HoMM3 is widely regarded as the best installment in the franchise, and with good reason. It's a lot darker compared to a mostly bright-colorful HoMM II, the third installment was darker, more atmospheric and was bursting with content. New artifacts, new units, new castles and just overall improvement to it's predecessor. It's a blast from begining to end. And if recent Heroes V (Let's never metion Heroes VI ever again)was your kind of game, hey it's just like it only better
If Ubisoft could ever pretend to a AAA developer, this was their best chance to do that. Creative enviroments, various gameplay sections, engaging storyline and likeable characters and a nice difficulty curve from simple puzzle and exploration to sneaking through instant death situations. Jade's tale will entail a lot of diffrent activities - Taking pictures, fighting monsters, jumping and avoiding traps, solving puzzles, racing in your Hovercraft, fighting in said vechicle and listen to one iconin soundtrack, of particular notes "Mammago Garrage" and "Propaganda". If you never before played this game - Do yourself a favor and do it right now. It's one of thoose games that will keep you interested from begining to end.
Ultima VIII is where the franchise started to descend into utter suckiness. Rushed out by electronic arts in about 8 months, less than half completed with most of it's functionality and storyline slashed and burned to meet the deadline. Dialogues with Important NPCs are incomplete, several maps and quests are incomplete, there's also a romance sub-plot that's also incomplete. Every single treasure chest in this game is trapped with a goddamn explosive (literally, I checked. Even if you have a key it explodes).Incredibly ill-advised focus on Isometric platforming (Especially before the game was patched)over instant death-lakes. The Boss Fights are a joke, almost to the point there are no boss fights. All that you do in them (repeat) all you do, is select an item from the inventory and click on them. That's it. The magic system in this one is so needlessly convoluted and requires so much busy work it feels like an open-book test at Hogwarts. Say goodbye to a neat spellbook from Ultima VII, The combat is just button mashing, it requires less involvement than original Diablo, most of your enemies are just Zombies and Ghosts, the leveling system is so easily exploitable it's insane. Want a max STR from the getgo? Just thwomp the NPC Devin right after you start off the game. As a plot critical NPC he never dies, never fights back and never even gets mad. Only thing that bore any resemblence to awesomeness is the ending, where you return to see a charred wasteland and a giant fortress of the Guardian - Britannia has fallen... Only it didn't, because EA were greedy cuntflaps and Ultima IX contradicts every other game in the franchise. In UVIII you also don't have any party members, which was disconnecting because we didn't travel alone since Ultima II. It's also a complete disconnection from the Avatar-ness, the paragon of goodness and righteousness is a cold and calculated murderer who wreaks untold destruction on the world of Pagan to return to Britannia. This game is downright horrible, and yet it's much maligned Sequel Ultima IX Ascension is WAY, WAY FUCKING WORSE than this one.
Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate bear many similarities. But while Baldur's Gate is way more focused on telling you a story and relations with the other characters, Icewind Dale is definatelly more about combat and gameplay in general, you'll learn it immediatelly after starting the new game, and being asked to craft your own six party members (While in BG you created only the main hero). That said Icewind Dale does just as good in immersing you in it's world, telling a fairly decent story. Where it trully shines / makes your teeth grind, is the afore metioned combat. It's hard, it's violent it's downright unfair for you. Throwing various enemies, warriors and wizard alike, that way outnumber and overpower your crew. It's really one of thoose games that make you love the F5 button and the Active Pause and in the end every won encounter fills you with joy and makes you feel almighty. Great game. If you haven't played yet - Get yourself some crazy pills and give it a try.
