User Reviews (1 - 11 of 35)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

might and magic IX

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 39 / 59
Date: March 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Might & Magic IX will be built of areas connected by an overland map. Lang compares overland travel to Sea Dogs or Fallout.The new dialogue system will take a page from RPGs like Baldur's Gate with branching conversations. A new class system will stress flexibility throughout your characters' careers. There are might classes (paladins, rangers, crusaders, mercenaries) and magic classes (mages, druids, liches, priests) and you'll be able to change your class as you play. The spell system will be more flexible by opening spellcasting to more classes. Skills will have specific and unique functions for each class to differentiate characters as they get more powerful. The combat system won't change much, offering real time or turn-based modes depending on the player preference. Lang says the LithTech engine will allow combat to be a little more "action oriented" this time around. I think this game is amazing and definitatly reccomend it to RPG gamers.

Might and Magic 9

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 14
Date: March 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Might and Magic 9 is a great adventure game. It's ability to combine turnbase and real time is very useful when fighting the immensely broad variety of creatures. There is a secret around every corner and treasure in every dungeon. What is really cool about this game are the towns and the ability to converse with their inhabitants. In the towns you can discover skills, gain experience, and find new team members. This game is very long and exiting and it takes time to become a master of the elements,a lord of magic, and a weilder of weaponry, but in the end all of this is well worth the wait.

Don't pre-order - it may be seriously incomplete

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 23 / 30
Date: March 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I don't usually preview a game so close to release, if I'm that interested I usually buy it and review it. But bear with me this time...

The Might and Magic series is one of the three "old school" RPG stalwarts - the others being Ultima and Wizardry. Pretty much everyone has owned one or the other at some point.

MM6->8 all used the same dated engine, and didn't sell through very well. I thought the series was dead after MM8. So to some surprise, and little fanfare here's MM9. The good news is that it's boasting a whole new engine using Lithtech Development System (Half-Life, No One Lives Forever, Aliens vs Predator) so everything should look a lot better, and lots more scripting of events. Also another improvement is getting rid of the horrible teacher system for getting higher-level skills. So no more thankless backtracking and mindless searching to find the right master.

Graphically it looks better, but I'm concerned that it may simply be a case of style over substance. What appears to be a week before release, 3DO still doesn't seem to have created a Website devoted to the game. All I can find is a box shot. So if there isn't enough content to fill up a few web pages, I'm really wondering how they filled up a whole game. Also I can't even find the developers (New World Computing) website, the one link I could find automatically redirected me to the box shot on the 3DO site. I can't even find a list of minimum system requirements anywhere.

Also another 3DO game developed by New World Computing, Heroes of Might and Magic 4 (which looks good by the way), is also scheduled for release on March 29 - a bizarre self-competition if I ever saw one. Then again, with the threat of a few A++ RPGs arriving over the next few months, I get the feeling that MM9 has only right now to make any money before the big guns set up shop. Maybe a better option would have been to piggyback MM9 to Heroes 4 and charge a little more for Heroes 4.

MM9 looks like it could be an okay game. Maybe if it had been released last year, I would have excited by it. However 2002 looks to be a banner year for RPGs and frankly it's just not approaching the release date with much to inspire confidence.

If you like the old school RPGs, then you really should have a look at Wizardry 8. It has a similar feel to the Might and Magic games and was just possibly the best RPG of 2001. Both games use a first person point of view. Wizardry 8 manages to get past the feeling of a room full of people carrying a window everywhere, through little quirky interactions and dialogue. It's not clear what MM9 plans to do to overcome this

If you are really more interested in something cutting edge, Dungeon Siege comes out in a week (April 4) and is a much better target to hurl your money at.

My final verdict is: Don't think about ordering this one until you get reviews from people who tried to play the whole game through to the end. (Four stars because I have to choose something)

Dig around for MM6, MM7, and MM8. They are all okay titles and cheap as dirt to boot.

M&M9 - Don't Bother

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 12
Date: March 31, 2002
Author: Amazon User

DO NOT waste your money on this title. Very dated graphics and load times absolutely cripple this game. This is 2002? Well this title looks as if it is right out of 1992! I have been playing for about 4 hours, totally bored. I swear half that time was waiting for load times. Mind you I am playing on a P4 with 64MB Nvidia card. Utter [junk]! Wait and buy Dungeon Seige and Warcraft3. My rating of one star is being kind.

Awful graphics - it really kills the game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 31 / 36
Date: April 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have always been a Might and Magic fan. I thought 7 and 8 were great games despite the graphics because the graphics didn't get in the way and still set a good atmosphere. I realize they were dated, but it worked.

