WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos

The Good
WarCraft III is a real-time strategy game with some role-playing game elements based in a fantasy world (which actually bears quite some resemblance to Games Workshop's Warhammer setting). Actually, the very definition of what genre this game falls into has caused quite some stir among fans, most people apparently expected a game that's closer to WarCraft II, or perhaps StarCraft, and apparently did not get it. I'm saying apparently, since at this point I have neither played WarCraft II or StarCraft; WarCraft III is the first Blizzard game that I have played so I'm unbiased in that regard.

You are in command of one of four fantasy races: Humans, Orcs, Undead, and Night Elves. After a short tutorial and an introductory cut-scene you start out playing the humans. The object of the game? We don't know yet, but the cutscenes that follow every mission advance a very enjoyable and engrossing storyline. You raise armies, erect structures, advance heroes in level, and advance on a limited tech tree to improve your buildings and troops - so far, quite the typical RTS game, but there are some differences.

First of all, the game's visual appeal is breathtaking. The actual game manages to be colorful and detailed, beautifully animated, without cluttering up the screen. I've played far too many strategy games where the main challenge came from me not knowing what's going on - all of the sudden there were too many units on the map and everything either slowed down or became completely confusing. Not so in WarCraft III. The controls are very easy, point-and-click, scrolling is smooth, interface is flawless. Thus, this game is easy to learn and intuitive to control, yet difficult to master.

Your units are twofold: Heroes, who much as in role-playing games, gain experience and advance in level, equip magic items, can be raised from the dead, etc., and regular troops. Your heroes are your main characters who are not only the focus of the storyline and the cutscenes, but also are quite buff and almost indispensable in combat. This is actually quite refreshing; I've played far too many games of "if character X dies you lose"-nature. In WC3, you don't protect your heroes, you make 'em wade into battle.

Your regular troops and workers (who gather resources and build buildings) require upkeep, anywhere from 1 to 5 units of food each, and the maximum food worth of units you can control at all times is 90. Depending on how close you approach this limit you'll get taxed quite a bit on your incoming resources. This little stipulation has caused quite some stir among gamers; it seems many did not like it. I firmly believe this limit has been put in place for game parity (and not, like some players have suggested, due to technical limitations - in WC3 - Frozen Throne expansion pack, this limit has been bumped to 100 and in certain missions you get to play 2-3 factions at once and the game still performs fine), and it's a welcome move. Do you stack up on troops and get taxed on upkeep, or do you put only light defenses into place and gather gold? Tactical decisions are everything here, and it's most welcome - I'm sick of games of "hoard the troops, then attack the enemy"

The missions are very much varied. Some missions require you to build units, advance tech, and kill the enemy before they kill you. Others require you to defend a certain area against a time limit, gather a certain magical item, explore a tomb, and so forth. Some missions feel more like a RPG dungeon crawl, and the maps are as varied as their missions. After each mission there is another cutscene to advance the storyline, and they're good. They do feel like a reward to a player for finishing the previous mission and keep the player going.

Oh, and what a storyline it is! It's simply beautiful and engrossing. As you will find out, each of the four faction heroes (Orcs, Humans, Undead, Elves) as well as the Demons (who are not a playable faction but are the main bad guys) have their own agenda, and there are shades of grey - no clear cut good or bad guys. The brave Paladin is so zealous in his pursuit of the undead he kills innocent villagers because of the risk that they might be infected, the undead wants to rule the world but doesn't like being the demons' pawn, the orcs are bloodthirsty brutes but want peace for their horde, etc. There's no good or bad, and until the last mission I was holding my breath as to who "wins" the game and how the story actually ends. WarCraft has inspired a series of paperback novels at this point, and I'm actually looking forward to reading them at this point.

Oh, and the easter eggs! The blowing up sheep, and witty comments the units make when you click on them repeatedly, etc. etc... it's refreshing to see that the guys at Blizzard enjoyed making the game as much as I did playing it...

The Bad
Well, there are some suggestions for improvement, but most are nitpicks. There is no unit experience (other than heroes). You cannot group units (you can control up to 12 units at once, but you can't make sure they are permanently grouped). You HAVE to play the four factions in specific order, you can't choose to play a certain faction. I certainly didn't mind, but some players would. There are some other nitpicks as well, but most got fixed with the Frozen Throne expansion set.

Other than that, most of the gripes from other players seem to come from the fact that the game, well, isn't WarCraft II. Or StarCraft. Well, duh. Remember the original Dune, the adventurish-style game by Virgin set in Frank Herbert's universe? Well, if Dune 2 hadn't been so radically different, the real-time strategy genre would never have been invented. I don't think the guys at Blizzard said "well, gee, let's take WarCraft II, pep it up a little, and voila! We have a successor!" They just tried to make a good game and in my book they succeeded at every level.

