WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos

aka: Muoshou Zhengba: Hunluan zhi Zhi, WC3, WC3:RoC, WarCraft 3
Moby ID: 6860
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a fantasy themed real-time strategy game with role playing elements set on the world of Azeroth. After the defeat of Orcish horde at the hand of the Alliance in the second war and the destruction of the Dark portal, the remaining orcs were rounded up and put in internment camps. The game starts with the Orcs being freed by a new warchief from their internment camps and leave for a new continent across the sea. The Humans are troubled by a mysterious disease that turns people into living dead. Meanwhile the undead are preparing for a way to let their Demon masters enter the world of Azeroth.

The game features five campaigns and four playable races: Humans, Orcs, Night Elves and Undead with unique units and buildings. Several heroes that can level up and learn new skills support your troops in battle. The game was followed by an expansion called The Frozen Throne.

Spellings

  • 魔兽争霸3:混乱之治 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

363 People (320 developers, 43 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 91% (based on 86 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 219 ratings with 17 reviews)

A cross between Starcraft and Diablo that fails to live up to either

The Good
I like the way the characters are drawn, the graphical enhancements upon Warcraft 2. The concept of being able to build up your heroes.

The Bad
Micromanagement. They wanted to change it around a bit, so they added micromanagement. Why the hell they wanted to kill a good thing, I don't know. And this isn't coming from a big Starcraft or Warcraft II fan, I played Warcraft II a lot, and I accept change, but this killed it for me. Everything is dependant on the heroes, there's too small of a selection of units, and you can only have 80 food at a time, with the amount of food you need for each unit ranging from 1-5 so obviously you can never have an army to defend and to attack, you have to choose. Upkeep sucks, the lack of upgrades and units sucks.

The Bottom Line
An utter disappointment in terms of multiplayer.

Windows · by bertrandom (3) · 2002

Best RTS single-player campaign since Dune 2

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.

Windows · by Alex Man (31) · 2002

Disappointing

The Good
This is by far the best completely 3D game I've ever played, and the first that actually takes full advantage of the 3D terrain. Revisiting the world of Warcraft in a completely 3D environment was a blast.

Warcraft III combines elements of classic RTS strategies and an RPG system to create a whole new experience with RTS', as they did with Warcraft and again with Starcraft. Way to go, Blizzard.

The single player campaign is really good, especially compared to the usual boring storylines that go along with RTS game that only serve as a length tutorial.

The Bad
The game COULD have been great, if it weren't for a number of flaws that seem completely unecessary. First, there's the upkeep. Everyone hates the upkeep. It's unbalanced and makes little sense.

The idea behind the upkeep is, once you reach 40 food consumption, for every ten gold you retrieve, four of it is lost. It's some sort of tax. And when you get to a higher number, you lose 60% of your gold to it! This makes a little bit of sense - the larger your armies, the greater you have to spend to keep'em happy, or something along those lines.

The second horrible thing is the food limit. Starcraft had a pop limit, which was disappointing to most people, but it was a high number; 200, so only rarely did you reach that in your battles. Warcraft III has an attrocious ninety food limit. NINETY. Very few take up one food, most take up two or three, many four, and if I remember correctly, some even five.

The bad, bad food limit combined with the upkeep leaves you with a small army that costs 60% of your income. Your must take this small army and charge the enemy, which, if you're lucky, will destroy some of its defenses, but if the enemy has half a brain, it's going to be able to out defend your pitiful army. So you must regroup and attack. Only problem is, that pitiful army took all your money. And then the enemy attacks. And you're screwed because you can't afford to do anything about it.

The game is very, very unbalanced this way. But, to be fair, you're expected to use your heroes to do most of the strategic fighting, and it usually works because of the spells they have. But it still makes for some unexciting small shortlived frustrating battles.

Another bad thing about the game is the differences between Warcraft II and III. Of course, Warcraft III is a huge step up in the genre, but it loses most of it's "Warcraft" feel. The Human's "elven archer" has been replaced by a gun toting Irishman. There are no ships (none that you can build, that is) and the oil resource has been removed completely. The Orcs no longer look humerously primitive, they look more like the Humans, only..."Orcish".

Warcraft III's story takes place after the unpublished game, Warcraft Adventures, and there is far too many refrerences to the game. If Blizzard hadn't been so proud, and released the game, Warcraft III would probably be much more enjoyable, and we would have another great Warcraft game to play.

There is also no spawn version to install, and the only multiplayer option is a network or battle.net.

The Bottom Line
The single player campaign is a lot of fun, but the mulitplayer is lacking and there are far too many annoyances to make this game worthwhile.

Windows · by kbmb (415) · 2002

[ View all 17 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
credits completeness? Rola (8486) Oct 11, 2012

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cut races

The game was originally to have six fully playable races. The sixth race was never revealed, and the first to be dropped. The Burning Legion was originally to be a playable race as well, but due to the effect it would have on their appearance in the game (the idea of having to give them peon units and balancing them out with the other races would diminish their "all-powerful" image), they were dropped down to being non-playable.

Development

WarCraft III originally debuted at ECTS 1999 as a much different game than the final product. The original idea was to make it a RPS, Role Playing Strategy game, incorporating both RTS and RPG elements together. Although some RPG elements are still present, many were cut. Originally you exclusively controlled heroes, with your extra units being "attached" to them. The game was in more of a 3rd-person perspective (which you can see if you zoom the camera in all the way), and you would explore with your hero (camera fixed on him), completing quests and defeating your opponents. However, due to various reasons (one being that the game was turning out to be very similar to their MMORPG, World of WarCraft which was being worked on as well), the camera angle was scaled back and the game was turned into more of a traditional RTS with some RPG elements.

Pre-order version

For those who ordered this game from EBWorld.com (now EBGames.com), they got an extra WarCraft III DVD that contained all three trailers for this game, plus the cinematic trailer for World of WarCraft.

References

  • Blizzard put three Starcraft units into the game. These units are Zerg Zergling and Hydralisk and Terran Marine.They can be accessed from included map editor or at the end of the last campaign.
  • In chapter 7 of the Orc Campaign, your tauren units will eventually encounter a lizard named Hungry Hungry Lizard, a pun on the old board game Hungry Hungry Hippos.

References: Full Metal Jacket

The game features at least three references to Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam war film Full Metal Jacket:* The Tauren Chieftan in the game claims that "Only two things come from Texas, and I've got horns". This refers to a line in which drill sergeant Hartman tells a Texan recruit that "Only steers and queers come from Texas. And I don't see your horns" * "This is my owl, there are many like it, but this one's mine", spoken by a Night Elf Huntress, is based on a mantra used by recruits to refer to their guns. * The Orc Grunt says "Me so horned. Me hurt you long time", based on a line I can't repeat in the potential presence of children.

Thrall

The character Thrall has origins in the cancelled Warcraft Adventures game, which was to explain how he escaped from captivity, freed many captive orcs and helped rid them of demonic corruption.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2002– Best PC Game of the Year
    • 2002– Best PC Strategy Game of the Year
    • 2002– Best PC Game of the Year (Reader's Vote)
    • 2002– Best PC Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Best Cinematics of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2002 – PC Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • 2002 – PC Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • 2011 – #18 Top PC Game of the 2000s
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • February 01, 2003 - Best Strategy Game in 2002 (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by Ace of Sevens, Aian, Itay Shahar, Martin Smith, MAT and Warlock

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MAT.

Macintosh added by Xoleras.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, phlux, tarmo888, Carl Ratcliff, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added July 4, 2002. Last modified March 22, 2024.