fit in the same picture, the style is way too much differnt. same about the little red bulldog vs the faery.
btw, if i remember correctly, when i saw homm2 then warcraft and rage of mages lost a customer and homm gained one, and that was because of the graphics style. ironical, isn't it?
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Dragon_Slayer
Honorable
Supreme Hero
toss toss toss
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posted April 03, 2005 02:11 PM |
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So far im liking what im seeing!
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malkia
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted April 03, 2005 02:29 PM |
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Somehow the...
Somehow that angelic, or celestial character reminds me of a valkyrie
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Asmodean
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Heroine at the weekend.
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posted April 03, 2005 02:32 PM |
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Checklist for Valkyrie.
Horned helmet - Nope
Pigtails - Nope
Big breasted Breastplate - Nope
Chin you could strike a match on - Nope.
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To err is human, to arr is pirate.
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted April 03, 2005 05:33 PM |
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You Forgot Two Asmodean:
~Voice that could break glass
~Large white stallion horse that can fly
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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
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terje_the_ma...
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
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posted April 03, 2005 11:06 PM |
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I don't really see the need for sky and sun in Heroes. Of course, Ubisoft might have come up with a brilliant new feature, but if the strategic overview is to be gained, we need to see as much ground as possible on the screen, and then, skies and sun and clouds, and whatnot, are only distractions....
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"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted April 04, 2005 01:16 AM |
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Granted. Much of the creatures are disaster. The "angel" sucks totally (looks like a floating decoration for a Christmas tree), and I also hate the fat demon. I mean, fine, I know gluttony is a death sin, but did they really have to demonstrate that in the army of hell? The red doggy, seemed better on the concept art, now its just too much of an eye-sore. If it wasnt for the strong colour, and the intensively glowing fire on his back, it would have been OK.
Though, i must say, the nightmare, the succubus look nice, as does the fairy and the hero.
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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