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from when i was in high school
im sitting at the comp playing heroes of might and magic 2
how do i know its heroes 2? theres several pics actually, and one of them gives an angle on the screen. why multiple pics, because it immortalized me sitting there with a pair of socks on my head cause dad was tired of them being on the line and sat them on my noggin to get me to put them up. i wont swear to it, but i think i eventually put them on before going out but thats neither here nor there
the point is im a big fan of the homam series. i bought the big fancy collectors version of 2 that had all the expansions and an extra 30 someodd maps. i bought heroes 3 and its expansion armageddon's blade, though i have since learned there was a second expansion which set up heroes 4 in which they built a magic gate and teleported to a new world because whoever had armageddon's blade and the sword of frost or whatever it was called caused a magical cataclysm when the two swords hit each other in the big showdown. heroes 4 had some nifty stuff in it, lots of little refinements that i really enjoyed and a few things that just were annoying. part of the problem being that there was just too much stuff. It took forever and a shit ton of money to upgrade one town let alone your whole kingdom. you rarely could raise the troops to take out placed encounters let alone the cheatery computers players, yet it was still amazingly addictive, dragging you in to its gameplay.
then came the dark times, the company died. people had thought four was great with some amazing improvements and yet they commented that it felt rushed, hot on the heels of the last of heroes 3's last expansion. soon the company would close its doors after being acquired and dismantled by ubisoft and then silence.
suddenly a buzz across the internet stirs as in the early parts of this year ubisoft announces after two years that heroes 5 is almost complete, a game that we fans of the series were sure would never exist. i investigated the demo, which, dear lord my computer can barely meet the specs for, however i do not have the bandwidth to pull down a 670 meg demo. So I had AJ get it for me and burn it to cd and finally yesterday I was able to install it and start playing it.
first of all, remember how i barely met the sys reqs? dear god do you feel it. panning the camera is rather sluggish and annoyingly necessary as the map is no longer a clear top down as in the past it is now a rendered 3d much like warcraft 3. the music is amazingly rich and though the sound effects seemed a bit subdued, gone are the sounds of the mills and mines as you draw close, or they are at least absent from the demo. leveling is simple yet complicated as you have to pick your skills more carefully as you can only have 5 master skills and three of the subskills beneath it now which can prevent your gaining some of the new specialties if youre not careful. managing resources still plays a big part and sometimes ive found myself shaking my fist at the computer for a pile of resources that i found being the wrong kind for the shiny new building i wanted. its really making me think of installing one of the older ones to keep me company till the full version comes out.
in other news
i wrote something the other day. a little over 1000 words. something like an intro to a story id been kicking around probably since carthage. its weird, i mean i havent written much of anything since high school and it just sorta came to me while stuck in traffic the other weekend. then I mentioned it to Karon and she started pestering me till I actually wrote it down and here I am with a spiffy not entirely shite piece of a story thats making me want to sorta write some more.
Also its a lot more interesting than the speech I should be working on but cant fuckin be bothered to.
im sitting at the comp playing heroes of might and magic 2
how do i know its heroes 2? theres several pics actually, and one of them gives an angle on the screen. why multiple pics, because it immortalized me sitting there with a pair of socks on my head cause dad was tired of them being on the line and sat them on my noggin to get me to put them up. i wont swear to it, but i think i eventually put them on before going out but thats neither here nor there
the point is im a big fan of the homam series. i bought the big fancy collectors version of 2 that had all the expansions and an extra 30 someodd maps. i bought heroes 3 and its expansion armageddon's blade, though i have since learned there was a second expansion which set up heroes 4 in which they built a magic gate and teleported to a new world because whoever had armageddon's blade and the sword of frost or whatever it was called caused a magical cataclysm when the two swords hit each other in the big showdown. heroes 4 had some nifty stuff in it, lots of little refinements that i really enjoyed and a few things that just were annoying. part of the problem being that there was just too much stuff. It took forever and a shit ton of money to upgrade one town let alone your whole kingdom. you rarely could raise the troops to take out placed encounters let alone the cheatery computers players, yet it was still amazingly addictive, dragging you in to its gameplay.
then came the dark times, the company died. people had thought four was great with some amazing improvements and yet they commented that it felt rushed, hot on the heels of the last of heroes 3's last expansion. soon the company would close its doors after being acquired and dismantled by ubisoft and then silence.
suddenly a buzz across the internet stirs as in the early parts of this year ubisoft announces after two years that heroes 5 is almost complete, a game that we fans of the series were sure would never exist. i investigated the demo, which, dear lord my computer can barely meet the specs for, however i do not have the bandwidth to pull down a 670 meg demo. So I had AJ get it for me and burn it to cd and finally yesterday I was able to install it and start playing it.
first of all, remember how i barely met the sys reqs? dear god do you feel it. panning the camera is rather sluggish and annoyingly necessary as the map is no longer a clear top down as in the past it is now a rendered 3d much like warcraft 3. the music is amazingly rich and though the sound effects seemed a bit subdued, gone are the sounds of the mills and mines as you draw close, or they are at least absent from the demo. leveling is simple yet complicated as you have to pick your skills more carefully as you can only have 5 master skills and three of the subskills beneath it now which can prevent your gaining some of the new specialties if youre not careful. managing resources still plays a big part and sometimes ive found myself shaking my fist at the computer for a pile of resources that i found being the wrong kind for the shiny new building i wanted. its really making me think of installing one of the older ones to keep me company till the full version comes out.
in other news
i wrote something the other day. a little over 1000 words. something like an intro to a story id been kicking around probably since carthage. its weird, i mean i havent written much of anything since high school and it just sorta came to me while stuck in traffic the other weekend. then I mentioned it to Karon and she started pestering me till I actually wrote it down and here I am with a spiffy not entirely shite piece of a story thats making me want to sorta write some more.
Also its a lot more interesting than the speech I should be working on but cant fuckin be bothered to.
