“Forget Fantasy, Make History!” Is the tagline for the newest offering by Heatwave Interactive called Gods and Heroes. It’s available for preorder/headstart now, and releases on June 24. The game has been in development since 2007, and was acquired by Heatwave recently and is now finally being released. There’s a really nice screen in the intro that dedicates the game to the original developers.
The concept of the game itself is sound. You are a mythical hero answering to your Patron God and given special p0wers by said God to get the job done as it were. There are four available classes: Soldier, Gladiator, Priest, and Mystic, and then on top of that advanced classing to further choose what your specialty is going to be in the game. The game does employ a minion system, much like the original Guild Wars, and you can have one minion fighting for you early on.
That being said, the minions AI is not very bright. It does not engage enemies properly, and the minions continue to have problems with the terrain, sometimes getting hung up on a tiny little bump and sometimes running directly through walls and fences. Even minions set on aggressive have to be commanded to engage enemies, at least at this stage of the game.
The music is really very good. I enjoyed listening to the soundtrack very much. It flows well with the gameplay.
The biggest detractor from the game honestly, is the graphics. The graphics are simply not competitive in today’s market(one of my colleagues remarked they weren’t competitive in the market for five years ago). The movement is odd and clunky, and with the graphics at their current level the lag is really unacceptable. My toons rubber band from place to place at times, and enemies can fire at toons from through double rows of buildings at times. The guy that worked on the environmental art from Star Wars Galaxies did a lot of the landscapes, and it definitely shows. The characters look like they have simply been dropped into the environment and don’t look like they actually are a part of it.
The estate housing system is another brainchild reminiscent of Star Wars Galaxies. There is the promise that the current system will expand and become a quest hub type area for your hero in the future, at the moment there are a few quests available and your estate is able to be decorated to an extent by you. Crafting isn’t ready yet, but is promised in an update ‘very soon’.
The game is growing on me. There’s a lot about it to like, but don’t expect the level of polish that you would with WoW or Rift despite the fact that it’s a subscription based game.
[tube]aGy12W9-xyU[/tube]
Wasn’t too impressed with this game’s looks. Looks likePS2. And while there are PS2 games that still look fantastic, this wouldn’t be one of them.