Rock, Paper, Shotgun

With Ubisoft’s recent announcement that Rayman: Origin’s splendid arrival on PC will have the barest DRM for the download version (a single activation – a pointless waste of everyone’s time still, of course) and the retail version having none at all (although Ubi have yet to get back to me over whether it will work without the disc in the drive), it makes you wonder if the company is beginning to see the light. With other recent games having only required a single activation, there does seem to be a movement away from their moronic ‘always on’ system. A system that’s proving its idiocy next week, when Ubisoft take their servers down for an indefinite period, meaning any games using it will cease working.

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Lists! Two of ‘em, in fact. But what do these lists do? They compare the top-ten selling PC games of last week on Steam with the top-ten selling PC games of last week at UK retail. What could we learn from them? Nothing, probably. Apart from which game companies became slightly richer over the last few days. Well done, those companies.
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The highly anticipated (by me) Might and Magic Heroes VI is out October 11th and, look here, a new trailer has emerged. I was hoping it’d show some detail about the blood and tears reputation system, which might shake up the turn-based gathering and killing, but instead it’s mostly earnest humanoids spouting gubbins like: “You have served your emperor and your dragon.” I’m going to refer to it as HOMM VI, in keeping with tradition, since the new topsy-turvy title shortens to MAMH. HOMM is a happy if somewhat placid noise, resplendently conjuring mountaintop monasteries and lotus-drenched pools by which archers train in the midday sun. MAMH is how certain northern tribes refer to their mothers. Watch this and decide which is more fitting.

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Ah yes, that nagging feeling at the base of my skull was there for a reason: there was a demo of Might & Magic Heroes VI released this weekend. A portly 4.24gb download (some 22,000 Peggles, if my maths be remembered correctly) contains three campaign maps from the full game, and therefore a decent chunk of game time.

Why not have a read of Alec’s preview of the full game here, and then carefully make a list of how his opinion differs from yours? That would be a strange thing to do. The game is out on October 13th.

Here’s a Might & Magic two-news-stories-for-one for you. Below we have the latest trailer for Might IV Heroes Of & Magic or whatever it’s called this time. But then there’s a surprise – the formerly console-only Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is now making its way to PC next month. There are details about that below as well.

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QUESTION: Steam claims you can “play the beta now” but it LIES. Is it US only or something?

The Might & Magic series is twenty-five years old. That is a fact that makes me as Old As Time. To celebrate the series’ agedness Ubisoft (for they own the name these days) have put out a trailer, which you can see below. There’s also word that the Might & Magic Heroes 6 beta kicks off this week. It doesn’t look like you can still get a beta key, but that might change. Ooh, I’ll poke Ubi and see if we can get some.
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The release date of Might & Magic: Heroes VI (much like Total War: Shogun 2, the publisher has decided on a titular reversal) has been confirmed as June 21st. Why be excited about Heroes VI? Good question. The answer is that the arrival of the King’s Bounty series would appear to have woken up the Heroes developers like a hot fork to the unmentionables. You can see some of this yourself in the videos below, but 50% of the game’s units will be new to the series, it’ll have a greater emphasis on RPG elements, there’ll be four unique classes for your heroes to evolve into, it’ll have bosses and unique levels (the game’s most blatant nod to King’s Bounty), the art’s looking sumptuous and more. Come have a look.
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