Heroes of Might & Magic 3 (1991)

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 with resources, treasure, magical artifacts, mysterious landmarks, monsters, and more. Using the resources your heroes acquire, you augment your towns so that they can produce more powerful units, or still more resources. Meanwhile your heroes gain experience, skills, and spells, and you put them in command of the largest armies that you can afford in an ultimate effort to defeat the enemy mercenaries looking to conquer you first. As your heroes earn experience through combat and exploration, you'll want to utilize some for castle sieges, while others will make far better scouts or magic users. All the while, you need to balance resources between recruiting new troops and heroes, and building new facilities in your castles.

Half the game is spent exploring and building, and the other half is spent in battle. The overhead map switches to a side view when you engage in combat, at which point you must command your various creatures against their enemies, taking turns moving unit stacks one by one depending on their speed. You can have up to seven types of creatures serving under a hero (as opposed to five in the previous games), with seven unique creatures available in each of the eight castles. Every creature can also be upgraded, making it more powerful yet more expensive to recruit. Each castle is meticulously balanced, and although the units roughly correlate between castles, most of them are unique. In fact, many of the creatures (both old and new) now have special abilities; archangels can resurrect their fallen comrades, unicorns create a defensive anti-magic aura, and cavaliers deal more damage if they charge their target. Combat plays out simply, but a great deal of complexity lies beneath the surface, as your hero's attributes and spells tend to sway the course of a battle.

The single player game spans six campaigns detailing the war to claim the kingdom of Erathia from the perspective of good, evil, and mercenary leaders alike. The story isn't played up too much, but the campaign missions themselves are well designed and appear deceptively small. In fact, many contain subterranean caverns as well as the usual overworld territory, often demanding hundreds of turns across many hours of play. And if you can finish the campaigns, you still have dozens of single player maps to try, with the promise of many more to come thanks to the map editor included with the game. Meanwhile, Heroes III is a much better multiplayer game than its predecessors, as you can scroll around the map and review your forces when it's not your turn.

Heroes of Might and Magic III doesn't alter the formula set forth by its ancestors, but represents a refinement and improvement on caliber with the finest sequels ever released. The promise of much more of everything - heroes, castles, creatures, artifacts, skills, spells - is gracefully accomplished so as to accentuate the game's complexity, style, and strategy without making it feel excessive. Much like its predecessors, Heroes of Might and Magic III successfully combines a number of elements that are enjoyable and accessible on their own, but when combined and weighed as a whole, they add up to a game that's both entertaining and rewarding.

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Heroes of Might & Magic I (1995)

If some of you, like me, have become familiar with Heroes of Might and Magic through one of the later titles in the series, then the resemblance between them will be quite clear. Everything that is typically found in HoMM games is here: Heroes, creatures, spells, towns to control and expand, and a world to discover with plenty of monsters and opposing armies to fight.

Heroes stormed onto the scene in 1995 for both DOS and Windows. The version discussed here is the DOS version, which lacks the world-editing tool of the Windows version. However, I don’t expect anyone to start creating new maps for such an old game, so that’s not a problem.

In Heroes, you have the choice to play either a single map or a campaign. Sadly, there is only one campaign. The single maps are much more interesting. No fewer than eighteen shipped with the game, promising to keep you playing for hour upon hour. The replay factor is high since you can choose from four different species of creatures to play with. The difficulty rating is adjustable, and the maps are listed with a difficulty rating as well. It’s all very user-friendly.

This makes it all the more strange that the campaign lacks any difficulty settings. You can choose from among the four species again but that is all. The campaign itself is nothing but a prearranged series of single maps, which is disappointing. There is a story interwoven between the maps by short texts, but it has little relation to the game. The campaign in itself is too difficult for the casual player and I had no fun playing it. I soon found myself going back to the single maps.

In combat, you control armies that explore the map and do battle with other armies in a separate semi-3D environment. Towns contain buildings that produce creatures. The fights are fought in a Master of Magic style, with creatures stacked in groups to fight. You never see the individual creatures, only their overall representation.

