WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos

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.

The Good
Since this is Blizzard's first 3D game, the graphics are not at all bad, but large battles can be slow sometimes. The heroes are definately a good addition to this game, since they can become quite powerful if you know how to play with them. The units are really balanced and unlike most other strategy games (such as C&C), the units of different races not only differ in colour, and names, but also looks and abilities, making each race have truly unique units. Not only are the units different, each race also has different abilities. For example, most of the Night Elves' buildings can move around and they can see better in the dark, while the undead can only build on blight (similar to the zerg creep in Starcraft). Excellent singleplayer gameplay and has the most incredible cut-scenes I have ever seen, even better than Diablo II's cut-scenes. As with most other Blizzard games, clicking on a single unit for a couple of times makes them say something funny, and since there are so many different units, you can listen to a lot of these comments. WC3 also features a great map editing application. With it, you can do just about everything, from creating your own heroes to the ability to detect key strokes from within the game. Also, now 12 players can be in the same battle for multiplayer, so you can have even more intense battles.

The Bad
This game is just too similar to Starcraft and probably not as good. Mobile buildings, the presence of blight, and how the Undead Ghouls look suspiciously like Zerg Zerglings all looks too much like Starcraft. In fact there are even Starcraft units hidden in the game! Another thing I dislike about this game is how strong the defense towers are. There are many people on the internet who doesn't do anything else but build towers, hundreds of them. Since the food limit is 90 now (so that your strategy now becomes a key to winning), you can only send a few units in to destroy the towers, but most units die without even reaching the towers while catapults could easily be taken down by aerial units within the mass of towers.

The Bottom Line
If you have not played Starcraft yet, buy that instead of Warcraft 3. However, if you are a fan of Blizzard's games or just strategy games in general, then you should buy this. If you figure out how to (and have the time to actually do it) make maps using the map editor, you could make complete different games with it (puzzle, RPG, etc).

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.