Might & Magic Heroes Online Preview
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It's an isometric, top-down RPG filled with classic fantasy lore, loads of chest-looting, and some seriously strategic turn-based combat. We played the start of the Haven campaign, although the open Beta - due later this year - will launch with Necropolis too.
Navigating the world is as simple as point and click, and you can see all your friends exploring the same space as their ghostly knights gallop around the map. Find yourself stumped by a battle, and you can quickly invite another player to fight alongside you. It's a smart system.
Our first fight happens pretty quickly and we square off against... some kind of angry tree. It's little more than sword-sharpening practice for our knight, but does a good job of explaining the battle system. The combat area is a honeycomb of hexagonal zones, and you move your units through the zones to reach enemies (again, by pointing and clicking). It's all turn-based - movement, attacking and skills are rolled into a single 'player move' - and although early scraps are simple, single sessions, later fights will have multiple waves. So, if you barely survive the first wave, you're likely to get smashed in the second. This adds an extra layer of tactical depth to the combat, which is by far and away the best thing about Heroes Online.