The game looks far older than its ten years. For some reason, 3DO, the developers of Heroes, never managed to hire some decent graphics artists. If I had been told that this game was released fifteen years ago, I would have believed it. The colors might as well have been restricted to sixteen, and the animation is laughable. This is not a flaw that hurts the game terribly, but there is one that does: balance. Heroes has none. When you control certain species, the game is much tougher than with others. Specifically, the mountain species is a lot stronger than any other because their creatures are superior. This flaw would haunt the series during its entire life in all its incarnations, but it is especially bad in this version.

I have saved the most remarkable aspect of HoMM for last: its multiplayer support. In 1995, only a few games could boast a multiplayer option at all, and HoMM has not one but four. Modem, Direct Connect, Network, and even Hot Seat modes are all included, making the life span of the game even longer. After beating the campaign and all the single maps, you can challenge your friends even if you do not own a modem or two computers.

Sadly, 3DO went bankrupt in 2003, and the license is now held by Freeverse.

All in all, HoMM is a game well worth playing even today, and if a friend comes over, you can have some nostalgic fun with its multiplayer option.

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Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

The Elder Scrolls series began in 1994 with Arena, and the success of that first game has spawned a long-running and highly acclaimed series of games. Daggerfall is the second game in this series, and is regarded by some fans as the best.

The game is set in the titular city of Daggerfall and its surrounding areas, part of the land known as Tamriel. Trouble is brewing in the region following the death of King Lysandus, and the Emperor asks you to get to the bottom of it. How you go about this is up to you, as you have a wealth of options for character classes and numerous regions filled with cities, towns, and dungeons.

You must first pick your character class, which you can take from a list of diverse types, or craft your own from scratch. This enables you to make a character exactly as you see fit; choose strengths and weaknesses that complement your play style, or perhaps added burdens to make the experience even more challenging. This creation process is more in-depth than in most modern RPGs.

Once you have created your character, you set sail for the Kingdom of Daggerfall. Unfortunately, things do not begin smoothly, and your ship is wrecked in a storm. You begin the game in a small cave, with a small selection of equipment. Your first goal becomes to escape, and so your adventure begins! From that point onwards, you have a great amount of freedom in your choices of towns to visit, people to help, and organizations to join. How this ends depends on the choices you make.

One of the most interesting points about this game is the variety of endings which can arise depending on your choices in the game. There is tremendous replay value, from the character class to numerous game choices and the different endings. There are few games before or since that give so much freedom to a player.

Graphically it does show its age, but it is not an ugly game by any means: It uses a blend of 3D environments and 2D objects, monsters and people. The environments themselves are procedurally generated, which is how they could create such a large and varied area for the game to take place in. To date, it is still the largest Elder Scrolls game in terms of explorable area (Over 60,000 square miles!). The view is first-person, and fighting is in real time, with quite a lot of violence and a liberal amount of blood and gore.

The interface is quite easy to use, with many useful keyboard shortcuts to save time; the default controls use both the mouse and keyboard, and are highly customizable. While many will find the icons at the bottom of the screen useful, there is an option to use the majority of the screen as the character view. Those that have played the first in the series, or the Ultima Underworld games, will be familiar with the general control scheme.

One thing you will quickly get used to with Daggerfall is the digitized sound effects. Different types of enemies will have different sounds; wailing ghosts and the sound of rats scurrying across stone will have you on the lookout for those enemies that stand between you and your fame, fortune, and mission! The music is also very accomplished, with variation based on location, time of day, and even the weather.

For all its ambition and depth, Daggerfall does have its share of problems. When first released it had many bugs, which made the game very difficult for all the wrong reasons. Thankfully, a lot of these problems are resolved with the latest patch, but some problems do still remain. It is very important to save often, and to use different save slots each time to help prevent problems.

It is a shame that such a great game is tarnished by such flaws, as it truly is one of the best RPGs out there. It is definitely worth the time invested, though, as it becomes quite easy to become attached to your character as he grows in skill and gains power and influence across the game world.

One for RPG fans; fans of first-person RPGs in particular. Those that prefer rogue-likes may also find this of interest, and I would suggest that all Elder Scrolls fans should visit Daggerfall to see how this became one of the most popular RPG series of recent years.

