Games Thursday : Heroes of Annihilated Empires Demo Impressions
Over the next few weeks (months?), I’ll be writing about my impressions of the demos for some older games that I’m currently playing. Most of these games ran sluggishly on my hopelessly outdated PC back then so I gave them another shot recently with my new PC. Several titles are actually quite good, although not Game of The Year material, but still enjoyable enough 
Today, I start off with the demo of GSC Game World’s Heroes of Annihilated Empires released in 2006. I downloaded the demo for this game solely on the basis of the action-packed E3 2006 trailer released on Gametrailers.
Small horde…
Big horde …
Bigger horde …
The demo offers a single mission from the Elven campaign which you play RPG style, leading solitary ranger Elhant who’s finding his way back to World Mountain in the fantasy land of Aquador. Of course in typical RPG fashion, Elhant starts off at level 1 and tackles progressively larger groups of tougher enemies until he attains enough power (the maximum level for demo mission is 80), items and magic to singlehandedly raze the enemy’s base to the ground while simultaneously cutting down entire companies of skeletons, zombies and other undead beasties defending the stronghold. That’s right, Heroes of Annihilated Empires is also a RTS (skirmishes allow you to play in either RPG or RTS modes – my advice is to stick to RPG mode – the RTS mode is 100% conventional and feels underwhelmingly weak compared to the RPG mode.
As you can see from the screenshots, the world of Aquador is excellently rendered with lush grasslands, glowing red lava caverns, barren deserts and gloomly graveyards. The beautifully illustrated portraits and magic cards, combined with the magical lighting effects for Elhant’s spells make Heroes of Annihilated Empires a very good looking game indeed. Oh, the addition of a wrecked MiG-29 ‘Fulcrum’ fighter jet in Aquador below is rather intriguing too 
The RPG mode adds little innovations to the genre but exploring a wondrously beautiful world like Aquador makes up for it. An interesting game mechanic in Heroes of the Annihilated Empires is that when you level up, you either pick one of two randomly selected stat increases or skip both upgrades and choose from the full list of upgrades upon the next level-up instead. The game also colours the display in a reddish haze as a visual cue when Elhant is critically wounded and paintsthe world with a bluish tinge when Elhant is being resurrected from the dead. If I’m not wrong, I believe Normal difficulty provides unlimited lives, Hard difficulty grants a total of 3 lives to your character.
The belligerent critters that inhabit Aquador are very nicely modelled although the same can’t be said of the units of the Elven or Undead factions – they’re easy cannon fodder for high level heroes like Elhant even when they fill the entire screen in the hundreds which probably explains the need for low res 2D sprites to represent them.
I felt that Heroes of Annihilated Empires could be a better game if the gimmicky RTS mode was scrapped – the elven units accompanying Elhant fall like flies when up against determined opposition. Furthermore archers and mages have a habit of taking potshots at enemy units in range while Elhant is busy fighting elsewhere and elicting a furious and usually lethal response from a bunch of very annoyed orcs or other nasties. This RTS-style micromanagement of units simply complicates matters without adding anything substantial to the gameplay.
Download Heroes of Annihilated Empires demo or visit the official site.
MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
The (Draconic) Art of Kerem Beyit
Exit Fate – Awesome Indie RPG
Concepts for Lone Wolf : Flight from the Dark
Fantasy Art – Paizo Style!
Replaying the Original Majesty Demo
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