WarCraft II: Battle Chest

The Good
Warcraft II is clearly one of the most enduring real time strategy games ever. The nice thing about this game is that it contains both the original game (Warcraft II:Tides of Darkness) and it's expansion (Warcraft II:Beyond the Dark Portal) on one convenient disc. The price is very attractive for the amount of content. The game has been updated from the initial release with support for the Windows OS, resampled sound, battle.net support, the ability to hotkey units as well as structures, and a number of other features that make a good game better. The game lets you choose your race and the campaigns progress along a storyline that is quite well written. There are also lots of scenarios to keep you busy. Then there is the battle.net support for multiplayer that ensures that the game will never old. Beating the computer is one thing, beating another human is where the true strategy comes into play. The AI by the way has been slightly improved so it reacts more logically to what is going on in the game. The graphics are colorful and complement the game nicely. The artwork and attention to detail are simply amazing. The cutscenes are fairly good even by today's standards. The voice acting in the game are top notch. The responses given when a unit is highlighted are hilarious. The best part is the more you click on them the more angry they get. Nice touch.

The Bad
There is not a lot to dislike in this game. One of the things I have noticed is that some of the sound effects seem to be just a bit scratchy at times though by far the majority of the time it sounds just fine.

The Bottom Line
One of the best classic real-time strategy games that still gets a lot of play time on Battle.net.

The Good
The original War2 is a classic - this update was to get the game running in Windows as a 32-bit application (thankfully) and to add War2 to the list of games that can be played on b.net.

StarCraft functionality was added to the interface in the same way that War3 functionality has recently been added to the StarCraft interface. Consider this an added bonus, not an update.

In 1999, this game released at $14.99 US Dollars. It wasn't meant to be a remake, a huge upgrade, or anything of the kind - if anything, it was a marketing tool for War3 as it included the first trailer for the game. No matter how you look at it, Blizzard practically gave this game away because they knew it wasn't a true update - and so should you.

The Bad
Even in 1999, this game was on its last legs. It couldn't hold up to StarCraft or the soon to be released War3 - in fact, it was downright frustrating to work with the limitations that had been lifted in StarCraft.

The Bottom Line
The Warcraft world is known for its stylish, toon-like, feel. People have giant hands and feet because it makes everything larger than life.

If you take games so seriously that you think they're meant to be "real", you have much deeper issues than a cartoon battlefield. C&C is a great series in single player, however, C&C multiplayer has always been a joke when compared to any Blizzard title.

The Good
Ok folks, if you haven't played Beyond the Dark Portal I can forgive you, but if you haven't yet played Warcraft II Tides of Darkness you've been living under a cave.

The battle.net edition is sort of the ultimate Warcraft II battle chest, but 99% of the people who are thinking of buying this already have WarCraft II, so im going to skip what was already in WarCraft II and talk about the upgrades of the BNE (Battle.net Edition).

First of all, of course, is support for Blizzard's top notch matchmaking service, Battle.net, which has been used in previous titles such as StarCraft and Diablo. No longer must you go onto Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone (shudder) or the high demand Heat.net to play Warcraft II multiplayer, which is a beautiful thing.

In addition, it's somewhat convenient to have both Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal on the same CD, and another fine convenience is the BNE is windows native, fixing many compatibility issues that arose with the old dos versions running on windows systems.

But perhaps the most notable thing about the BNE besides the far better Multiplayer support is the AI, remember that goofus AI you used to watch build up his entire army only not to do anything with it? The way it just waited for you to come and stomp it whenever the mood struck you? Well now you actually have to rush to build defenses because the AI finally knows what to do, and plays so much more aggressively I couldn't help but think "StarCraft AI", still it's better than it used to be.

And as if it couldn't get any better... there's also several new multiplayer maps added and some BNE versions of old classics like Garden of War.

The Bad
It would've been nice to see Blizzard overstep expectations and make both races more unique, rather than the mirror images of each other they've always been, but it's no biggie.

The Bottom Line
For 20 dollars make the upgrade, you won't be disappointed!