Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos 
In this review I am going to talk about Blizzard's latest hit - Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. I am in the middle of Warcraft's single player campaign currently, so my observations aren't the most complete you could find. I just hope I could give you all an idea of my experience with the game and maybe even have this review help you making your purchase decision. Where did Warcraft start for me..? It started years ago when I was playing Warcraft II with a friend of mine on a PC that is considered to be an antic piece of hardware these days. It was IBM 386 or 486, I do not remember now, but it is not the point. What I remember clearly is that I wasn't the one playing back then, but mostly just watching my friend leading Orcs(his favorite race for reasons not known) to their victory in a very colorful word of Warcraft. Real time strategies were never my favorite genre(I was enjoying turn-based Civilization that time), so while I was very pleased with great visuals seen in Warcraft II, I never really spent much time with the game. Time passed by and Warcraft III hit the store shelves last year. Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure that it was the flashy box that made me purchase the sequel. One of those impulse buys that I suffer from so often. I bought collector's edition of Warcraft III, spent $60 knowing that the game will just end up sitting on my book shelf, along with many other "must buys" I have lined up there. I'm used to that, so I did not mind the fact, I was just hoping that I'll give Reign of Chaos a whirl one day. I had to do it after all, because you are talking to a big fan of Blizzard(their Diablo games in particular), and I finally did few months ago.
Presentation:
I do not remember installation routine, so I cannot tell you how it was. I know some games try to set you in mood for the game by playing a musical theme and presenting you with impessive(and not too impressive) clip art. Warcraft III probably had that, but I was too busy smoking a cigarette or drinking beer to notice. I still could not wait to launch it though.
Have to mention that I prefer to play my games with headphones on. Do not want speakers to bother anyone late at night. Well, I had the headphones on that night as well, and I kept them on for quite a few hours after. I was blown away by the intro, I have probably spilled the beer on myself, but I did not notice. Amazing isn't the right word to describe it. Excellence..? Maybe, if you think you could justify this masterpiece to be called like this. I was truly blessed when I opted not to watch cinematic on DVD that came with collector's edition of warcraft. Not an HDTV, nor a 5.1 sound system could have replicate what I felt sitting in the computer chair and hearing EAX to its finest through Sennheiser HD-570. Pre-rendered, not showing game's real engine, whatever you want to call it - it was perfect. Sounds, story told, visuals - everything had this godly touch to it and everything was in its place to set up a great atmosphere for a player. After intros like that you cannot quit to the desktop, and if you do, I will dare to call you not a real gamer.
The menu was nicely designed, did not feature anything to complicate your gaming experience for no reason or greatly confuse you. Neat sliders for most of graphic and sound options, a few radio buttons here and there, mouse support as a must(PC gamers know how console ports without mouse support aren't appreciated), and you are ready to go. I clicked "New game", I noticed that "Easy" difficulty setting isn't available in this game. A bummer. I like playing all of my new games on easy, and before you all call me a cheater, I will tell you that I usually replay my games after on a higher level of difficulty. Hoping that the game would be easy enough for me not to get crushed in first mission, I dove into the world of Warcraft III.
Graphics:
I was severely disappointed by in-game cut-scenes. But it's understandable, after extra-ordinary intro movies the game had to offer, average graphics without lip-sync or anything else that would make them stand above hundreds of other RTS games did not impress. What held me from pressing "Esc" was the great story narrated in a very interesting and different way. Too many games we get nowadays that have no storyline at all, and what's even worse is that these products pretend to have one when they really do not. Luckily enough Warcraft III isn't the case - it is all about the story. I will go further and tell you that if you do not like the storyline odds are you will not like the gameplay either. Warcraft's in-game visuals have everything to keep you enjoying the game. No weird clipping problems or blocky character models, everything is nicely modeled and designed. Perhaps if you zoom into a unit you will see that it surely does not consist of 3000 polygons, but who would be nitpicking when you got colorful maps and great spell effects..? Maps are something that needs detailed description. They are great..! No more no less, well balanced and different enough not to bore you to death. Someone could say that they're small compared to other maps seen in RTS games currently on the market, but I would rather have smaller detailed maps than huge wastelands repeating itself over and over. Overall, there isn't much to complain about when it comes to Warcraft's graphics. I always favored flashy visuals and Blizzard's game wasn't a letdown in this department.
