Might & Magic VII: For Blood and Honor unfortunately suffers from both of those faults, but that's almost to be expected given the game's enormous scope, vast environments, and dozens of miniquests. The entire game world is rendered in 3-D, giving players hills to climb (or eventually fly over), valleys to cross, and canyons full of traps to traverse. Combat can be a little boring, consisting mainly of shooting enemies or casting spells from a distance, but in the end the richness of the game universe won us over. We sat mesmerized for weeks, looking for new weapons, searching for better spells, or just seeing how powerful our characters could get. We even spent countless hours in the game's many taverns playing ArcoMage, a card battle game where the object is to use the abilities of your cards to destroy your opponent's tower.

ArcoMage is like a microcosm of Might & Magic VII in that you sit there bleary eyed at 4 a.m. wondering how something with such simplistic gameplay mechanics could possibly be so addictive. We don't care how they did it; all we know is that we have to get back to Might & Magic VII for a few more hours of exploration, questing, and unadulterated role-playing fun. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Enormous game world to explore
• Hundreds of items, spells, and weapons to collect and compare
• The ArcoMage minigame is a nice addition to an already compelling game

• Shallow, repetitive gameplay (especially the combat)
• Bad graphics