Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
About nine years ago, we witnessed the dawning of a new genre of games. Westwood studios presented the world with a game named Dune 2, a little after that Blizzard Entertainment answered back with a little treasure we've all come to love known as, Warcraft. Those companies had created what would come to be know as Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games, and would forever change the face of gaming as we knew it. After these releases the market exploded with add-ons, spin-offs, and copy-cats. It was quite amazing how we found the gameplay to become so addicting, more than we ever expected.
Well, nine years later we are seeing the third installment of our beloved Warcraft series, and its been a long time coming. The beta we received from Blizzard had only the multi-player options available, so its not really possible to go into the complete depth of the game - single player anyway. But fear not, we've got enough juicy content here for you to sink your teeth into, to hopefully tide you over till its release later on this year.
The first thing you'll notice about the much anticipated title is the clean presentation combined with a dark atmosphere. As soon as you insert the CD, you are treated to a gloomy looking setup menu with an evil looking background accompanied by thunder and lighting sound effects. Blizzard really instills a feeling of something new and exciting.
Once the game is installed you can then check the menus which are quite crisp, and certainly to the point (unlike some games). There were only three menus highlighted; 'Multiplayer, ' 'Options' and 'Exit.' While the energizing hard orchestra track playing in the background was pumping me up, I was disappointed to see that there wasn't at least even a demo version of the 'Single Player' game. No matter however, because the battle-net mode is exactly what you'd expect; fun, fun, fun, and more fun.
One never gets tired of whooping up on all the Warcraft lackeys, though I was dealt my fair share for a bit. The servers were a little laggy at times, you couldn't expect much better from a beta version of a game. For the most part the servers were satisfactory, and I'm sure the minor problems hear we be fixed all too soon.
Warcraft III, ends up being a very pretty game, with detail you'll often have to admire. Certain armies of the dead come to mind complete with pulsing skin, or the newly raised details of the Orc minions. The almost cartoon-like style has been carried over from the previous games, and are sure to please all fans, heck, they should please anyone with a decent graphics card, the game looks awesome.
Another thing that has changed is the number of troops you can carry, they are now limited. Instead of the previous games, where you could amass large amounts of units to go a journeys and destroy anything in your path. You as the player are now limited to having only about 90 units, yet for having a group so large, you not only suffer certain consequences, but in the end it could allow you to end up losing certain advantages you are equipped with. Truly I think Blizzard felt the need to add more features that allowed the game to be based more on strategy than how much faster -- you could build a bigger and better army -- than the other guy. Now intertwined with the idea of limiting groups, the more people in your party the less resources you acquire with every bundle and load. Say if you have the maximum units in your group, your upkeep levels decrease, and there are different levels for how many people you have. With each higher level you get less and less gold and wood with each load. While this seems almost unfair, it makes the game much more exciting, because you can now 'truly' have all sorts of strategy not to mention smaller armies are more transportable, manageable, and versatile.
In addition to the penalty-like system installed upon the unit development, the big 'B' has now allowed the hero's to be much more useful than the previous titles. Where you used to keep them in the back of your massive armies, now they should be placed at the front-end of things because in the end, they will certainly become the most useful unit you have. To get them that way, you must take them into battle, and defeat foes for them to gain experience points. Quite similar to RPS games - which this game was originally planned to be - but the game is still in an RTS world. So you now have smaller armies, and more of a central character; these 'Hero's' can range from being the brute strength melee creatures, to attacking with black magic, or healing and protecting using white magic. These are surely the most important characters in the game, in terms of battle sense, which means their also the ones you want to kill first when presented with engagement.
Each species now has each of those three hero types, each with their own abilities. The more experience points and levels you acquire with your hero's, the more powerful they become, as well as the more powerful their abilities become, and the more they can acquire. This system really takes a strong influence from the RPG/RPS game world, but it make this adventure that much more interesting.
Warcraft III is basically revolutionizing the industry, and what we've all been looking forward too is the new troops that are now playable. Blizzard felt that it was time for a change, and to add a higher level of tension, and strategy to their epic titles, Warcraft III becomes the means for this. Blizzard has introduced two new sets of races - out of the proposed six. Now those who are playable are our beloved Humans and Orcs, and new to the cast are the Night Elves, and the Undead.
Each of these races have different attributes, abilities, strengths and weaknesses as too be expected, but this makes for a great difficulty in RTS development. Even the three classes in Starcraft took Blizzard a long to time to perfect, they were forever tweaking those characters to get the balance between each correct. Now with a cast list of four race, they've got an even bigger task on their hands yet they're certainly off the best possible start that could be expected.
-- Humans --
First up is our well balanced, always ready to move, good at everything humans. You really wont notice much difference about them from the previous games, the humans are basically the same as the previous titles.
First thing you'll see is that these are a both strong offensive and defensive folk. Now since they are without the aid of their friends the elves - who separate from then to form their own race - the dwarves have picked up their slack to help them better defeat their vile opponents. In addition, their resource management stays the same, as usual you send your peons to mine gold and cut down trees to restock your stores.