The graphics in Might and Magic IX so far are inexcusable. Just in the training area there are a lot of clipping problems, and I have already gotten "stuck" in between textures twice already. The mouse-look is exaggerated which makes it almost useless. The text is blocky and choppy -- it looks like zoomed in text on an LCD panel running at the wrong resolution. They really tried to take the faces on people and improve them, but they look very out of place against the jagged background.

On the positive side of the graphics, the monsters do look good.

The sound is quite good, however, so I'm hoping a good sound card and 5.1 speaker system can help set the atmosphere. Although get to know your sound system very well - I was presented with seven sets of 3D sound options with no explanation of them or recommendations.

The character progression model also looks entertaining, and it obviously has some nice M&M touches that should still make it enjoyable. However, it is hard to get around the graphics.

Also, as of April 4th, 3DO still does not have a support section available for M&M9. That's right - no support. If you're hoping to find an answer as to why the graphics look so bad or why the text is jagged, you're out of luck.

So the pros: M&Ms have always been good in the past. The story seems to have some interesting lines to it. The character model look like fun mix without being overly complex. Good looking monsters.

The cons: Terrible 3D graphics that look flat and jagged -- their old 2D model looked more like 3D. Numerous clipping errors including the ability to get "stuck". Bad implementation of water. Jagged text. No explanation of sound options on install.

RPG-ing back in the 90s

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: April 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Don't bother with this game. The games looks like it came strait from the 90s: only 800x600! To make things even worse: The story is very, very bad. There is no atmosphere whatsoever. And tehre are some nasty bugs in it too.
So with great games like Morrowind, DungeonSiege, Arx Fatalis and Neverwinter Nights being released in the next two or three months, MMIX won't survive...

A solid RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: April 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Many people have dissed this game, but after about an hour of playing it turns into a really good game. The graphics aren't up to standards, but they aren't that bad and they are a previous improvement over the previous games. Many things have been changed in this game, and if you just want another MMVIII, then you won't probably won't like it. But in my opinion, this is the best Might and Magic of them all. It is fun, addictive, and worth the money. I definitely recommend this game to a serious RPG player.

THIS IS THE DEATH OF MIGHT AND MAGIC!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Why Jon Van Caneghem would put his name to this is anybody's guess. The graphics were created by 3rd graders... I'm not kidding! What can you say about a game that even screws up the fonts? How about the black ocean with clipping errors... The characters are just plain ugly. It is obivious that the graphics, level design, and that incredible opening cinematic couldn't have been created by any real game company. I was struck dumb by how incredibly BAD this product is. Even the install program glitches. The ONLY thing New World Computing did right on this game was the box cover. Very nice box cover.

Now for the other reviews on this site that gave this title a 5 star rating: they were certainly planted hoping some fools would like the box cover and remember the quality of gameplay in years past and buy this title... my advice, wait for more real reviews before you waste your money. What a [bad] effort!

Backward Compatibility

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Might and Magic IX is one of the few games on the market that is playable on older computers. The game is playable on a Pentium II; consequently, the game has outdated graphics. As somewho who has an 5 year old computer and refuses to buy a new one, I appreciate the fact that at least one company is still making games that I can play.

Bottom Line: The game is fun

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: April 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

As someone who has been a hobbyist/gamer for 20 years now - you don't have to tell me what graphics are, or how games have advanced from the days of the Commodore Vic 20/64 or the Apple IIe machines until today.

To this day I still insist no finer RPG series to date (and this includes 2002 releases thus far) rivals the series called "The Bard's Tale".

Anyway, if you rate a game by graphics so critically - then hey, you are a casual gamer and no more than that. The graphics in M&M IX aren't stellar by far, but beyond saying "man the graphics are disappointing" that's it. They have little impact on your gaming experience if you are truly into RPG games and engross yourself in the actual game's content.

Some things I think are (to be blunt) "stupid" - 1) There is far too much idle walking time in the wilderness areas. You'll spend literally 2-5 minutes of actual time just walking to your destination. That's in a word: boring.

2) The interface is a bit more clumsy than I'd normally prefer. For example, the auto map has nothing labeled. So even after you visit, say the armor shop, its not like their's an icon on the map indicating it. So you have to wander around the town remembering where it is. I think that was silly how they did that. (What's the point of an auto map if it only gives you an "idea" of where to go, even after you been there?) also this is a petty thing, but it irks me...the game's save feature should be improved. It should save files and label them in real world time (in the game it will label the files with the date and time in the game world) AND when you die and it autostarts you back - it should reload the LATEST save file NOT just your latest autosave (which it currently does).

But the game other than that, is fun to play. The missions range vastly from simple...to VERY VERY challenging. I've died several times trying to complete some.

Its a good game. Not the best RPG, not the best graphics. But TRUE rpg fans can and will appreciate it.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 Next 

Actions