Heroes of Might and Magic® 3: Complete

If you haven't tried heroes: you have to do so, like, now. And not candy, childish V nor stupid IV; II and I neither give it any credit it deserves. Heroes III The Perfect. There's one huge BUT, however. Playing Heroes III, for me, was a lot like playing Counter-Strike with bots. Tends to get repetitive and boring. !!BUT!! You have to remember one thing: this...is... TURN-BASED! so: one computer can manage up to 8 players! (And no lags) Personally, I think it's the most important game I ever played in my life. Just EVERY party we have with my pals, at some point WILL FEATURE HEROES 3. Why? BECAUSE IT'S SO DARN FUN TO PLAY WITH FRIENDS!!! oh, and if you want to play with friends, definitely DO install Heroes in the Wake of Gods mod/addon. It just adds everything that was missing. Forget football, volleyball: with Heroes there's fun like no other.

Is there anything needed to be said?

There's nothing to say about this game that hasn't been said already. If you have enjoyed any RTS game in the past, you will like HoMM3. The closest analogue I can give is a zoomed-out isometric Mount and Blade with turn based combat, but that BARELY does the game justice. Just buy it.

Gameplay-wise, this is almost certainly the worst game of its genre, barring older ones. At least the mission design is one of the worst I have ever experienced in a published game. The irrational overhype is easily proven by pointing out how this game lies about what it is or how nobody ever tells the truth. Think this is an addictive, "just another round" kind of game, where you grow your forces and are more or less free to choose your path (with some hard challenges along the way)? Well, it is one of the least relaxed games I have ever played, including frantic ones. Just playing the first mission (although the campaigns seem to be in wrong order) one notices there is no real logic, strategy or design to winning. There is just a secret time wall against which to crash repeatedly, until you take painstakingly pedantic steps, planning 30-50 rounds ahead, in a non-stop frenzied rush (!) forward, counting wilful attrition, and doing cumbersome logistics, in order to be at the right place at the right time. The tiniest missteps will let you fail, although on the face of it nothing is wrong with them. Only looking back at a random point might there be something one might have done differently. There is zero flexibility or tolerance in how to proceed, although nothing of it is motivated by logic or clear design, and a lot of it is arbitrary. There is more "fussing about" than strategy. The enemy is massively overpowered, as all its units have better statistics and he always has more gold for bigger armies - under more heroes you can afford -, even if you take more than half the map. In addition, the AI is ludicrously aggressive, and once it has started, there is hardly a round without harassment, even if you just squeezed out two victories. And it simply never feels good to play. It is a well-established, "mild" criticism that the missions in this game are decided early on, and whatever one does later is a waste of time. However nobody tells you how crude it really is.

Too good and too addictive. It's difficult to stop playing it.