WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (DOS)

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Description

WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness is a fantasy themed real-time strategy game and sequel to WarCraft: Orcs & Humansset on the world of Azeroth. With the conquest of the kingdom of Azeroth in the first war, the orcs are now preparing for an invasion of Lordaeron and conquer the remaining human, dwarven and elvisch realms. In an effort to counter this invasion the humans, elves and dwarves formed an alliance in the hope to avert the same fate the kingdom of Azeroth met.

The game comes with many new features such as fighting not only over land but also over sea and air, SVGA 640x480 resolution graphics with many newly-rendered buildings and units, multiplayer-support with up to eight players, as well as a Red Book audio soundtrack, and a scenario editor that allows players to design and create their own scenarios. The editor requires Windows 3.1 or greater, even though WarCraft II is a DOS-based game.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "WarCraft II: Blood Seas" -- Working title
• "WarCraft 2" -- Informal name
• "War2" -- Common abbreviation

Part of the Following Groups

• Fantasy Creatures: Dragons
• Fantasy Creatures: Dwarves
• Fantasy Creatures: Elves
• Fantasy Creatures: Orcs
• Fantasy Creatures: Trolls
• Game feature: In-game screenshot capture
• Gameplay feature: Fog of war
• Games that include map/level editor
• Sound engine: AIL/Miles Sound System
• WarCraft II series
• WarCraft universe

User Reviews

So charming, you’ll overlook all of its flaws.	PCGamer77 (3235)
Customs scenarios make this one replayable	anton treuenfels (37)
Exploding sheep! (see below on details, details, details)	Cyric (50)	unrated
Warcraft II has aged well	Roedie (5250)
By land, air and water...	Depth Lord (1003)
A genre inside of itself	Sam Tinianow (116)	unrated
The only RTS I ever really enjoyed playing	Kalirion (667)
A classic.	Tomer Gabel (4643)
Hack 'n' Slash	Horny-Bullant (59)	unrated
An excellent RTS game, marred by repetitive AI	Asher (7)	unrated

Critic Reviews

Entertainment Weekly	Mar 22, 1996	A	100
PC Gamer	Mar, 1996	96 out of 100	96
Gameplay (Benelux)	Feb, 1996	93 out of 100	93
Joystick (French)	Jan, 1996	93 out of 100	93
Game Revolution	Feb 06, 2004	A-	91
PC Action	Jan, 1996	88 out of 100	88
PC Joker	Jan, 1996	87 out of 100	87
PC Player (Germany)	Dec, 1995	87 out of 100	87
Imperium Gier	Apr 19, 1999		80
High Score	Mar, 1996	3 out of 5	60

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Still up ?	6	Sciere (629949) Jul 31, 2008
Permission ?	13	DJP Mom (11381) Feb 26, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Book

In the mission objectives screen, the text written in the book on the background is actually English with letters substituted with similar sounding (or, in some cases, not) Cyrillic ones. For example, "орцисч чордес" is definitely "orcish hordes".

Credits

At the end of the credits section of the game there is a note:

No pixels were harmed during the making of this game.

Cheats

You can type in "gilttering prizes" instead of the cheat "glittering prizes" and still have it work. Joke? Glitch? Coincidence? We will never know...

Development

• Blizzard originally wanted to include more than two races with the game. However, memory constrictions forced them to stay with two. As a compromise, they included Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Ogres, Goblins, and Gnomes as part of the two official races, Orcs and Humans.
• At one point in development, Blizzard planed to have Catapults and Balistas manned. This means that you would need a unit to move and fire the catapult. If this unit was killed, the enemy could then capture your catapult. For whatever reason, this idea was taken out of the final version, however evidence of its existence can still be seen in the cutscene of a footman stealing an Orcish Catapult.

Gags

• If you repetitively click on any of the critters in the game, they'll eventually explode.
• As is typical of all of Blizzard's RTS games, repeatedly clicking on any unit will trigger humorous dialogue.

Graphics

All of the buildings and units for Warcraft II were originally created from 3d models. Then, after the frames of animation were set, these were given to artists to draw over, giving the game an animated look rather than a 3-D look.

Lumber bug

In games that began with only one peon (no townhall), you could click on a tree and then build your townhall. This would result in 100 extra lumber even though the tree was never completely chopped down. This was known as the "lumber bug" and came in very handy in low resource multiplayer games. However, this only worked in the DOS version of the game and was fixed in the BattleNet version.

Reception

• A common nickname for Warcraft II is "Warcrack", a reference to how addictive -- like crack cocaine -- this game can be.
• Rumor has it that Civilization designer Sid Meier remained skeptical of multiplayer gaming until he saw how much fun his daughter had beating him at Warcraft II.

References

If you select a sheep four times (keep clicking it with the left mouse button), the sheep will say: bo-ram-u (that's what it sounds like). This is the sheep password from the 1995 movie Babe.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • June 1996 (Issue #143) – Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #28 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
  • June 1998 (Issue #278) - Introduced into the Hall of Fame
• GameSpy
  • 2001 – #3 Top Game of All Time
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/1999 - #9 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
• PC Gamer
  • April 2000 - #4 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
  • April 2005 - #5 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
• Power Play
  • Issue 02/1997 – Best Game in 1996

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Chentzilla, KSlayer, Maw, PCGamer77, Roedie, Toadstool; Trixter and Warlock

Related Web Sites

• Ccrew's Warcraft II Page (Has been online since May 1996. Contains a collection of custom maps available for download, a section on gameplay tactics, and some cheats.)
• Chris's Warcraft Resource Page (An interesting site with some puds made by the creator, basic strategies and other things. Created Dec 1997.)
• Hints for Warcraft II (The hints on the Universal Hint System will help you complete the game.)
• Warcraft 2 Preservation Page (A site dedicated to War2 nostalgia.)
• Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (official game page from 1996, preserved by the Wayback Machine)
• WarCraft: Scrolls of Lore (Information on all WarCraft games, including information on the storylines and characters in them.)
• Warcraft Town Hall (Warcraft News and Information)
• Wikipedia: Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Information about Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness at Wikipedia)