The Bottom Line
Argh! I just beat the game on medium and was presented with an awesome ending, and a very lengthy and funny ending cutscene which was a joy to watch... until the game told me to try and "beat the game on hard and then come back"! There's a different ending on hard and I've yet to find it, and with such a simple sentance I've been doomed to another couple of sleepless night so I can uncover this as well... oh, and bring on the expansion pack! Frozen Throne awaits, and I can't wait. I've spent many hours beating the single player missions and I haven't had enough yet. This game has the highest production values I've seen in a long time, is insanely addictive, and a tour de force in just about every way.

Highest recommendation.

The Good
The single player mode. Those single player missions, connected by a great story and brilliant cutscenes are really what makes this game worth buying. Playing through the missions of Humans, Undeads, Orcs and Night Elves is really highly entertaining and let's you forget the real world for about 2 days.

The Bad
The multiplayer mode - actually the reason why I could hardly await the release of this game. I LOVED the multiplayer mode of StarCraft with it's many, many tactics and possibilities. But after some days of gaming it became clear that War III is actually a huge step backward concerning multiplaying as the battles are very, very repetitive. War III only knows 2 tactics: rush or tech. That's the only decision the player has to make. No surprises await the player in the rest of the match: Rush: Me or the opponent is dead. Fine. The match practically ends here as mistakes are not forgiven in War III. Tech: After many minutes of hectic building, 2 or more huge armies clash together - a short fight takes place and the game practically ends as base defense is not really a problem in War III (we forget about the rather defensive undead race here).

Well that's it. A typical WarCraft III match. Okay, you learn some spells here and there or try building another unit ... but actually the matches keep being the same again and again. (Most spells are useless anyway and there aren't many unit types either)

So. That's it. Nice try, Blizzard ... but PLEASE go back to the roots with StarCraft 2 !

The Bottom Line
A nice RTS game enriched with RPG elements and a well told story. Fun to play in single player. Yet, if you're looking for a replacement for the aged StarCraft ... look somewhere else.

The Good
Being a huge fan of Warcraft 2, when I heard Warcraft 3 was being developed I had very high expectations for the title, so when it came out I instantly bought it. And man, what a waste of money that was.

The graphics are pretty good and there's a lot of variation of enemies and locations which are pretty interesting to see. Additionally, there's a lot of custom graphics available on the net. However this is just another way of fooling you into thinking this game is cool.

The editor is very extensive, and still probably one of the most extensive RTS editors to this day. But even so the game has some retarded limitations that can get incredibly annoying at times, and some of the editors aren't nearly as powerful as they seem, like the AI editor. Still it was pretty fun to mess in the editor every once in a while

The Bad
Why the HELL did they turn the fastest RTS game ever made into a RPG piece of crap? Warcraft II is still one of the best RTS games ever made but it hasn't aged as well as other games due to the engine limitations, so I was hoping that Warcraft 3 would have been a great sequel with the same premise but better gameplay and a much better engine. So why didn't it happen?? They ruined the entire Warcraft universe with an overly serious business story with many unlikeable characters, extremely bland, RPG-esque gameplay and a lot of other things.

My main problem with Warcraft 3 is that the game is overall a lot slower because of the addition of RPG elements. As I've said in most of my reviews, RPG elements do not make a game "deep" or "fun" but they just ruin it. I can understand placing RPG elements in an actual RPG game but this is a sequel to the fastest RTS game ever made so it's totally out place. Everything takes way too long to build, to attack and to die. You put two units fighting each other and it takes like 2 minutes for the other one to die. It's not fun at all, it's absolutely atrocious. In Warcraft 2 units would take approximately 6 seconds to die but that's why the game was so much fun to play to begin with, but here it feels sluggish and totally ruined. And they even removed naval warfare!

Of course there's a ton of other issues, most of them still dependant on the fact this is a RPG game. There are new hero units which sound cool on paper but in reality they're incredibly boring to use and manage, since you got to kill random creatures on the map to level up, and I'm sure I already mentioned somewhere how much I hate leveling up, but it goes without saying.

Not only is the build time an absolute joke, but somehow they managed to screw up the population count as well! You can't have more than I think 90 food units, but unfortunately most units take up about 3 food units, with some even consuming up to 9 units. Yes, that's right, it means that not only is the game painfully slow but your selection of units will also be incredibly limited. And apparently the more units you have, the more expensive stuff becomes. I don't think it can get worse than this.

Another new element introduced is an inventory system, which is probably the only decent RPG element in the game (although it's not necessarily an RPG element so maybe that's why it's acceptable), but it's not implemented well at all. Essentially most of the items are just upgrades that give you more armor. As if units didn't take way too long to die already! The idea is nice, it's just the execution that leaves a lot to be desired.

But the most pathetic aspect of the game is that, despite how slow it is, most online matches do not go beyond 20 minutes. How sad. The campaign is varied but it isn't particularly fun, either.

The Bottom Line
Without a doubt the most disappointing game I ever played, and this game marks the beginning of Blizzard's downfall.