Summary

(This review is for the Battle Chest edition of Warcraft 3, which includes The Frozen Throne expansion.) I had a lot of fun with this game, much more than I thought I would. Warcraft 3 is a good old-fashion real-time strategy (RTS) game, with a somewhat outdated resource collection model and base-building formula. It also aspires to be a roleplaying game (RPG), thought it is only partially successful. Overall, if you like RTS games, this one is worth a try. However, I found it not to be as good as some of the more recent games, like Rise of Nations and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War.

Sound

There is a lot of great voice acting in the game. Some of it is very funny. The music is also well done and appropriate to the mood of the game. Overall, I recommend Warcraft 3 (plus the expansion) to anyone interested in RTS or fantasy games. It's a well-made strategy game with lots of challenges, a epic (though rambling) story, and an RPG element in the form of heroes (which, again, can be a plus or a minus). If you can get past all of the micromanagement that the game requires and some other outdated elements, Warcraft 3 should provide many hours of entertainment.

Gameplay

Warcraft 3 is remarkably like Warcraft 2 in a lot of ways, which is both good and bad. On the good side, it's fairly easy to learn and quite fun for a while. You choose one of four races to play (which are all distinct); gather gold, lumber, and food; build structures and units; explore the map; and conquer your enemies. It's a very typical 1990s-style RTS game. However, Warcraft 3 adds hero units to the mix, which greatly impact gameplay. These units can gain levels as in a RPG-style game and have special abilities. You really cannot win a game without them. Each race has a choice of 4 heroes to choose from (with The Frozen Throne expansion loaded) and there are neutral heroes that can be recruited. The hero model works quite well with the single-player campaign, since it weaves them into a broad story. However, it makes skirmish games a little awkward, since you are required to both build bases and find creeps (random monsters) for your hero to fight in order to gain levels. The single-player campaign is both quite long and well done. Actually, it seemed a little too long once I played through the original campaign and the Frozen Throne expansion. The story is the typical good vs. evil theme, which gets really hard to follow by the mid-point. However, the missions are generally well done, with a good mix of RPG-style adventuring and a heavy-dose of base-building and conquest. The missions are designed to allow you the chance to play all four races, and I didn't get the sense that they were just practice for multiplayer online games. That is, for solo gamers like myself, Warcraft 3 has a substantial amount of single-player content. Warcraft 3 is good, but does have some issues. Some of the single-player missions are quite hard and will require much reloading of saved games in order to complete. Still, the AI can be a little lame. There were countless times that my base would be invaded, and my units would not automatically move to fight the enemy. However, AI enemies do fight smart, often first attacking your units that can do the most damage to them. Rather surprisingly, the game does not have a pause feature so that you can look around the battlefield and give orders while pausing. And unlike recent RTS games, Warcraft 3 limits you to very small armies. You'll be lucky to have 20 fighting units at any given time. Additionally, the game just seems behind the times in other ways. The camera doesn't really zoom, graphics are cartoonish, and the micromanagement can be burdensome at times. As with every other Blizzard product I've played, the game was perfectly stable and well polished, and I came across no bugs or typos. In addition to a single-player campaign that will last around 70+ hours for the average player, there are a large number of skirmish maps included, multiplayer capacity, and a map editor. The Battle Chest itself includes a lot of reading materials, such as instruction manuals and hints/tips guides. As usual, Blizzard has supported the game well with patches and new official maps that are downloadable at their website.

Summary

Blizzard has done a great job improving the new Warcraft game, Reign of Chaos. It features better graphics, better sound, hey, I'll just say, it features a better everything. In my humble opinion, this is the greatest strategy game of all time yet to be made, with an immersive plot, and many new features. For all you strategy fans, I pity you if this isn't on your shelves.

Sound

The music in this was great, and it fit the play of the game, enchancing your experience, but the thing I liked most was, if you click on a character a lot of times, they will start saying funny things. What? I'm not going to tell, but lets just say, they made me laugh. The ambient sounds have been done well, and the voice acting was quite good.

Gameplay

Warcraft III delivers a unique gameplay, with four races, the Humans, the Orcs, the Undead, and the Night Elves, all entwined in a battle controlled by a dark, mysterious force. Each race has different units, buildings, strengths, weaknesses, andd even different ways to gather resources! For example, the Night Elf Wisp workers gather wood without harming trees, while the Undead mercilessly mow the trees down with their Ghouls. This game also has a unique element, an element that can decide the entire game, Hero's. You can build a Hero, and advance him in strength, give him items, and learn new abilities. These Hero's can change the tide of the battle, and one powerful one can even destroy an army. Warcraft has easy controls, that if you've ever used the computer, you should adjust to quickly. It's also less frustrating to cast spells, because of the new, Auto-Cast spell feature of the game. That way, you don't have to individually select a Priest every time you want to heal someone. But probably, the best part about this already-great game is the multiplayer. It features a ranking system, clans, the whole kitten kaboodle, but for me, the best experience was the custom games that the players made with the Map Editor, making Warcraft III not only a RTS, but also an RPG, RP, Survival, and Tower Defence game. This makes the variety of the game amazing, and you wont get bored of it as quickly as you might have. Heck, I've had it for almost since it was released, and I'm still enjoying it.

Summary

The sequel to the legendary warcraft 2. This is an alright game, though nothing like it's predecesor. It's a RPS game, role playing strategy. How well you level up your hero is what really determines whether or not you will be the victor. That's online play im refering to. Singler player mode is fun also, but online gaming is where the real fun is at. There is much to do with the game online, Ladders, tournaments, custom maps made by other players, and clans to join are some of the online features.

Sound

Very nice music, and smooth crisp sound effects.

Gameplay

The gameplay really is unique, with easy to use hotkeys, with spells and abilities that units can use. The auto-casting ablilty of units makes it a whole lot easier than warcraft 2.

Summary

Being a big fan of whatever Blizzard puts out, I was fairly satisfied with Warcraft 3. The graphics were well done, the sound effects were funny as always, and most of all I liked the story line. It's very interesting to me to see how the story plays out. Blizzard seemed to have made a good balance between the 4 races.

Sound

Sound is great. The sound effects from clicking on a unit over and over again is hilarious as always. I'll spend 5 minutes clicking on different units just to hear what they will say. The music and sound effects in the game are very appropriate as well. Nice job.

Gameplay

Here's the downfall. Unless you can click the mouse in combination with the keyboard at the speed of Kung-Pow, you will never be able to do each unit's special ablities all the time. Especially the hero. There are so many things that you have to do in order to micromanage in a battle, it is insane. Getting your hero to cast heal while moving your weak units to attack these certain targets that others can't hit while moving your other units into defend mode at the same time getting your supporter spell casters to react when this happens or that happens and making sure that your second attack force is being built at your town. The micro management is totally insane. And you want to play with a computer that can do all these things without thinking? Your only human. You can't do the things the computer does even close. I can beat 5 computers by myself in starcraft. I can't even beat ONE computer in a skirmish in this game. Me and a friend went up against one computer and STILL lost. If your playing the campaign, its not that bad, but if your in a skirmish.... forget it. Even with the auto casting that some units have, it still can't make up for all the management you are required to do in a battle if you want to win. There is simply TOO much to do.