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Dungeon Hack (1993)

During the early 90s there was a plethora of computer AD&D 2nd Edition products, and most were fairly successful for their time. Strategic Simulations, Inc. and Dreamforge brought out Dungeon Hack to give fans more of what they liked. Using an engine based on the one in the Eye of the Beholder series, Dungeon Hack seems aimed at the more hard-core AD&D types used to playing the pencil-and-paper version.

SSI's Eye of the Beholder gave fans a pseudo-first-person perspective. Laid out on the traditional grid D&D players were used to, gamers could face and move in the four cardinal directions. Monsters, treasure, spells, traps and the rest of the traditional table-top D&D were translated into computer-based gaming. Dungeon Hack continued the same trend with the addition of some further assets based on the Advanced 2nd Edition ruleset from TSR. The big difference was the ability to randomly create dungeons based on parameters the gamer chose.

Some knowledge of AD&D 2nd Edition's rules, or at least reading the manual from cover to cover, is virtually a requirement. Dungeon Hack does one thing, and it does it well: it provides the gamer with a dungeon crawl with all the fixings. The traditional character types such as fighters, clerics and mages are represented, as well as the standard race archetypes like human and elf. This is a single character-only adventure, so there is no managing a party. A player rolls a character, chooses a race and class, and starts adventuring. Simple as that.

Dungeons can range in size from 10 to 25 levels. A host of parameters can be set for things such as undead, food consumption, monster toughness, etc. (see screenshots), based on what gamers like or dislike. One warning: choosing the default hard difficulty sets the game in "ironman" mode where the death of the character erases all saved games as well. This can be toggled off during dungeon creation.

There are 49 monster types that are listed in the manual, but it is stated there may be some others (wonder why I got that protection from dragon breath scroll?). Each level has two main monster types, and 1 boss monster from a tougher monster type from lower dungeon levels. Monster types can repeat on close levels. Loot can range from sparse to plentiful, and is dependent on character class as well as dungeon settings. There are even some unique artifacts for most of the character classes. There is a huge variety of mundane and magical treasures, including some very nasty cursed items. Monsters constantly respawn, so the idea is to explore each level as thoroughly as desired and then go to the next. It can really help to thoroughly explore each level, as a critical piece of loot may be found which is needed later - for example, a Helm of Underwater Action (for an underwater level) or an Ioun Stone of Nourishment. Starvation or drowning can be a real problem on the lower levels depending on dungeon setup.

Unlike many RPGs, Dungeon Hack has no stores, non-player characters, taverns, or things of that sort. There is only a player's character, monsters, the dungeon environment, and what you find during the adventure. The whole plot is to recover some bauble for a sorceress, but this game is not played for the plot. It is a loot-and-level grind, pure and simple. A gamer's skill in using everything available for their character is what determines success, which brings up my next point.

This game can be frustrating. It is possible to build a powerful character who then dies on a level because they cannot rest and heal due to starvation, or who drowns on the underwater level. I would recommend setting food consumption to low and food availability to its highest setting the first few times playing until a player gets a feel for how the game handles food, resting, spells, and healing. It is by the rules, but sometimes rules can be more frustrating than fun. I would also suggest turning off multi-level puzzles to allow easier exploration of the first few dungeons. There will be enough running around to find needed keys and the like without retracing your steps to another level.

The graphics were great for the time and still hold up well. The sound is minimal and gets repetitious, especially the one sample for doors opening, of which there is a lot on any given level; also, there is no music. Each monster type has a characteristic sound, but only one. However, this provides important audio clues that there are monsters nearby (although you can't tell their position) and if doors have opened. There is automapping, which is very important for finding where a player has not explored yet. This feature especially reveals its tabletop roots because you can print the maps for use in your own campaigns.

A great game for the avid AD&D fan who likes to really roleplay one character class at a time. It can really challenge a player, and because the dungeons are randomly built every time, the game claims there are over 4 billion possibilities; basically, unlimited replay. It can be a real struggle to finish with certain character classes, but the journey is worth it. There is nothing new here, but it is well done. A hero can have a lot of fun with stats like that!

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