WarCraft: Orcs & Humans

aka: WC1, WarCraft I
Moby ID: 371
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

The Kingdom of Azeroth was relatively peaceful and ruled by King Llane. That was until a powerful mage named Medivh commanded forces that opened up a portal in the Swamp of Sorrow, leading to another world. This ushered in the Age of Chaos, as Orcs were summoned to this world and attempted to establish an empire. As the Orcish hordes swarmed from the portal, they met with the Humans of Azeroth and battles ensured. Peaceful co-existence is not an option. Only one race will attain dominance over the land.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is the first real-time fantasy strategy game from Blizzard Entertainment Inc. By playing either the Humans or the Orcs in this saga, two separate story lines evolve with 12 scenarios per side telling the tale of the battle for Azeroth. Players must mine gold and chop wood in order to construct buildings and create new units. From swords to sorcery, all the elements of classic fantasy are here to explore: rich forests, dark dungeons and bubbling swamps await the stalwart troops amassed to fight for dominance. Command many unique armies and creatures including Knights, Archers, Clerics, Warlocks, Daemons, Elementals, and Necromancers who are able to raise the dead.

The multiplayer aspects of the game allow 2 players to challenge one another on over 20 custom maps and determine who is the supreme warlord. Head to head play is supported over modem, serial link, and IPX networks, and works cross-platform between the IBM-PC and Macintosh versions.

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Credits (DOS version)

72 People (32 developers, 40 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 26 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 129 ratings with 6 reviews)

Play for the story

The Good
The game is great for the story. The story is told through the game is very entertaining and has enough in it to keep it interesting. The original game of course can not be compared to the new ones of today (2008), but it is great in terms of gameplay and units and overall creativity shown in it. Upgrades that are reflected in the game in units is a very nice touch for an early game such as this. The overall music and the sounds are also nicely done. Commenting on graphics is useless as one could not compare, however as I said the sound part of the game could be comparable to the modern games. The game manual is also a well done piece of work. It tells the interesting story from both sides and has good descriptions of the units and buildings. Too bad the upgrades for the units are not described here. The intro and end animation sequences are also interesting in terms of design. However, I can not comment on graphics. Also the amount of units and buildings and resource development for the game of such age is worth admiration and the struggle it take to play the game through despite the modern RTS that are available.

The Bad
There are of course the negative parts to any game. The first is cumbersome user interface that is present in the game. The movement of units overall is hard and the game proceeds to slow. This of course could be the observations of the person who is used to modern RTS games. Another problem is computer AI. It does throw an interesting move on you once a in a while but it ends at that. After a while it is possible to counteract the computer and I found that there a one strategy that works for all maps (except where it is limited force) in both campaigns . This is of course a let down of the game. However, back than nobody could boast about a really smart AI. For this reason a lot of complaints might not be applicable to the game since they come from a person used to modern RTS.

The Bottom Line
If you are a WarCraft fan and want to play the whole story you should play both campaigns of this game. If you are able to play this game continuously after that in skirmish mode and etc. Well you are a hero and I will shake your hand. Myself, I was never able to bring myself to replay the game, yet due to the interface issue, slowness and dull AI. If you are however coming to see what WarCraft is all about well then I would suggest starting with the second one or even the third one and working the way back.

DOS · by Tatar_Khan (676) · 2008

A classic

The Good
The first of a long line of very successful games. In warcaft 1 you find out how it all begun and why the orcs and humans are having the war in the first place. And even though people today might not be very impressed with the graphics, it has still got good gameplay and is very good for its time.

The Bad
Well obviously since it is such an old game the graphics are not exactly what you would call spectacular, and as is the downfall of many other RTS games there is not much variety in the missions. It just comes down to defeating a computer player before the computer player defeats you. Another annoying thing about warcraft 1 is that they hadn't come up with the right click to move and attack idea back then so you have to click on the move icon and then click on the world map etc. and that gets quite annoying after a while.

The Bottom Line
This game is worth buying if only to find out how the battle between orcs and humans started in the first place. And it is also not a bad RTS if your not looking for spectacular graphics.

