All he wants is a hug. Is that too much to ask?

When I first picked up Heroes of Might and Magic V, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I remember the series from when I was a kid. Arguably one of the most successful role-playing game series of all time, I avoided Might and Magic like the plague as I had no desire to have my brain sucked into its social-life-crushing universe.

I realize that RPGs have now, with their online components, become almost like a dating service. People meet and get married on EverQuest and spend their love lives virtually connected to one another because they live in different countries. (I wonder if anyone's ever consummated their relationships in the game to discover just exactly what those ogres carry under their loincloths... Eesh, that's a disturbing thought.)

Back in the eighties, computerized RPGs were explicitly for ostracized, introverted losers. And that's precisely what I was, but I didn't want to bring any more attention to that fact. (At least I could hide my Fighting Fantasy books on a shelf and pretend they were literature.)

So perhaps I was somewhat at a disadvantage when I sat down to play the new Ubisoft release, as the series hadn't been ingrained in me as it had many others who would play this game. But then I can't imagine I could say anything in this review to sway them either way.

The story is relatively simple: Demons disrupt a royal wedding and kick off a big war between good and evil. The game contains six campaigns, each with a number of different missions of increasing difficulty. Each of these missions have their own goals and although are connected to the main storyline are reasonably self-contained. Unlike a Final Fantasy or Suikoden title, the story of Heroes of Might and Magic V is not all-encompassing and is secondary to the gameplay. That is, in fact, a saving grace.

Many of the missions are repetitive. You move around, collect gold, recruit various types of fighters, storm cities to rebuild them so you can collect more gold and recruit more and upgrade to better armies.

You can also buy weaponry and learn magic spells so you are better prepared to face all the demon hordes in battle, which is the crux of the game.

For these fights, the RPG uses the game board setup where the characters have to move into position before they can attack. It makes the game far more interesting than using the standard setup where everyone just stands in front of each other and attacks anyone he or she chooses. Then again, it's usually a pretty simple game board to move around, unless you're attacking a town, in which case the walls must be destroyed before most of the characters can reach the enemy. And despite being able to use the odd spell or special move, there doesn't seem to be a lot of options for different types of attacks.

As usual, by winning fights you gain experience points which eventually allow you to learn skills that will aid you in the game.

It can be entertaining and it is the type of game where you can sit in front of it for hours on end building armies and maxing out your heroine's experience points to prepare for battle. But I can't say there's much new here.

Obviously, the graphics are strong. The cut scenes vary in quality, from beautifully animated sequences to ones with boring, static characters. The battles also look good. The character movements are fluid and the three-dimensional design makes them easily decipherable on the screen.

Multiplayer and online options also add a little variety.

In the end Heroes of Might and Magic V is a decent but pretty run-of-the-mill RPG.