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
I was wary of Blizzard going 3D for Warcraft III - after all, I felt Westwood's Emperor: Battle for Dune was largely hampered by the almost complete lack of personality of its 3D units. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Blizzard has managed to craft a 3D engine that allows its units to shine in the traditional Blizzard way. It manages to straddle the fine border between cartoonish excess and hand-drawn realism, and I applaud the programmers for that. Aside from the graphics, the design of Warcraft III is uniformly excellent. You get four races to play with, and each is involving and offers a spread of unique challenges and intricacies. Furthermore, the story is engaging, and plot has for the first time in RTS history become as important as the action going on in the field. I really was interested in finding out what was going to happen, especially once you get up to the end of the first campaign... Blizzard has also reinvigorated the concept of hero units. In past RTS games, "hero" or unique units usually were part of mission-specific goals, requiring you to protect them at all costs. While these unique units might have sported slightly higher damage rolls or special powers, I usually found myself squirreling them away in the most protected parts of my bases so that they would not die an untimely death. Warcraft III completely changes this mold, now enabling you to place hero units at the forefront of battles where they belong. These hero units (each race gets three to use) are incredibly powerful, and if you do not field one or two on the battlefield, you are usually asking to get tromped. The orcs' Swordmaster, perhaps the coolest hero unit, is capable of spinning in a blade-wielding frenzy, chopping down multiple enemy units in no time.
I also really loved the fact that the game rewards you for exploring the entire map by offering neutral units to defeat in exchange for experience points for your hero. As your hero increases in levels, he or she gains more and more powers. Furthermore, sometimes defeated neutral units drop items that can further bolster the power of your hero.

The Bad
I really, REALLY hate upkeep. In Warcraft III, the size of your army dictates how much gold is deducted from your income due to taxation. Thus, if you're fielding a relatively small army, all the gold your workers collect will flow into your coffers. However, once you build up your army to respectable numbers, you'll find more and more gold vanishes even before it reaches your coffers. Thus, if you launch a major attack against an enemy while burdened by high upkeep, you'd better hope you win - otherwise, the loss of gold due to taxation will render you almost incapable of defending against a counterattack. Upkeep is probably useful in stopping rushes in multiplayer and encouraging more strategic play. Fine and dandy. But what's the point in single player games? Often, you'll be facing three or four separate enemy camps, all bent on wiping you out. With the deck stacked thus against you, why cripple you even further with upkeep? I found this aspect of the game to be the most frustrating, and I hope Blizzard does not make this a recurring feature in future RTS products.

The Bottom Line
Take Warcraft II, stir in some Starcraft, blend with a 3D engine and some innovation and you get Warcraft III. Also, I highly recommend the cool special edition, if you can find out - all the extras are worth the $70 price tag.

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.