DOS · by Horny-Bullant (49) · 2003

An alright game overshadowed by its sequel

The Good
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans introduced what is now considered, the "Blizzard RTS". The game features the battle between the Orcs and the Humans as they fight for control over the world. Right off the bat the menu for the game looks great and the music... is pretty nice considering this is 1994, this is dos, and most people lacked soundcards or even external speakers. You get the choice on either playing the Human or Orc campaign right away, both are pretty close to the same, although slight differences are noticeable. Warcraft was quite complex for its time and quite difficult. The graphics look great, even better then Command And Conquer, the smash RTS released just two years later, and the game has this really classic feeling like you are playing something that was from your childhood, even if it was not.

The Bad
To say Warcraft is a bad game would not be accurate, it's not a terribly bad game, it just suffers from one of the worst issues an RTS can have, it's slooooowwwww....

By slow I mean you click a unit, you click move on the sidebar, you click the ground, then he starts CREEPING forward at around a quarter a mile an hour. The units in this game could NOT in any way move any slower! Another thing I did not like that much is the unique road system, where you had to build roads and construct building next to them, although this was neat and made bases look professional, it slowed base construction and made it difficult to set up secondary bases near enemy bases for confusion and quick assaults. My final complaint is the lack of using the left mouse button for orders, although some mouses back then lacked it, it would have been a nice thing as it adds to the slow feeling having to click your unit, click move, and clicking the ground instead of pressing the right mouse button, come on Blizzard, Command and Conquer did it 2 years after you guys. Well I guess I can not really complain about it, it was added in Warcraft 2 and this was before it was a common RTS feature.

The Bottom Line
A great classic RTS with some faults, but it's still worth playing... If you have patience.

DOS · by Chris Jeremic (152) · 2011

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
map generator? Rola (8486) Sep 4, 2013
Title Spelling PCGamer77 (3158) Apr 10, 2012
More Macintosh madness Dae (7169) May 29, 2008
Demo's Third Level? Robert Classified (2) May 31, 2007

Trivia

Hybrid PC/MAC Version

When the game was ported to the Macintosh, it was released on a so-called "Hybrid Disc". A Hybrid Disc can be read by both a PC and a Mac, containing those respective computer's CD-ROM file systems. This disc contains audio tracks with the game's music, and can be played on any device which will play CD Audio. The music will only be heard in-game with the Macintosh version. PC-Only discs lack the CD Audio tracks.

Innovations

Warcraft was a game of many "firsts" in the RTS world. It was the first RTS game to support multiplayer capability, and the first to have multiple resource types to harvest.

Novels

In addition to a board game and Sword & Sorcery Studios' 2003 pen-and-paper RPG system, the Warcraft setting has yielded quite a number of novels. Pocket Books have published a handful of distinct titles: Day of the Dragon (2001), by Richard A. Knaak, set between Warcraft II and III * Lord of the Clans (2001), by Christie Golden * The Last Guardian (2001), by Jeff Grubb * Of Blood and Honour (2001), an e-book by Warcraft* developer Chris Metzen.

Two self-contained Warcraft trilogies have also been published. Richard A. Knaak's War of the Ancients trilogy features Azeroth's prehistory being subtly altered by visitors from its present:1. The Well of Eternity (2004) 2. The Demon Soul (2004) 3. The Sundering (2005)

He has also written the Sunwell Trilogy, graphic works in the Korean "manhwa" tradition, illustrated by Jae-Hwan Kim:1. Dragon Hunt (2005) 2. Shadows of Ice (2006) 3. Ghostlands (2007)

References

  • If you repeatedly click on any Orcish unit he will eventually say "zug zug!" A little known fact is that in the 1981 film Cavemen "zug zug" is caveman-speak for sexual intercourse.
  • The red banner visible during orc briefings is the same as banner of Sarlac in the game Blackthorne, also developed by Blizzard. You can see it in this screenshot.

Warhammer

In the beginning stages of development Blizzard did consider using the Warhammer license for Warcraft, and this was even pushed for by Ayman Adham to give the game brand recognition. However, after their terrible experiences with DC Comics during the development of Superman and Justice League games, the rest of the staff decided to instead create an original property.

Information also contributed by Chentzilla, Maw, Pseudo_Intellectual and xxxxxxxxxxx

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MajorDad.

Windows added by Plok. PC-98, Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Trixter, MAT, Belboz, Andrew Hartnett, Jeanne, Great Hierophant, Chris Jeremic, Patrick Bregger, Lain Crowley, MrFlibble.

Game added November 3, 1999. Last modified March 18, 2024.