Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
      (ROLE PLAYING)


     "They came from the depths of the void, an ancient enemy of an
     ancient people. No one knows why they hate us so, or why they have
     made war upon us. Some say the struggle against their evil is the
     mandate of heaven." Thus begins Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of
     Heaven, the long awaited sequel to the popular Might and Magic
     series. Was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no.
     
     The game takes place ten years after the events in Heroes of Might
     and Magic II: The Succession Wars. The good King Roland has won the
     war against his evil brother Archibald, and turned him to stone for
     his misdeeds. The last few years went along without any problems,
     until something went terribly wrong. Now King Roland is missing,
     the Queen is far away, and only their young son is left to manage
     the realm. Meanwhile, a dark cult grows ever powerful because the
     people of the land fear that Roland has lost the "Mandate of
     Heaven", or the divine right to rule.
     
     Of course, your party of adventurers steps right into the middle of
     this, and are deemed by a mysterious sorcerer to be the saviors of
     the world. Your quest is to uncover what happened to Roland and to
     save the world from this new threat.MMVI takes place over the course
     of years, and there are several subplots and quests that can be
     uncovered as you go along.

     Most of the quest in the game are real good except for a few unimpressive
     ones. But overall the quest form part of the story and it is seen to
     that they dont divulge from the main story. I was impressed in
     particular by the promotion quests for the Druid class -- the first
     has you find a certain ring of stones and pray at them during one
     of four days in the year. 

     Character creation was initially a disappointing factor of the game. I
     could only choose from a variety of humans - and pretty lame,
     annoying ones at that. Not only are there just humans to choose
     from, but there are only six character classes: Knight, Cleric,
     Sorcerer, Paladin, Archer, and Druid. 
                                      
     There are several different skills in the areas of weapons, armor,
     magic, and miscellaneous , and three different levels: normal,
     expert, master. No character can use anything unless they have at
     least one point of skill in it. Each level gives different
     bonuses, dependant on the number of points assigned to that skill.
     Even though this sounds simple, it actually requires a lot of
     thought while creating the characters.
     
     Your characters also have a reputation that developes as you play
     the game. Your reputation alters several game factors, such as
     which townspeople will speak to and join you and how far you can
     advance in Light or Dark magic. Reputation points operate pretty
     logically: save children, donate money to church - very good.
     Kill off an entire town - very bad. This is a very logical and
     interesting scheme.
     
     M&M VI is not a game of solving puzzles and blah blah ! It's a game
     of fighting and it hasn't lived upto the potential of the earlier games.
     You enter into a new level of the map and are immediately accosted by a
     horde of monsters. You look up on the hillside and see large
     numbers of them waiting for you the minute you finish this battle.
     You finally walk around the map and wipe out the monsters and go on
     to the next map, where you realize you are woefully unprepared to
     fight the monsters in that area. You return to the previous map and
     complete all the quests so you can advance a couple of levels and
     buy some new equipment. You move on to the next map, and are
     immediately accosted by a horde of monsters, etc ... you get the
     picture. 
                                      
     Now I could have dealt with a lot of this if the AI hadn't been so
     stupid. Several times I found myself standing next to a bridge with
     a horde of monsters across the river. I could usually just stand
     there and shoot arrows at the monsters - who tried moving forward
     across the water, but not across the bridge that was right next to
     them. I was also able to trap them in doorways so that I could hurt
     them but not vice versa. It seemed like they were programmed to
     maniacally charge me, upon sight or my attack, moving in a straight
     line to get to me. Even if something was blocking the way, you
     could see them attempt to move forward.
     
     The townspeople were also pitifully stupid. I suppose I am playing
     the wrong kind of game to look for realism, but I still have my
     "yeah, right" factor. And I said that phrase just a little too
     often when dealing with townspeople and monsters. For one thing,
     I've run through towns to get rid of monsters, and walked back into
     them later to see the ten monsters I left behind standing next to
     five townspeople peacefully, like they were all just hanging out
     and chatting together. Of course, the minute the monsters see me
     they attack, and the townspeople don't move away, they just stand
     there in the midst of combat. So one stray arrow or area effect
     spell, and they are toast. At that point, the rest of the town, as
     well as the nine remaining monsters all attack you, and your
     reputation is toast to boot.
     
     There are a lot of small touches that really enhance the game
     world. Each group of monsters typically has a campsite, and each
     campsite is different depending on the monsters. The towns all have
     quite a different feel to them. Each area of the map was also
     distinctive -- some greener than others, some snowing perpetually,
     some deserts. A lot of work was put into creating this game world,
     and it shows.
     
     Casting spells is pretty easy - either click on the spellcasting
     icon or hit "C" on the keyboard while a character portrait is
     highlighted to bring up their spell book. Each spell has its own
     icon - most of which make it easy to tell the effect of a spell
     without clicking on them. Also, right clicking on anything - a
     skill, inventory item, spell, attribute, etc - gives a detailed
     description of what the item is and what it does. In the case of
     skills and magic it tells what the benefits of having Expert or
     Master ranking are. 

     Finally, for the last word, Might and Magic VI is, barring all the
     faults I mentioned above, a very immersive and addictive RPG game.
     If you are one of those people who would like to fight a lot more
     than casual exploring, this is the game for you. It certainly does
     provide you with the hyped 400+ hours of gameplay. The graphics are
     also very well done, especially the monsters. For others, it's a worthy
     buy but only if you have some money left after your purchases.
     Understand ????