Sound:
I'll tell you my secret. Out of 10 games I buy, I only have 1-2 to play their original music theme. Everything else gets muted and replaced with my own soundtrack. Warcraft cannot be muted, as it will completely kill its gameplay. It is such a game that will not let you play Jay Z in the background, because it would not be nearly as immersive as it could be when original music score is on. And that's a good thing, Undead industrial or Orc orchestral themes are awesome and 64-channel sound makes them even better. I did not like Human and Night Elf soundtracks a much as the other two, but they were there and I still remember their tunes. Mentioned above EAX support is a welcome addition that eats a lot of CPU recourses, but if you got a high-end system it's well worth it. One of the best parts of Warcraft to me were always its unit voices. They all sound different and make me click one particular character several times just to hear all the different phrases he has to say about my role as a leader. Funny stuff indeed.
Gameplay:
Warcraft is a real time strategy set in the world of magic and wizards. It lets you play as four different races, including Humans, Undead, Orcs and Night Elves. Humans and Orcs are back from earlier installment of the game, and they're pretty well known by Warcraft veterans(and just casual Warcraft gamers), but it also has two completely new races, which are unique enough to make your experience richer.
Humans are relatively is one of the youngest races of the world. Humans achieved great heights in technology, and magical study. Humanity has fought the hardest and suffered the most during the war against the Orcish Hordes.
Orcs are brutal and honorable. The are undoubtedly the strongest race of Warcraft, yet considered to be mindless and possessing no sympathy for other races. Destroy and kill are the words you will hear often while commanding the Orcish race.
Mysterious Night Elves are one of the eldest races of the world. These beings have emerged from their centuries-long seclusion to defend the world from coming apocalypse. They are disturbed by other "lesser" races and prefer to stay enclosed from the rest of the world.
Undead army also known as the Scourge came from northern wastelands to wreck chaos and destruction on the civilization. They have ability to regenerate fallen units on the battlefield, which makes them very touch opponents to face.
Each race features three heroes, your army leaders and the ones you will have to rely on the most. Every race has a strong warrior type hero, a wizard and a more balanced hero that would be suitable the best for beginners. As usually, you will find a paladin to be exceptional unit in melee combat, and mage to have best spells around. However, each hero has his weaknesses and a great example of that would be a wizard hero, that is not recommended as your starting leader due to his lacking combat skills.
The game guides you through the total of 32 single player missions, and that makes it a long game. Each race has campaign that will take you 6-8 hours to complete, making Warcraft's single player to be 30-35 hours long. And if you are as much of a perfectionist as I am, it will take you much longer.
Warcraft III also includes two initial difficulty settings that you may choose from. Those are Normal and Hard. However, if you fail a mission you get an option to lower game's difficulty and set it to easy. Great feature, considering that some missions are really difficult and will make you sweat while completing it.
You are also given a great variety of level goals. Granted, most of these are nothing else than destroying enemy's base as their main requirement, but the game often does give you a great illusion that you are doing something else than that. I was very surprised with some missions which do not require you to build a base, but make you travel with your army across the map instead. Something I never saw before in a strategy game(not in such a sheer variety at least), and something I liked about Warcraft III the most. Whether these task to include sinking 5 ships hidden on the map or protect a character, it was always unique and interesting. Thumbs up here..!
Another fresh concept used by Warcraft developers was mixing some RPG elements into a RTS game. I was very please by this offering. Hunting down various creepers and killing them in order to find some items enhancing your hero's skills and just leveling your character up keeps you from getting bored with traditional RTS gameplay. Warcraft has something else to it than just usual "Upgrade, build, attack". In fact, if you choose to play the game ignoring your hero's spells, your army is most likely to be slaughtered later in the game. You absolutely need to micromanage item possessed by your character and this is essential to keep you from tasting bitterness of defeat.
Multi-player over battle.net is great feature that gives Warcraft huge replay value and should never tire you from itself. Personally, I did not play many multi-player matches, because I found most of my opponents to be much more skilled than I am at the moment. I believe I currently have a 7/24 win/loss ratio, which I have full intentions to improve as I get better at the game.
Conclusion:
These few hundred words are sure not meant to cover Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos in great detail. I would be more than happy if something from written above serves just as a decent read for someone debating whether to purchase the game or not. If that is the case, let me highly recommend Warcraft III to you. Even if you aren't a fan of strategy games at all, believe me, Warcraft will be everything you expected and more. Probably superb is a good word to describe it. Overall polish will please even the most picky gamer and countless hours of gameplay sure justify spending as little $25 on the game(that is how much the game could be had used). Do yourself a favor - pick it up and find yourself hooked on it very quickly after. As to myself, I simply believe that Warcraft III is the best videogame I ever had a chance to enjoy and I'm sure that this is not about to change any time soon, with other expected AAA games coming out late this year.
P.S. I'm sorry for possible grammatical mistakes and just typos, and I hope that this fact did not affect your reading experience. Bare with me.
Posted by P1x44r on 27/07/2005 14:04 
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