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
This was the very first Warcraft game I played. It was so good that I'm now playing Warcraft II BNE edition. The story was very good, providing the background for the battles and adding a sense of risk and reward. Not one single klinker in the voice acting. Music never became repetitive because it added to the drama of the scene as you built your forts. I'd get an exultant feeling when I saw my army decimate the opposing forces after failing and reloading my game. I would be Balancing my forces when they attack and assisting them when they are injured or binded. I had a blast learning how to use the strengths of every race to win a scenario.

Its the first time I've felt SO guilty about running a cheat code that I'll go back and play a scene without cheating.

BTW, the voice-overs were the funniest of all the Blizzard games.

The Bad
2 things really bugged me about this game. * The long load times.
The 'bubblegum chewing' animation when the characters spoke. It was wretched when LucasArts & Sierra did it in their early Adventure games. Its pretty standard for game studios to lipsync their characters now. It was disconcerning to see that archaic design shortcut in such a A list game.

The Bottom Line*
Fun, challenging, engaging and well worth your money.

The Good
Warcraft II proved to be the game which really cemented Blizzard’s legend status among RTS fans world-wide. With Warcraft II, Blizzard added features and game-play options which really pushed the boundary of RTS games and paved the way for their next game, Starcraft which would remain the granddaddy of later-day RTS for a long, long while. Thousands still play Starcraft to this day, so it was not with little fanfare that Blizzard announced their return to the Warcraft universe (and RTS), with Warcraft III.

Warcraft III includes all the features that were included in Starcraft, such as unit group and building hot-keying, vertical ranged fighting, strategic team play, and of course battle.net support (out of the box). It adds a whole slew of new features, the most notable of which is the inclusion of two brand new races - The Undead and The Night Elves. The Undead are included as the game’s new resident bad-guys, forcing the Humans and Orcs to ally, in the face of great danger. In fact, this danger will force them to sail from Azeroth to lands across the sea, where the ancient race of The Night Elf is encountered.

Like Starcraft, the single player experience is plot driven, with campaigns book-ended by pre-rendered animated sequences. If you were impressed by Diablo II and Starcraft’s CG sequences, you’ll be blown away by Warcraft III’s – they are cinematic in quality, being not just eye-candy, but also serving to set the scene and drive the plot in a very impressive manner. Within the actual game, the plot is unfolded by way of in game sequences which utilize the existing graphic engine, albeit from different camera angles. These sequences are very good and the voice acting even manages to maintain a pretty high quality (although the script sometimes leaves a little to be desired).

Taken alone, these sequences don’t pack quite the impact of their pre-rendered brothers; however since they work seamlessly during the mission progression, they really keep the game from becoming just a rush to complete the necessary objectives. The story becomes key and keeps the single player campaign as a story based experience and not merely a tutorial for the player before they try the multiplayer game. To enhance this plot driven dynamic further, a role-playing style sub-system has been added whereby “hero” characters have experience points, special skills that can be learned and an inventory. As the player progresses, so do their heroes. This turns the game into a welcome blend of RPG-come-RTS.

In terms of the meat and potatoes RTS game-play, Warcraft III is a very good addition to the genre, with good and varied races and imaginative units and abilities. One of the best new features that has been introduced, are automatic abilities which can be toggled on and off. This is something that was toyed with in Starcraft’s Broodwar Expansion (Terran Medic) and has been extended here. Once clicked on these abilities will automatically kick in (but will use mana in most cases) until clicked off by the player. This reduces the amount of frustrating micro-management that must be used to get the most out of units’ abilities during a heated battle.

The Bad
The progression to Warcraft III has not been all glory and shiny helmets, however. It seems that the introduction of four races has been more troublesome than the three which inhabited Starcraft. Blizzard seems to have spent much more time balancing units and abilities between the races since the game’s release. Even now, balance changes occur on a regular basis. It’s no disrespect to Blizzard, as the challenge in pulling off four distinct races in the one game must be immense, however it can be a bit frustrating for players to be continually beaten (in multiplayer) by people willing to exploit the latest game imbalance. In some ways, the game might have benefited from dropping either the Orc or Human race (which are quite similar) and concentrating on three very different races (ala Starcraft). From a plot/universe perspective this won’t work, however “The Naga” (a planned fifth race) do appear in the expansion pack, but not as a playable race, for these very balance issues. This was a wise decision by Blizzard, as they have their hands quite full enough as it is!

One major gripe that ex-Starcraft aficionados will mention is the new, lower unit limit and the upkeep system. In Starcraft players were imposed the quite generous unit limit of 200 basic units at once. Warcraft III drops this to 90. This change is almost certainly a technology related one, rather than a considered game-play choice. The prospect of rendering 200 units per player on screen (with each unit having in the order of 200 polygons each), would blow the minimum system requirements sky-high and so the limit is a necessary one. A less necessary change is the addition of “upkeep”. This upkeep kicks in when the player hits various population milestones and acts a tax on the income of lumber and gold. By the time the player has maxed out their units they are losing around two thirds of their income to upkeep! The driving force here is to stop players stock-piling large numbers of units, and to force earlier attacks with a more tactical intent. However it does change the game-play dynamic quite a bit, and may not be to the liking of all fans.

The final point is the experience of multi-player and the battle.net service. Long after everyone is sick and tired of the single-player game, it will be the multi-player aspect which ensures long term success. With regards to Warcraft III, the experience is a little inferior to that of its predecessor (Starcraft) for one reason. Players will quickly find that to stand any chance of winning a battle.net game, they have to follow a specific set of steps at the beginning of every game. This essentially involves building a hero and as many units as possible, as quickly as possible and then “creeping” (i.e. running around the map killing NPCs to gain experience on the hero, before launching an attack on an opposing player. Starcraft included enough different low-level units that any number of strategic paths were open to the player from the outset. Warcraft III is not designed in this way however, generally there are only one or two units to build right away and success is reduced to the choice of hero and effectiveness at “creeping” the map. This is quite a big miss, and one that can’t be patched by a balance fix – it’s an inherent part of the game structure.

The Bottom Line
All in all however, single-player or multi-player, Warcraft III is a very engaging RTS, with a good story and high production values. Most of all, it shows that Blizzard have made a successful transition to 3D whilst adding game-play enhancements to their premiere RTS formula.