Might & Magic: Heroes VI - Shades of Darkness

Update: I just completed the Dungeon campaign today (managed to get into the game on the 2nd of May). Some people who have not played Heroes of Might and Magic V may probably not understand some parts of the story line, but that isn't critical to the game. I did have some occasional glitches in the battle maps (map items like rocks, braziers etc appearing very large, absence of gridlines), but nothing really that significant that a reload couldn't solve. The only glitch that I couldnt not find a solution for, was the mana required to cast some of Sorshan's spells. Mass regeneration takes up like 40 mana, but Mass Drain Life 217 mana, especially frm a Magic Hero? Seems like a bug? But that said, it wasn't a biggie since the main hero i.e Raelag, wasn't affected by the bug. I hope those who had problems with the game will give the game a chance...assuming you guys can get into the game i.e Sure, Ubisoft **** in the DRM and Conflux, but once you get over that, and play the game proper, it is pretty good. (PS :when conflux was down today for server maintenance, I replayed the 1st HoMM campaign again offline, just to check if there my game had any problems that some people complained about. I played Duke Slava's 1st mission without any problems as well. I had also forgotten how funny Kraal and the orcs can be! (from my first play thru when HoMM 6 was first released).

Inexcusable authentication issues aside, which have been fixed at the time that I'm writing this, this is a solid expansion to H6. There is a lot of challenging content here, with huge, detailed maps and campaigns. The story and dialogues are also enjoyable, and finally we have the awesome town screens that we've always wanted. The expansion patch solved a ton of issues that were still there after so long, but it also introduced several new ones, worst of which is the occasional black screen freeze when entering a battle. They haven't clarified what's causing it and said they are working on a fix, so you can't really know if your PC will be affected by this, so until they fix it, it's hard to recommend taking a leap of faith on whether the game will work or not. Also, if you choose to play offline, every single unlock and account progression is unavailable. There is absolutely no reason for this requirement, you should be able to purchase your Altar unlocks and gain account XP even while offline, and only performing a synch to the cloud when and if you choose to. It just feels terrible going through unnecessary DRM and logging in services that offer nothing. There is no multiplayer element to the campaigns, so they shouldn't be making you jumping through hoops to play them with all their features on. The only thing it offers is "conflux bubbles" in every map, which you can click and see posts by other players, most of which complain about how terrible the DRM is. How ironic. Overall, solid expansion, has some bugs that may make it unplayable until they are fixed, shame about the unnecessary DRM. I suggest you are patient and buy it later during a sale if you're not in too much of a hurry.

Many of the "0" ratings have people who have never reviewed any other game. Many of the Best reviews are from regular reviewers. That says something about who is trying to manipulate the score here. As to the game, if you liked M&M 6, this is pretty much more of the same. I did like it, so my review is somewhat positive. However, I would appreciate if after 2 years there were some new things too. Furthermore, Ubisoft does have some customer service issues(namely it doesn't exist) with regards to uplay. In fact, I would be inclined to give this game a 9 or 10 and recommend it to all my friends if Uplay didn't exist. I understand it is needed to help curb illegal distribution and all, but in their effort to keep the game out of the hands of illegal downloaders and freeloaders, they made the game less fun for their legit customers. Please Ubisoft, clean up Uplay and make it customer friendly. I will not buy anymore PC titles of yours until I see this happening. Do you realize I have had an open ticket in your tech forums for over 2 years now? Seriously... So while I can recommend the game, its fun enough, its score will suffer as it should for a company that is pushing product out the door then forgetting about their customers.

I really shouldn't be posting this as a review (this is my true score, but I don't want to detract from my point with a review of the actual game), but I figured it had to be said, and it is very relevant to the content of this particular game. Always-on DRM for single-player games is always cracked. Go to whatever tracker, and you can find this game running perfectly by people carefully bypassing the DRM. It functions better than the "real" game, and has shown Ubi's always-on DRM as both ineffective and extremely detrimental for players. Diablo 3 is cracked, Far Cry 3 is cracked, SC2 is cracked and multiplayer-capable through LAN (probably publicly online I don't keep up with piracy *that* much), even MMORPGs like WoW have private servers facilitating piracy (as well as legitimate modded and/or free-online play). WINDOWS is cracked iOS is cracked, everything is cracked, so devs need to quit thinking they can reinforce a dam when the water just flows over, anyway. Always-on DRM does NOT deter piracy. Once it's cracked, it's cracked, and no pirate cares what fancy ways the devs came up with to try curbing it, it's still easier to install and play pirated than legitimate. If the devs/pubs really cared, keep the DRM active and bugging people off until a cracked version is widely distributed in public, then de-activate the DRM, because it's no longer doing its job any better than CD keys. I wonder, sometimes, if devs purposefully go with publishers on outrageous DRM schemes just to show the publishers what a ridiculously pointless and horrible idea it is, and which will be criticized to no end by the people who PAID for (not pirated) the game.

What a scum not only this game does not bring nothing new to the genre except from a new mostly boring campaign with the same disappointing gameplay elements as its predecessor it is also full with bugs and glitches. M&M6 and this expansion are just little shadows of what Might and Magic was as a series in the past. What a shame Ubisoft ruined the series...