3DO: Memories of a time long gone

To some people, the name 3DO is automatically associated with the game console that had been released in the retro days of the 1990′s. To me, however, 3DO will always remind me of one of the (in my own opinion) best turn-based strategy games I’ve ever played. The game that I speak of would be 3DO’s Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

Unlike recent releases of the series, where players interact with a 3D world, and a square-grid combat system, Heroes 3 was presented in a 2.5D world, where players interact with a world map, and camera angles are unchangable. Combat was done on a hexagonal grid system, which allowed for multiple angles of attacks, and easy calculations of area-of-effect attacks.

I remember that the first time I played Heroes 4 or Heroes 5, after the interface had been revamped, I was thinking that the interface was utterly crap. It might have been just me being too used to the Heroes 3 system, but I couldn’t figure out how on earth the game worked. I didn’t know how the mouse buttons worked in the game, how to transfer creatures, or how to move the heroes.

Combat was even worse, because I couldn’t figure out how the creatures were supposed to move and attack each other. As a result, I never played the other Heroes games for long. Even going back after quite a long period of time, I can’t help but feel that the interface was still crap, even though I no longer have as many problems playing the game.

Maybe I’m just being illogical, but still, what matters to me is that I doubt that another game like Heroes 3 will pop up again for quite some time. Maybe there already are, but I still find that the interface of Heroes 3 will always be one of the best to use.

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