HoMM 5 - Tribes of the East Review @ Eurogamer

Eurogamer posts their review and impressions of Ubisoft's and Nival's standalone expansion to Heroes of Might & Magic 5, Tribes of the East, scoring it 5/10:

The [Orc] army's special trait is their Blood Rage ("borrowed" from World of Warcraft's warrior class, if I remember correctly.) The more damage that the Stronghold faction causes in battle the more blood points their units get. These blood points act as both a defensive barrier, being used up in the place of damage, or are used to level up Blood Rage, which we guess gives you damage bonuses. Unfortunately, we found it very hard to find out exactly what effect this has, as it differs from unit to unit. (We even looked at the manual to try and work it out, a desperate step for a reviewer) It's a perfectly solid mechanic, forcing you to attack relentlessly with units rather than defending, it's also just a little too obscure as you don't know how much it's helping….
…The addictiveness is still there; 12 hours sitting in front of the PC on a Saturday night with nowt but penny sweets for company testifies to that. But now the difficulty is so amazingly high, it's a struggle to get through the campaigns; that 12 hours was spent in one mission, which I couldn't even finish because the game is tougher than Gillen's Zebu steaks (tough, believe us). Yes, this might be designed for the hardcore HOMMV players…
How is it so tough? Well, even on the normal difficulty level you start with very few troops and the enemy creeps are just slightly too high-level. You bleed soldiers in every encounter, and every enemy stack seems rather too high-level, so you have to choose your fights exceedingly carefully. Weirdly, the new campaigns give you a taster of all the factions, which indicates that the expansion was aimed at luring new gamers into the franchise before the inevitable sequel in the next twelve months or so.

More information.

It's his opinion of course but I get the feeling he expected an addon to reinvent the genre or something. I mean for its price how much more did you expect to get? What he says pretty much shows that he brushed through, probably why he finds the game one of the same.

Now about difficulty he's right but why would you want to attack all neutrals on sight? Since 'You bleed soldiers in every encounter' you should know when to pick fights rather than say it is negative. And in most missions(say orcs or academy apart from 1st mission) you are better off gathering army so waiting is not to your disadvantage. For the rest you may want to keep a few saves just in case you want to reload later.

Oh and one more thing. When the campaigns 'give you a taster of all the factions' that means it's an indication of something..?

I personally am glad to see the difficulty come back to a reasonable level. It's not much of a strategy game if the only strategy you employ is when to click the LMB. You certainly couldn't waltz out of your town in HoMM3 and attack all the neutral stacks the first week and expect to beat the AI heros down the road.
He seems to also feel that all the designs in the game came from WoW--what with the Orc motif--since I don't play that, I guess I won't ever know how derivative it is or isn't. but I thought making the Orcs into the Stronghold faction made a lot of sense.
This game has kind of got lost in the shuffle for me, but I do plan to check it out eventually.

It's on my "to buy" list, but I'm still holding out hope for a Gold Box of some sort that combines all the Homm5 titles.

Heroes 5 gold has been released in Greece but not sure since when. Take a look, it's probably out.

So far, the Gold set is only available on your side of the pond. I'm hoping the US publisher will get on the stick soon.

I've been holding out for the complete edition (someone else was kind enough to point out its existence on another thread).

Originally Posted by magerette
I personally am glad to see the difficulty come back to a reasonable level. It's not much of a strategy game if the only strategy you employ is when to click the LMB. You certainly couldn't waltz out of your town in HoMM3 and attack all the neutral stacks the first week and expect to beat the AI heros down the road.

I totally agree. Where I have to use strategy if I can easilly beat all neutrals?
I like chellanges .