WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos

The Good
4-race campaign and you get to play for opposite sides in order to advance the reasonably cliched and reasonably fun grand plot. This was done in StarCraft as well, but that game was crap because it took place in some weird place which looked all samey and dull to me, visually. I like playing in lush green worlds, with rivers and trees and grass and waterfalls (!!!) and cliffs and sheep. You're going to really love this game if you're a sheep. Baah. Sorry.

The in-game graphics are cool, entirely 3-d, though it took me some time to notice. If you, like me, don't read game documentation, then what you have to do is scroll that little thing between your two mouse buttons. If you don't have it, then this game is going to be basically 2-d isometric to you. As a matter of fact, that's the case with everybody else as well - scrolling the button and pushing the Pgdown keys and whatnot will only change your viewpoint momentarily, just so you can assure yourself that it IS in fact 3-d. It has no purpose in the game whatsoever, and you will invariably do all the actual playing from basically the same viewpoint as Age of Empires, Warcraft 2, etc. It's just better looking is all, and you get a better, more realistic 3-d landscape of hills and cliffs and stuff like that (no more endless flats like WC2). And the landscapes are a bit more varied than I might've given the impression of them being - there ARE a lot of greens (esp in the Elf campaign), but there are also a lot of cold frozen wastes (in the human campaign), deserts and volcanic landscapes (Orc campaign) and in the Undead campaign you actually get to DESTROY the nice green forests. And as long as it's for an evil evil cause, that just diversified the game for me. And besides there are swamplands (sort of), villages, CITIES (real big ones, with castles and everything) and a lot of caves and dungeons.

Conceptually, the biggest innovation is the Diablo-styled (experience means levels, levels mean more and better spells and combat abilities) hero units - big, bad killing machines with an ARSEnal of totally ARSEkicking combat spells and some neat items they could pick up (only 6 slots in the inventory though) like healing potions, mana potions, strength-raising amulets, speed-increasing boots, the whole RPG-schmear. To be honest, the spells weren't that great for all characters, but with some heroes you could actually go out on your own, periodically summon some wolves or water elementals to fight for you and take care of the various sub-quests and small skirmish-situations littering the map without disturbing your base defenses or costing you any actual units.

And the hero units certainly add a lot more immersion - they each have their voice and personality and motivation, and they are effectively your direct representatives on the field (though you often get two of them in a single mission). They really FEEL like commanders, they're at the forefront of every battle and from the get-go you'll feel really lame going anywhere without them - as a rule, if you're going anywhere with a group that doesn't contain any heroes then you're most probably using them as cannon fodder and don't give a hoot about what happens to them.

The gameplay itself was quite varied - some missions were basic affairs of build your base, build up some basic defenses, then get an attacking army together and take out your enemies one by one; some missions were focused on defenses, where you had to frantically build up an arsenal of defensive structures while beating back wave after wave of attackers (the last Undead mission and the last Elf mission were particularly tough); in some missions you have allied forces that you could make excellent use of; in some missions you are running against the clock; and some missions were classic Wacraft style dungeon crawls without any base at all, but this time around these missions actually RULED instead of sucking like in WC1 and 2 - hero units making ALL the difference here. And besides that, every map contains a lot of interesting stuff like goblin merchants where you can buy potions and scrolls, mercenary huts where you can buy actual units to fight for you (some with special abilities that your own units don't have) and a load of various neutral (well sort of, they'll attack you anyway) units like dragons, a variety of beasties, gargoyles, renegade mages, etc. Some of them are just for fun, but some guard an item that your hero can use. Some again won't attack you at all, but will ask you for help in exchange for some reward - destroy some wizard polluting the forest and we'll give you some of our units, or marry my daughter and we'll give you a weed that cures impotence (humor).

All of this helps to make the game strategy much more extraverted than in most, if not all, other RTS's - you'll have your heroes and groups of units walking all around the map from very early on in most missions, gathering experience and units, scouting, taking opportunity of the health and mana restoring wells, and in the process gaining territorial control. Some people have complained that this, and the fact that several missions are timed, is unfair on the defensive players, but in my opinion it is a very welcome change of pace - before I played this game, I considered myself a defensive player as well, but the variety of tactics available for this game cured me of that stereotype. Let's face it, most other single-player RTS's DON'T give you a freedom of choice between defensive and attacking play - they're heavily geared towards defensive tactics, building up a strong base and only then going into attack. In Warcraft 3, the balance is completely changed towards a far more action filled, extraverted style of play and I can't help feeling that the opposition to this and new things like upkeep, 90 food limit and focus on hero units is just going to turn into an RTS analogue of harcore RPG gamers who think that anything with less than 60 stats is geared towards people who can't think and chew gum at the same time. You just wait until these battle.net t-shirt wearing creeps start calling this Warcfart 3 (if this isn't happenning already), and you'll see what's what. Warcraft 3 is FUN, ENGAGING, DYNAMICAL and VARIED - it's not about sitting in the trenches until you've got all the upgrades and a 100-head army which then cleans out the level with no opposition.

