Heroes of Might & Magic 3 Complete - PC

Brand: 3DO

Edition: Standard

Binding: Video Game

Format: CD-ROM

Platform: Windows 98

Publisher: 3DO

Release Date: 02-10-2000

Details: Amazon.com Now you can get the complete Heroes of Might and Magic III experience in one value package. This monster bundle will keep players building towns, raising armies, casting spells, and conquering foes for months. Look at all that awaits: 86 standalone missions, 14 campaigns, 38 single-scenario maps, quests for 138 magical artifacts (including 12 powerful combination artifacts), 8 town types to build and conquer, 16 hero classes, 145 combat units, and hundreds of adventure structures, including teleporters, neutral creatures, and special terrains with unique tactics. Missions can be self-contained single scenarios, linked together into multiscenario campaigns, or played as multiplayer scenarios against other human players across a network. As many as eight players can compete or team up via hot seat, LAN, modem, or the Internet. The random map generator lets you create unlimited battle scenarios. Create your own unique battles with a fully functional campaign generator and a map editor, ensuring customization for infinite replayability. Review Your typical game developer specializes at a particular genre, leaving New World Computing as an uncommon exception that excels on not one but two fronts. Best known for its long running Might and Magic role-playing series, New World has since created the offshoot Heroes of Might and Magic turn-based strategy series, which has nearly eclipsed its role-playing progenitor with the sheer amount of critical and popular acclaim it's earned. It's no coincidence - the Heroes formula is one of the most brilliant strategy game designs ever conceived, with its careful blend of micro- and macromanagement within a distinctive fantasy setting. And so, the big question with Heroes of Might and Magic III is whether the formula is good enough to hold up three games in a row. After all, while Heroes III overhauls the appearance and otherwise expands upon its predecessors, its gameplay remains fundamentally similar. Nevertheless, spending even a short time with the game quells any doubt that it's anything but an excellent sequel and a first-rate strategy game in its own right. But you'll notice its new look before everything else. The first two games were especially notable for their colorful storybook-style graphics, which lent either one a quirky sense of humor in spite of the epic subject. You'd witness hundreds of peasants being slaughtered by, for instance, a pack of minotaurs. But because both the peasants and the minotaurs looked silly, and because their numbers were graphically abstracted onscreen with just a single unit representing the army, it was difficult to take the combat too seriously. Even though it plays about the same, a veteran of the first two Heroes games will initially suspect that Heroes of Might and Magic III is a departure from the series because of its face-lift. Specifically, it tries to look a little more serious. Many of the units seem more dangerous than before, and at first, the look can put you off. The 3D-rendered units seem to lack some of the charm and character of the previous games, in part because the higher resolution graphics mean all the creatures appear smaller onscreen than before. Still, further inspection reveals that the old flame still burns - just take a look at the new units like the devils (complete with scythes, ram horns, and sideburns) or the behemoths (lots of hair, teeth, and claws) and you'll see that the series still retains its trademark sense of humor. While not all of the monsters in Heroes III look interesting, most of its graphics are beautiful, especially for a genre that typically neglects its appearance for the sake of gameplay. Heroes of Might and Magic III sounds even more impressive, with incredible and well-suited orchestral themes for each castle, although the operatic vocals from Heroes II are conspicuously absent. The turn-based gameplay has you recruiting mercenary heroes, whom you then guide about an overhead map jam-packed

Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches