As I am one of the biggest Disciples fans ever, you can imagine the excitement when I finally got a preview version of the upcoming game in this series - Disciples III.

Developed by Akella and .dat, Disiples III uses the new VirtualDream engine to bring good looking 3D graphics and animation to the franchise. For the first time, players will have the opportunity of savoring full 3D battles in which terrain and unit positioning matters a lot more than in any of the previous games in the series.

The tested version was still alpha and, like all games still in development at this stage, had its share of problems. Most of them can be easily fixed however, and the final product brings a lot of promises. Probably the most annoying problem is the text that flickers sometimes. I was assured however this problem has already been fixed. I am mentioning this just so you know why the text is garbled in some screenshots.

What I did notice and was impressed were the graphics. The developers managed to keep the same style of dark, gritty graphics that are specific only to Disciples. If Heroes is a happy, multi-colored fantasy universe, you know Disciples means business the first time you look at your screen.

That said, the third version in the series is much closer in playstyle and feel to Heroes V. This is happening especially because of the new 3D combat system. Some rules kept from the old games and unit spells, attacks and abilities make a big difference however. You almost feel the pain when your mage casts a lightning bolt right at your enemies, and you almost feel an angel's blessing when your units get healed.

Lambert is the hero of the Empire campaign, and he will lead your forces into victory. The Elves and Legions of the Damned are present as well, but a fourth race is being introduced. Nobody knows what it is yes, and though I pray that it might be the Undead, I fear they may only be introduced in a future expansion pack. We'll see...

While they still have to work a bit on engine optimization, VirtualDream is a very scalable and low-resource cost engine. It will run on almost max detail on a lot of average computers.

Gameplay and resource control is still based on unit upgrades and rod planting respectively. In Disciples you don't possess thousands of units, all represented under a single unit like in Heroes. Each creature is very valuable and you usually battle with your Hero and 3-6 creatures in your army. Each creature has experience and upgrades according to a tech tree you set up by building the appropriate stuff in your castle.

It's also very important to keep an eye on each unit's health, as you'll have to start from tier 1 again with a fresh unit, and upgrade it from scratch.

The map seems also a bit more interactive, with a lot of clickable, interactive locations that restore your health, bring you additional resources, teach you new stuff, give you artifacts, and so on.

That's about it for this preview, can hardly wait for early 2009 when Disciples III will be released, and "fingers crossed" hopefully it will be another game to make history.