Heroes of Might and Magic® 3: Complete

Tldr: A great game, with beautiful graphics and nice game play, flaws in the AI are annoying but the campaigns and better solo maps make up for this. Hot seat is a fun way to spend an evening with a couple of friends (especially if there arn't enough computers). A great game making many improvement upon HOMM2, I fully recommend this game. It is a turn based strategy game where you control castles to gain, then upgrade units. Controlling various mines and other outposts provide benefits ranging from resource income to boosts for heroes. Heroes are used to control armies, and while they don't take part in combat directly, they influence it by casting spells and modifying combat bonuses. My one problem with HOMM in general is the AI, the AI tends to be poor and higher difficulties only provide boosts to resource income for the computer. This results in either overall easily beatable opponents, or very tough early to mid game fights but towards the later middle stages of a game it just becomes repetitive slaughter. However, the campaigns and better solo maps tend to regulate gameplay or add in interesting enough diversion to distract from this. (pet peeve: The humans who have always tended to be the weaker race (and required more tactics and numbers) have been slightly overpowered with the addition of the Angels.)

I've been coming back to HOMM3 every year and enjoying the game. With an amazing modding community, you can keep playing forever. There are new stuff coming up and planned for the game even today, and just with the existing mods and campaigns you have many thousands of hours of gameplay left with this game. If I were to take a single game with me on a desert island, even though my favourite game is probably Baldur's Gate 2, this would easily be my choice (with Dwarf Fortress a close second). 4.8/5 is too low for this.

If your pc is experiencing 100% CPU and high temps when running this game, download the "HoMM3 HD" addon (Google it) and set Sys.CPU.ReduceUsage to 1 under the Tweaks tab. You're welcome :-)

This is my favorite of the HOMM series. It includes a Random map generation and you can find several Mod Programs on the Web. The Graphics and Sound are very functional. They have aged a bit, but they still work fine. The game play is turned based strategy with upgradable cities and buildings in the cities. When you actually go into battle, you are at a tactical level of play on a battle ground or in a siege situation. You will have to carefully choose attacks, order of attacks, repositioning you troops and using Support from you Hero. The tactics you use are critical. Save your games often on different slots. (You might have made a serious mistake). Use the tutorial if your new to the game or if your old and can't remember the finer points of the interface. When you first play the game an opening video will play. You will have to wait for it to finish. Once you watch it once, the next time you open the game, you can escape out the video with the ESC key or click the mouse. (There were issues in the past with it always playing the total video every time you opened it, but i believe it is patched. If you have issues with this, go to the GOG Forums. They have lots of ideas). HOMM 3, is my favorite of the HOMM Series. There a collection of stand alone campaigns on GOG that are based on HOMM3. They are the "Heroes Chronicles Complete". Like others have said, it is very, very replayable with the Random Generators and Map Editors and all the extras available on 3rd party sites of the Web. Play on Heroes! Sluggo

You know how Christopher Reeve is the quintessential Superman or how Tom Baker is THE Doctor? That's what you have here in terms of the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise. This is the entry where the formula that the previous 2 entries built up hit its peak, and where later entries tried to emulate, but couldn't quite reach. No, I'm not saying this is a perfect game. But it is the perfect HoMM game. This is the most balanced and versatile of the series. The units are entertaining, the music is never dull, and there is no wasted potential. This is quite simply a masterpiece even after 20+ years (and maybe more when you read this review). And given that this is the complete package with the expansions, you cannot really ask for more bang for the buck.