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| #1 | Heroes of Might and Magic III |
|---|---|
| guessed by | coolbeans |
| platform | Windows |
| release year | 1999 |
| developer/publisher | New World Computing/3DO |
| genre | turn based strategy |
| links | Wikipedia |
| past years | 2020: #1, 2019: #1, 2018: #1, 2017: #1 |
And finally: my #1 game of 2020 is my #1 of 2019, 2018 and 2017: Heroes of Might and Magic III. Surprise, surprise.
So this game is a great combination. You manage your resources, build your cities and send your heroes into the world, exploring, claiming artifacts, resources and troops and battling the enemy. Battle is a good tactical hexfield fight. This game gives a pretty good impression of you being an emperor controlling your lands in a fantasy world with magic. The different factions have so many mythical creatures battling on their side.
It is no problem, even these days, to pick up the game and create a random map to battle it out with a few CPU-players. Or to play the great single player campaigns again. It just still works. I never really tried multiplayer though. The game has a map-editor and a lot of complexity with upgrading capabilities for both your cities and your heroes.
The presentation works still to this day, although the 2D graphics may seem outdated for todays standards. But the sprites are nice with afew effects here and there. The music is great (although HoMM II has orchestral music on CD beating this).
The game is from the legendary strategy specialist dev New World Computing. They invented the whole sub-series of Heroes (apparently based on an earlier game by them, King's Bounty, which I probably should play one of these days). Sadly, as the mother company 3DO got into financial trouble it also meant the end of New World Computing.
This works well under Linux with the Windows-emulator Wine, but there is also a project called VCMI that modernizes the engine and allow for modding. Ubisoft also released a HD remaster of the game. So plenty of options to play it today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJRKWfzpuA
