Myth III: The Wolf Age is a part of the Myth series (see also Myth II). Developed by Mumbo Jumbo, published by Godgames and Take 2 in late 2001. (Obviously, Bungie was busy making FPSes and when they got sold to Bill Take 2 got the Myth franchise...)
(Note: the following was written before I got my copy of Myth II for Linux...)
The story on the game is set 1000 years before the previous two games. The game tells about the end of the Wind Age, and the rise of the greatest hero of the age, Connacht the Wolf, who became the first really good hope of mankind in the war against the Myrkridia.
It's always refreshing to see a fantasy world that doesn't lean to Tolkien's direction that much! We have some humans here, some bomb-tossin' dwarves, and some nasties from supernatural origins and tons of undead things. No sight of elves or orcs or trolls, but for latter two, there are reasonable but meaner equivalents. =)
It's sort of an atypical RTS game - not a boring "we build stuff and crush enemy" but rather "We have this bunch of warriors and we're supposed to do something clever". It does have its problems: The first few missions were goddamnedly dark, and the first one was unforgivingly hard - as a novice, I really had to choose the "Weak" skill level. I thought that would be bad, but then I heard some Myth veterans had done the same thing =)
Also, the camera angle things are somewhat tricky to master, but can be learned relatively easily. (This is also only the second 3D RTS I've ever had, and Shogun - Total War is an entirely different beast...)
The game is more like what I want from a RTS: There's no way to produce more units! You have to survive with the forces you are given, which is just about fair. Some units (like the legends like the Wolf) also follow you to the following missions.
The music and graphics are absolutely beautiful, and the sounds of the warriors are also a joy to hear (well, the shouts of victory, at least). I have also heard that in this part all of the battlefield graphics is 3D - previous games, I heard, used sprites too.
I also like the fact that it's possible to save the "film" of the battle to a file. Great material for fantasy movie makers =)
Crazy details:
"For Great Justice!"
- one of the battlecries of the Heron Guard
Some details on how this game differs from Myth II: The units are slightly different, of course, and this is, as mentioned, completely in 3D. Of course, all features from Myth II are there.
Also, there's one change in style: cut scene videos are now also rendered in 3D - Myth II used a more "traditional" 2D cel animation style (genuine Japanese anime, no less =). I think M3's cutscenes are thus a bit more... mundane. However, I personally think M3's music is much better than M2's - there's not too many memorable pieces of music in M2 (the music goes in one ear and out of the other), but I can remember stuff from M3...
Both are brilliant games, yes =)
It should also be noted that Myth III writers did not consult the original writers of Myth:TFL and Myth II, and isn't entirely without contradictions what comes to the stories of the earlier games, so some purists consider Myth III story to be non-"canon". Reportedly it's still a nice story for most parts!