Friday, May 12, 2006

Demo Daze - Heroes of Annihilated Empires


Heroes of Annihilated Empires
is a pretty stupid name.

You can try out the demo. At your own risk. To be fair to the developers, they do call it an open Beta. It plays like a Beta version.

I don't really know this game's backstory. I do know it shamelessly rips off The Lord of the Rings.

I started up the demo and was given control of an Elf. Little guy. And I mean little. RTS-style. I'm thinking the Commando from C&C, but probably not that small.

There was a wizard or necromancer or something shooting at me. I'm gonna say necromancer, because it appeared as if he were sending wave after wave of zombies at me.

The framerate was atrocious. Decent graphics, they look hand-painted. Animations are so-so, but the characters are, again, so small that there's no detail.

I have no idea what I'm doing with my Elf or why. There's a path, so I click my guy on down the path.

I run into a few more creatures and nearly get killed. There are RPG elements - special moves, skills, inventory - but the interface is ambiguous and crowded. Couple that with the framerate and my little Elf has a tough time surviving.

Eventually I run across friendly NPCs, a whole group of them. They're . . . kobolds . . . or something. I can select them as in a traditional RTS and issue them orders. They will then move to attack the giant ogre-things. The ogre-things will wipe out 90% of my units before we manage to drop them.

There are buildings. You select them and earn bonuses.

That's as far as I got.

The framerate was too atrocious. The setting was too bland. The interface was too unwieldy. The story was too nonexistent.

Not worth your time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How bout actually try a game and not play the demo.

The game itself is pretty fun. There are a few bugs, the worst of which I've currently found is a seemingly blocked path on one of the final levels.

The only bad part about the interface is the magic cards have to be traded out 1 by 1 until you reach the one you want. This wouldn't be so bad except it costs the mp to use to trade it out.

the actual game play is ridiculously fun. I spent 4 and a half hours on one level running around destroying a heavily fortified zombie camp. After nearly dying 3 or 4 dozen times, I stood triumphant destroying the final building, all this being accomplished with my hero alone.

Give the game a real go, it's more entertaining than most.