The other good things: the cinematics rule (though there are only 4 or 5 of them), the undead princes have way cool voice effects (and the chief baddie is really great), the race differences are cool (esp elves and undead), the interface improvements are very useful, the are practically no bugs, the plot always has the most important events take place on the actual battlefield, with you in control, and for Godssakes, you get to play for the UNDEAD, as a DEATH KNIGHT, killing innocent citizens, killing former buddies, pissing on your father's grave and betraying everything that's beautiful and pure! How can you not love it?

The Bad
It does seem a bit unfair that you have to pay for the game in processing-time as for a 3-d game, but what you actually see is a static-viewpoint isometric one. I don't have the most powerful machine around, and I got a lot of lagging despite using the lowest graphic detail settings - the "cool" thing about the lag is that during it the action still goes on as fast as ever. I didn't actually SEE some of my biggest battles - just 2 or 3 flashing images of people beating each other, and then the end result. And despite the 3-d landscape, there are no cool mountain bridges which you could pass both over and under. And the incredibly tightly growing forests are back with a vengeance - several missions actually hinge around the idea that a bunch of orderly-looking trees could be such an obstacle to a group of reasonably-sized soldiers that you'd have to get in catapults and destroy the trees one by one. How ridiculous is that?

Other things: The oil resource is gone, and there are no ships. Air travel is limited and clumsily implemented. Some of the levels are monotonous (and perhaps 4 campaigns with 8-9 levels in each is overdoing it a bit). Some of the voice acting was dumb. You didn't get to play enough as that human sorceress, nor as that crazy blind elf guy. Orc campaign generally wasn't as interesting as the others, and it didn't feel like a really important part of the plot - it felt like a big subplot made up just so you could play as orcs. You can't make random games and the custom game levels provided don't have a difficulty setting, and are too easy - I guess they were geared too much towards multi-player. I couldn't get the sheep to explode.

The Bottom Line
If you think that computer gaming is a sport, you might want to stick away from this. And if you want to command a huge army that defeats everything in its way, you'd probably be better off with a WW2 movie, or a bunch of toy soldiers. But if you want to have lots of challenging, fun-filled gameplay playing fun, comic-book-like characters in fun, comic-book-like plotlines and bashing lots of impressive looking monsters, assorted baddies and evil bosses (that is, when you're not being one of them yourself) this could be the game for you.

The Good
I was wary of Blizzard going 3D for Warcraft III - after all, I felt Westwood's Emperor: Battle for Dune was largely hampered by the almost complete lack of personality of its 3D units. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Blizzard has managed to craft a 3D engine that allows its units to shine in the traditional Blizzard way. It manages to straddle the fine border between cartoonish excess and hand-drawn realism, and I applaud the programmers for that. Aside from the graphics, the design of Warcraft III is uniformly excellent. You get four races to play with, and each is involving and offers a spread of unique challenges and intricacies. Furthermore, the story is engaging, and plot has for the first time in RTS history become as important as the action going on in the field. I really was interested in finding out what was going to happen, especially once you get up to the end of the first campaign... Blizzard has also reinvigorated the concept of hero units. In past RTS games, "hero" or unique units usually were part of mission-specific goals, requiring you to protect them at all costs. While these unique units might have sported slightly higher damage rolls or special powers, I usually found myself squirreling them away in the most protected parts of my bases so that they would not die an untimely death. Warcraft III completely changes this mold, now enabling you to place hero units at the forefront of battles where they belong. These hero units (each race gets three to use) are incredibly powerful, and if you do not field one or two on the battlefield, you are usually asking to get tromped. The orcs' Swordmaster, perhaps the coolest hero unit, is capable of spinning in a blade-wielding frenzy, chopping down multiple enemy units in no time.
I also really loved the fact that the game rewards you for exploring the entire map by offering neutral units to defeat in exchange for experience points for your hero. As your hero increases in levels, he or she gains more and more powers. Furthermore, sometimes defeated neutral units drop items that can further bolster the power of your hero.

The Bad
I really, REALLY hate upkeep. In Warcraft III, the size of your army dictates how much gold is deducted from your income due to taxation. Thus, if you're fielding a relatively small army, all the gold your workers collect will flow into your coffers. However, once you build up your army to respectable numbers, you'll find more and more gold vanishes even before it reaches your coffers. Thus, if you launch a major attack against an enemy while burdened by high upkeep, you'd better hope you win - otherwise, the loss of gold due to taxation will render you almost incapable of defending against a counterattack. Upkeep is probably useful in stopping rushes in multiplayer and encouraging more strategic play. Fine and dandy. But what's the point in single player games? Often, you'll be facing three or four separate enemy camps, all bent on wiping you out. With the deck stacked thus against you, why cripple you even further with upkeep? I found this aspect of the game to be the most frustrating, and I hope Blizzard does not make this a recurring feature in future RTS products.

The Bottom Line
Take Warcraft II, stir in some Starcraft, blend with a 3D engine and some innovation and you get Warcraft III. Also, I highly recommend the cool special edition, if you can find out - all the extras are worth the $70 price tag.

