Otherwise, The Gathering Storm doesn't offer much in the way of audio or visual refinement over Heroes IV. In fact, it doesn't offer any. At a glance, it's difficult to tell the difference between The Gathering Storm and the original Heroes IV because the expansion has no truly significant, different-looking additions, like a new playable faction. Instead, The Gathering Storm has the same monsters, same interface, same special effects, and same animations from Heroes IV. The game's battles still take place on isometric battlefields between prerendered enemies that move and fight with an odd stop-motion camera-like blur effect. And even though the expansion is said to have some new music, you'll rarely if ever hear it; most of the time, you'll be listening to the same operatic and symphonic themes you've already heard in Heroes IV, which are as grandiose and as overbearing as ever.
...but not much more. Everything else is pretty much the same as Heroes IV.
The Gathering Storm also features the Heroes IV multiplayer patch, which was released some time ago. The patch lets players play online via a LAN, direct TCP/IP connection, or through a third-party application. As you might expect from a turn-based game, playing a multiplayer game of Heroes IV can be time-consuming, even though you can limit the amount of time each player is allowed per turn.
If you had only a casual interest in the Heroes series, and you weren't especially enchanted by Heroes IV to begin with, you may want to think twice about getting the expansion, since it's really just more of the same--though to be fair, it's quite a bit more. On the other hand, if you're a serious fan of Heroes IV, you've probably already bought and installed The Gathering Storm because of its new items and event buildings and updated map editor. And if you consider yourself to be at least something of a fan of the series, you'll probably want to pick up the expansion to try out the new campaigns and scenarios and also to be able to download and play the new custom-built maps that other devoted fans will make with the expansion's editor.
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