There really isn't anything new to tell about them, they've still got the typical class system ranging from peon to knight, each within had their own purpose and abilities. But that doesn't mean that they're weak by any means, with both their effective melee-like and magic abilities, its always best to be weary when engaging in a battle with them. There always seems to be a trick on their sleeves, not to mention that their towns are the only ones that can now be protected by those damned towers. Their seclusion to this ability makes them much more difficult to destroy and present an annoying threat to your attacking troops.
-- Orcs --
The second group that has returned to the game is for the most part similar to their predecessors. However they now possess a few new abilities, that can be worth while, and having also lost some that were once convenient.
The Orcs are still best at battling with their brute force tactics, and their resource management has also stayed the same. They keep their peons working just as the humans; mining gold, chopping wood, and building buildings. Nothing to special in this department, however what they have added is the a few characters including new variant flying attack creatures, along with some wolf-riders, shaman, and war drummers, each of which make the game that much more fun with their play.
Definitely the more offense inclined people, and still the powerful magic spells are here to cause the much terror they have wreaked in the past (blood-lust anyone?). Their defense is something that could be compared to the Terrans in the previous Starcraft. They build mounds to fight from, and this will allow the fighters to protect the villages and take damage, while the rest of them are safe. These guys can definitely hold off a stand-off by themselves, for the difficulty in attacking.
Just as in previous games, head-on-head battles tend to be favored for the Orcs, while the other races are powerful, you don't want to be out number and classed by this group or that'll surely be your end.
-- Night Elves --
One of the new kids on the block, and I have to say, a tad stranger that the races in previous games. The elves are now their own race and have many attributes that are at least odd to say the least. One major one being their buildings, called 'Ents' these building are not only buildings, but living things. Now however strange this might seem, it doesn't match the effectiveness of their use. The Ents are not only living, but they can be moved, meaning when your in dire need of escape they can up-root from the ground and take off, while not quick about it, its still a cool feature to have.
In addition to moving, the Ents can heal them selves by basically, eating trees. Since they are a nature based folk, a lot of the things they do are to preserve the nature and order of things.
The Elvin resource management is something not see in a RTS, instead of using peons to mine their gold they construct buildings that stick their tentacles into gold mines and extract the gold by sucking it out and into your stores. And instead of chopping trees, they just circle the trees they want, and they're magically transported to your stocks. However perplexing, these methods end up being better in certain ways; because you have fewer characters going to waste you could say.
Offensively these Elves only do well in groups, when placed in small numbers their battle outcomes tend to worsen. Its best to have these guys stick together to defeat foes, mostly because they range on the weaker side of the races, yet they can do ok in mass groups. If you add the range of flying attackers you have, the battle options tend to open up, and certain win-win strategies can be employed.
On the defense side of things the Ents again come into play, these things can serve as a means for both attack and defense, they can protect things - even though they're slow - with their branches attacking ground troops, and then having the go head themselves.
Overall they are a fairly strange race, one that requires a certain amount of adjustment in both strategy and mentality. These people can be used quite effectively if structured the right way, surely they've got promise.
-- Undead --
Last but not least, certainly the strangest, and probably most difficult to understand and play with. These characters have towns that can only be located on 'their' kind of ground - undead type that is. The Undead buildings are summoned, not built, which has both advantages and disadvantages. On one had you can more quickly acquire the buildings you desire, on the other, these buildings cannot be rebuilt. Fairly strange concept, but you can attribute the majority of their oddity, and playing abilities to the Zerg in Starcraft.
Just about everything they have is summoning, they summon buildings on top of gold mines to extract gold, but they do send Ghouls (fighters and peons) to chop wood. These guys are inherently different than the rest in that they can resurrect their dead - since they are already so - and they can also heal themselves, both of with attributes make then a enticing choice. I was never a large fan of either the Zerg or these guys at all, but they do have their ups and downs.
On the offensive, the Undead certainly have the sickest armies and abilities you could think of. In addition to this, they've also go some of the most effective, and damaging attributes. Some of their vehicles, along with some of their insane looking monsters that they produce are certainly a force to be reckoned with.
One the defensive end they don't really worry much about armor for obvious reasons, but to protect their towns they use housing and food facilities call Ziggurats to double as defensive building, that can be upgraded to shoot electrifying energy beams at your opponents.
-- Conclusion --
So overall I have to say, this game really impressed me with it depth - though Warcraft has always been a fairly involving adventure. I can't wait to get a hold of the single player mode because I'm sure with this amount of guys the mission will be crazy, and it'll end up being a long and exciting adventure to the end, not to mention the storyline will be awesome. Can't wait to see what Blizzard has up their sleeves for this adventure, so wait tight ladies and gents, because you're surely going to be in for a treat with this one. Until next time. ;)~
-silver