The Good
Warcraft II proved to be the game which really cemented Blizzard’s legend status among RTS fans world-wide. With Warcraft II, Blizzard added features and game-play options which really pushed the boundary of RTS games and paved the way for their next game, Starcraft which would remain the granddaddy of later-day RTS for a long, long while. Thousands still play Starcraft to this day, so it was not with little fanfare that Blizzard announced their return to the Warcraft universe (and RTS), with Warcraft III.

Warcraft III includes all the features that were included in Starcraft, such as unit group and building hot-keying, vertical ranged fighting, strategic team play, and of course battle.net support (out of the box). It adds a whole slew of new features, the most notable of which is the inclusion of two brand new races - The Undead and The Night Elves. The Undead are included as the game’s new resident bad-guys, forcing the Humans and Orcs to ally, in the face of great danger. In fact, this danger will force them to sail from Azeroth to lands across the sea, where the ancient race of The Night Elf is encountered.

Like Starcraft, the single player experience is plot driven, with campaigns book-ended by pre-rendered animated sequences. If you were impressed by Diablo II and Starcraft’s CG sequences, you’ll be blown away by Warcraft III’s – they are cinematic in quality, being not just eye-candy, but also serving to set the scene and drive the plot in a very impressive manner. Within the actual game, the plot is unfolded by way of in game sequences which utilize the existing graphic engine, albeit from different camera angles. These sequences are very good and the voice acting even manages to maintain a pretty high quality (although the script sometimes leaves a little to be desired).

Taken alone, these sequences don’t pack quite the impact of their pre-rendered brothers; however since they work seamlessly during the mission progression, they really keep the game from becoming just a rush to complete the necessary objectives. The story becomes key and keeps the single player campaign as a story based experience and not merely a tutorial for the player before they try the multiplayer game. To enhance this plot driven dynamic further, a role-playing style sub-system has been added whereby “hero” characters have experience points, special skills that can be learned and an inventory. As the player progresses, so do their heroes. This turns the game into a welcome blend of RPG-come-RTS.

In terms of the meat and potatoes RTS game-play, Warcraft III is a very good addition to the genre, with good and varied races and imaginative units and abilities. One of the best new features that has been introduced, are automatic abilities which can be toggled on and off. This is something that was toyed with in Starcraft’s Broodwar Expansion (Terran Medic) and has been extended here. Once clicked on these abilities will automatically kick in (but will use mana in most cases) until clicked off by the player. This reduces the amount of frustrating micro-management that must be used to get the most out of units’ abilities during a heated battle.

The Bad
The progression to Warcraft III has not been all glory and shiny helmets, however. It seems that the introduction of four races has been more troublesome than the three which inhabited Starcraft. Blizzard seems to have spent much more time balancing units and abilities between the races since the game’s release. Even now, balance changes occur on a regular basis. It’s no disrespect to Blizzard, as the challenge in pulling off four distinct races in the one game must be immense, however it can be a bit frustrating for players to be continually beaten (in multiplayer) by people willing to exploit the latest game imbalance. In some ways, the game might have benefited from dropping either the Orc or Human race (which are quite similar) and concentrating on three very different races (ala Starcraft). From a plot/universe perspective this won’t work, however “The Naga” (a planned fifth race) do appear in the expansion pack, but not as a playable race, for these very balance issues. This was a wise decision by Blizzard, as they have their hands quite full enough as it is!

One major gripe that ex-Starcraft aficionados will mention is the new, lower unit limit and the upkeep system. In Starcraft players were imposed the quite generous unit limit of 200 basic units at once. Warcraft III drops this to 90. This change is almost certainly a technology related one, rather than a considered game-play choice. The prospect of rendering 200 units per player on screen (with each unit having in the order of 200 polygons each), would blow the minimum system requirements sky-high and so the limit is a necessary one. A less necessary change is the addition of “upkeep”. This upkeep kicks in when the player hits various population milestones and acts a tax on the income of lumber and gold. By the time the player has maxed out their units they are losing around two thirds of their income to upkeep! The driving force here is to stop players stock-piling large numbers of units, and to force earlier attacks with a more tactical intent. However it does change the game-play dynamic quite a bit, and may not be to the liking of all fans.

The final point is the experience of multi-player and the battle.net service. Long after everyone is sick and tired of the single-player game, it will be the multi-player aspect which ensures long term success. With regards to Warcraft III, the experience is a little inferior to that of its predecessor (Starcraft) for one reason. Players will quickly find that to stand any chance of winning a battle.net game, they have to follow a specific set of steps at the beginning of every game. This essentially involves building a hero and as many units as possible, as quickly as possible and then “creeping” (i.e. running around the map killing NPCs to gain experience on the hero, before launching an attack on an opposing player. Starcraft included enough different low-level units that any number of strategic paths were open to the player from the outset. Warcraft III is not designed in this way however, generally there are only one or two units to build right away and success is reduced to the choice of hero and effectiveness at “creeping” the map. This is quite a big miss, and one that can’t be patched by a balance fix – it’s an inherent part of the game structure.

The Bottom Line
All in all however, single-player or multi-player, Warcraft III is a very engaging RTS, with a good story and high production values. Most of all, it shows that Blizzard have made a successful transition to 3D whilst adding game-play enhancements to their premiere RTS formula.