WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos (Windows)

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Description

After the defeat of Orcish horde at the hand of the Alliance in the second war and the destruction of the Dark portal, the remaining orcs were rounded up and put in internment camps. The game starts with the Orcs being freed by a new warchief from their internment camps and leave for a new continent across the sea. The Humans are troubled by a mysterious disease that turns people into living dead. Meanwhile the undead are preparing for a way to let their Demon masters enter the world of Azeroth. The game features five campaigns and four playable races: Humans, Orcs, Night Elves and Undead with unique units and buildings. Several heroes that can level up and learn new skills support your troops in battle. The game was followed by an expansion called The Frozen Throne.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "魔兽争霸3：混乱之治" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
• "WC3" -- Common abbreviation
• "WarCraft 3" -- Informal name
• "Muoshou Zhengba: Hunluan zhi Zhi" -- Chinese title

Part of the Following Groups

• Fantasy Creatures: Dwarves
• Fantasy Creatures: Elves
• Fantasy Creatures: Orcs
• Fantasy Creatures: Trolls
• Game Feature: In-game Screenshot Capture
• Gameplay feature: Day / Night cycle
• Gameplay Feature: Fog of War
• Gameplay feature: Recordable replays
• Technology: amBX
• Theme: Steampunk
• Video games turned into board / card games
• WarCraft III series
• Warcraft universe

User Reviews

A quality game which comes close to being classic, but doesn't quite go all the way.	Tibes80 (1567)
absolutely brilliant... everything a great game should be	Gothicgene (83)
A pretty good game (if you like micromanagement).	Dr. Elementary (299)
Best RTS single-player campaign since Dune 2	Alex Man (32)
Blizzard's first 3D RTS, and an excellent game to boot!	Lucas Schippers (59)	unrated
[v2.1] Unworthy of living up to its predecessors.	Indra was here (20902)
You'll either love it or hate it...	Dr.Bedlam (56)	unrated
Not a bad game	Black Death (6)	unrated
Disappointing	kbmb (435)
A wonderful chunk of RTS goodness :D	Lord Dayin (11)

Critic Reviews

GamesFirst!	Jul 03, 2002		100
Game Chronicles	Jul 29, 2002	10 out of 10	100
GamersMark	Sep 07, 2002	9.7 out of 10	97
Game Power Australia	Aug 16, 2002	9.5 out of 10	95
Gamesmania.de	Jul 03, 2002	94 out of 100	94
GameSpot	Jul 03, 2002	9.3 out of 10	93
Jeuxvideo.com	Jul 03, 2002	18 out of 20	90
Jaded Gamer, The	May 08, 2003	90 out of 100	90
DarkZero	Jan 09, 2005	9 out of 10	90
Frictionless Insight	Jul 14, 2002		80

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
credits completeness?	1	Rola (8307) Oct 11, 2012

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cut races

The game was originally to have six fully playable races. The sixth race was never revealed, and the first to be dropped. The Burning Legion was originally to be a playable race as well, but due to the effect it would have on their appearance in the game (the idea of having to give them peon units and balancing them out with the other races would diminish their "all-powerful" image), they were dropped down to being non-playable.

Development

WarCraft III originally debuted at ECTS 1999 as a much different game than the final product. The original idea was to make it a RPS, Role Playing Strategy game, incorporating both RTS and RPG elements together. Although some RPG elements are still present, many were cut. Originally you exclusively controlled heroes, with your extra units being "attached" to them. The game was in more of a 3rd-person perspective (which you can see if you zoom the camera in all the way), and you would explore with your hero (camera fixed on him), completing quests and defeating your opponents. However, due to various reasons (one being that the game was turning out to be very similar to their MMORPG, World of WarCraft which was being worked on as well), the camera angle was scaled back and the game was turned into more of a traditional RTS with some RPG elements.

Pre-order version

For those who ordered this game from EBWorld.com (now EBGames.com), they got an extra WarCraft III DVD that contained all three trailers for this game, plus the cinematic trailer for World of WarCraft.

References

• Blizzard put three Starcraft units into the game. These units are Zerg Zergling and Hydralisk and Terran Marine.They can be accessed from included map editor or at the end of the last campaign.
• In chapter 7 of the Orc Campaign, your tauren units will eventually encounter a lizard named Hungry Hungry Lizard, a pun on the old board game Hungry Hungry Hippos.

References: Full Metal Jacket

The game features at least three references to Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam war film Full Metal Jacket:

• The Tauren Chieftan in the game claims that "Only two things come from Texas, and I've got horns". This refers to a line in which drill sergeant Hartman tells a Texan recruit that "Only steers and queers come from Texas. And I don't see your horns"
• "This is my owl, there are many like it, but this one's mine", spoken by a Night Elf Huntress, is based on a mantra used by recruits to refer to their guns.
• The Orc Grunt says "Me so horned. Me hurt you long time", based on a line I can't repeat in the potential presence of children.

Thrall

The character Thrall has origins in the cancelled Warcraft Adventures game, which was to explain how he escaped from captivity, freed many captive orcs and helped rid them of demonic corruption.

Awards

• 4Players
  • 2002– Best PC Game of the Year
  • 2002– Best PC Strategy Game of the Year
  • 2002– Best PC Game of the Year (Reader's Vote)
  • 2002– Best PC Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
• Computer Gaming World
  • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
  • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Best Cinematics of the Year
• GameSpy
  • 2002 – PC Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
  • 2002 – PC Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
  • 2011 – #18 Top PC Game of the 2000s
• GameStar (Germany)
  • February 01, 2003 - Best Strategy Game in 2002 (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by Ace of Sevens, Aian, Itay Shahar, Martin Smith, MAT and Warlock

Related Web Sites

• Epic Story Meets Real-Time Strategy in Mac OS X (An Apple Games article about the Macintosh version of Reign of Chaos, with commentary being provided by a Vice-President of Blizzard North, Bill Roper (June, 2002).)
• Warcraft 3 Walkthrough (A complete walkthrough for Warcraft 3 on normal difficulty. Includes how-tos and reward information on all optional quests.)
• WarCraft III (Official Site - Blizzard)