Winds of very little change. Review

Winds of very little change.

The land of Erathia is dead, lost long ago in the mists of time. In the age of
Heroes III, huge battles were fought
that tore the land asunder. Few escaped through magic portals into the land of
Heroes IV, but they brought their
conflict with them. Life vs. Death. Chaos vs. Order. The battles are never-ending.

And
neither, it seems, are the expansion packs. Heroes of Might & Magic IV: Winds
of War is the second expansion pack to come out in about a year. The first,
entitled The Gathering Storm, gave you the standard additions of heroes,
campaigns, artifacts and maps. Not much of an update, and sadly, neither is
this.

This time around, five new heroes have risen to prominence. Spazz Marticus
wants to rule the world, and luckily his royal father just “happened” to die,
leaving Spazz in charge of the whole kingdom. He may be young, but he has the
desire hold the world in the palm of his hand, and nothing will get in his way.
Honestly, the old king deserved it, I mean, who names their kid Spazz?
Well, maybe Frank Zappa.

Representing the barbarian hordes, Mongo is sent out across the land to spread
his peoples’ influence. His goal is to crush the kingdom of Channon and sit
his throne on the skulls of his enemies. Mongo? Are these names getting worse?
At least he may have a future in acting.

Erutan Revol has had enough. He’s a pissed-off forest dweller who has decided
that humans no longer deserve to walk this earth. Can you say eco-genocidal
rampage? Well, if your name was ‘Nature Lover’ backwards, how would you feel?

Mysterio the Magnificent has a more personal goal. He seeks what man has sought
since the dawn of time: immortality. Of course, he’s not above conquering the
land in order to do it. Obviously, this all occurs in-between bouts with Spiderman.
Didn’t The Vulture already find the secret of eternal youth?

Finally, there’s a not-quite-dead guy named Baron Von Tarkin who’s just a
little bit touchy about people who are alive rubbing his face in it. I mean,
look at them, with all their hair and skin…it’s disgusting. So he’s decided
they all need to die, then be brought back to undead life to swell the ranks
of his army. (Baron Von Tarkin should not be confused with Grand
Moff Tarkin, not that you would…okay, so not all the names are
that funny.)

Besides
those five horribly named heroes (starring in 6 campaigns), Winds of War
gives you three new creatures, six new buildings and a host of single scenario
maps. No new features are added to the game, but that’s not necessarily a bad
thing. Heroes IV is a very good and addictive game. However, these days
many games have downloadable content adding maps, characters and scenarios,
and gamers are starting to expect more out of their expansion packs.

Of course, that leads me into a rant.

The box for Winds of War, one of the most boring PC game boxes ever
encountered, even touts that several of the maps were designed not by the experts
at New World Computing, but by avid HMM gamers, who used the supplied
Map Editor and made the maps in their spare time. Excuse me, but we’re expected
to pay for this? I mean, CounterStrike is the best example of
what amateur game designers can do (and is amazing), but even though it’s available
for retail, you can still download and install the latest versions online for
free.

Expansion packs nowadays need to add to the core of the game. For RPGs they
tell an additional story. For first-person shooters, they give you new levels
to explore and weapons to frag with. With real-time strategy, you get new units
and new powers that add a dynamic play value to the game. However, with both
this expansion and its predecessor, Heroes IV expansions only give you
more of the same… and charge you $30 for the pleasure.

Does that make this a bad game? No, it doesn’t, but it is a bad expansion.
Unless you’ve finished every campaign and scenario in the original Heroes
4 there’s very little reason to get this add-on (except maybe to laugh at
the funny names). If you love Heroes 4 and too much is never enough,
then by all means drop some money. Though, if history is any judge, there are
many more expansions to come. Hopefully, those will be more worth it.