Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Armageddon's Blade Review

I haven't even finished the original game yet.

The Kingdom of Erathia faces great danger again, and this time the whole world is in trouble as well. The mad King Lucifer of Eoefol has a brilliant new scheme, or at least he thinks it's brilliant. He plans to obtain Armageddon's Blade. With this mighty weapon, he will set the whole world on fire. This is as far as he has thought out this particular plan, and I'm not certain what he thinks he's going to do after that.

Frankly, I blame the parents. I don't think they gave their young son enough love and attention. Maybe he didn't get a pony for his eighth birthday. I don't know. What I do know is that you can't name your child "Lucifer" and then act all surprised when his head turns around backwards and he starts hatching evil schemes and killing people.

Queen Catherine and King Roland, however, have no poorly-named children to exorcise. So with all that spare time, they plan to stop King Lucifer themselves. With the help of a few heroes, the warrior Gelu, and you, they might even be able to do it.

Armageddon's Blade is the first expansion pack for Heroes of Might and Magic III. It features one new type of town and accompanying creatures. Want the numbers? There are 10 new multiplayer maps, 6 new campaigns, 38 new scenarios, 23 new creatures, 16 new heroes, an expanded map editor, and a campaign editor.

The new town, the Conflux, is mildly disappointing. The architectural theme seems a bit slapped together. The creatures generated by the Conflux are mostly the elementals you've seen previously, only now you have more access to them (and their upgraded forms). Rather than a mix of weak and powerful creatures, the town has a lot of mid-range units. It's not that there's anything wrong with the Conflux, it's just that it really adds nothing new to the game.

But while you may not get a lot of truly new stuff in town, Armageddon's Blade offers one hell of a lot more game. Between the 38 new single maps and the 6 well done, deep campaigns, there are literally hundreds of hours of new gameplay in Armageddon's Blade.

In fact, Armageddon's Blade is only one of the stories in the campaigns. The other campaigns include Dragon's Blood, where you play as the extremely violent overlord Mutare as she seeks to conquer her neighbor and transform herself into a powerful dragon. Would you rather kill dragons? In Dragon Slayer, you quest to become the greatest slayer of all time by killing the mythical Azure Dragon. In Festival of Life, you challenge your aging king and other would-be heroes for the throne. Take on the armies of the undead in Playing With Fire. Finally, in Foolhardy Waywardness (I didn't name it) you are shipwrecked on the Regnan Isles and must find your way home.

Not enough for you yet? The new campaign editor means that there will be user campaigns to download off the net (or create yourself) for thousands more hours of entertainment. Plus, the random map generator tosses the spicy sausage of chaos into the soup and adds an essentially infinite number of maps, insuring you will get sick of Heroes of Might and Magic III long before you run out of things to do.

This is the kind of thing I love to see in an expansion pack. Plenty of stuff, plus the tools to create all the stuff you could ever need. About the only thing missing is a creature and town editor. However, very few games have ever given you all that. If you've been dying for some more Heroic action, Armageddon's Blade serves up a giant, one-hundred-and-seven course meal guaranteed to keep you at the table until you die of old age.