WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos

After having experienced the game myself, Warcraft III puts all other real time strategy games to shame. Commenting on the graphics, everything looks outstanding from units to buildings as well as the scenario. Blizzard really does a nice job making the texture and colors pleasant to look at even when zoomed in. In the previous Warcraft series, the main plot is basically battles between Orc and Human. In Warcraft III, Blizzard adds two more races (Undead and Night Elf) to increase more strategies. Although these two races are new, many people have already grown to love them. I really enjoy using the Undead.

Like Warcraft 2 and StarCraft, the battle system is pretty much the same. Unlike other strategy games such as Red Alert and Age of Empires, learning how to play a new race in Warcraft is like learning how to play a different game. They don't just change the colors of different races; they change everything from units, structures and the style you should play. Warcraft 3 uses the two resources gold and wood and various kinds of units and structures. For those of you Diablo fans, Blizzard bends the meaning of strategy having to include the option of RPG. Every race has heroes to choose from. Each hero is capable of gaining experience, leveling up, learning new skills as well as keeping an inventory for items such as scroll of town portal, health potions and mana potions. It really adds a nice touch of Diablo to it.

The Undead, one of the two new races, really takes skills to play. In order to win the game, you need to master the resources as well as understanding the abilities of every unit. The first time when I played, I build a lot of tough-mean-looking units and invaded my opponent. Clearly I thought I was going to win for my force really out numbered his. My opponent was smart enough to use the abilities of his units by casting some destructive spells and frying my guys. Take the Undead unit Necromancer for example; it can learn skills such as Corpse Explosion and Summon Skeletons, which can be very deadly and useful.

In summary, I really enjoyed playing Warcraft 3. This is not just an ordinary typical strategy game where you will be through after playing once. Learning how to play Warcraft 3 is really like playing four different games. I'm not going into any more details on every race. Let's just hope Blizzard is able to release the damn game soon.


Gold Code Review--Game of the Year, no question   June 26, 2002
122 out of 136 found this review helpful

Right off the bat I should say that I'm not easily taken to PC games. I don't have the patience to sit in front of my computer playing a 50+ hour game (Morrowind anyone?) instead of on my couch with my Xbox or PS2. Needless to say the game had better be pretty damn good to garner my attention.

Cast absolutely all doubt aside that Blizzard might have lost its touch in moving to 3D, Warcraft III is an absolute masterpiece. The RTS-style gameplay hasn't varied significantly enough for any fans to make any true complaints about it; despite rumors to the contrary, this is not an RPG. The light amount of RPG elements infused in the game are welcome and appropriate since you will be spending a great deal of each campaign with a given character and you would like them to grow somewhat between missions while you are still forced to rebuild the rest of your base. To sum this up, as far as gameplay goes this is about as rock solid as it gets; some may complain about the 90 food limit on unit construction, but it adds a necessary strategy element to the game that makes the battles less about rushing and more about careful planning and intelligent use of the unique abilities of your given race.

Speaking of races, unlike in Warcraft II, there are some serious distinctions between the different races that makes each have separate strengths and weaknesses. For instance, although the Orcs have an impressive selection of ground units and are able to build base defenses quickly, their air power is relatively weak. The Night Elves on the other hand have the ability to make themselves invisible at night and to harvest wood without actually cutting down trees so you have no fear of accidentally cutting a hole in the perimeter of your base. I'm only citing a few examples here; the differences could sum several pages and some are quite subtle so you'll want to experiment by playing the entire single player campaign before you decide to tackle the multiplayer mode.

Speaking of the single player campaigns, I have to say that the level of cinematic storytelling in Warcraft III exceeds even that of Starcraft and Brood War. This is the most engrossing storyline in a PC game I have seen EVER and is worth picking up just for the single player missions (which number over 30).

Graphically the game isn't going to win any awards, but I found absolutely nothing to complain about either. The terrain looks great, the models aren't noticeably blocky even in close up in game cutsceens and in general it looks like Warcraft III's graphics will age just as superbly as its predecessors.

I haven't had much opportunity to play with the multi-player mode, battle.net isn't up yet since the game hasn't been released yet (mine is a LEGAL review copy by the way) but from what I can tell from the balance in games with friends over a LAN, Warcraft III looks to be THE RTS to beat for the next few years to come.

Blizzard's tendency to hold back a game seemingly forever prior to an actual release is criticized by some gamers who just want to play the damn thing already. But what most struck me after I had finished Warcraft III was the intense amount of quality and love that had gone into polishing and tweaking the formula to perfection. This isn't merely an attempt to cash in on a winning franchise folks, Warcraft III can easily stand on its own as one of the best RTS games of all time and if you are smart you will pick up a copy on release day and cherish it like there is nothing else in the world. Trust me on this, the guys who made it did exactly that and it shows.


Warcraft III: Game Concepts   March 27, 2002
62 out of 74 found this review helpful

Warcraft III is a new spin on the RTS (Real Time Strategy) genre of games. It's intent is to add some element of Role Playing into RTS gaming. A little bit like "Diablo meets Starcraft".

The basics are the same as any RTS, you begin by selecting your choice from the 4 races: Night Elves, Undead, Orcs or Humans. Each race has their worker units and their fighting units, buildings and defense structures. Each race must harvest 2 resources which are gold and wood. Where this game begins to take a different turn is the concept of heroes. Each race has a collection of 3 different hero types which they can use to supplement their military force. Each hero has more hitpoints than your regular unit and has some sort of beneficial spells (some offensive and some defensive). What makes this hero concept unique is that during the game the hero gains levels as you progress through battles. As they gain additional levels you gain additional points in which to increase existing skills or add new skills.

A side concept to this leveling is the existance of neutral units. Creeps are neutral enemies (sounds weird I know) that lurk about around camp sites, neutral buildings, or other important spots on the map. They will attack anyone on sight and can be used to gain experience.

There are also neutral buildings where for some amount of money you may purchase mercenaries to join your army. So if you have a lot of cash and need people quickly just stop by the local mercenary shop and see what the daily special might be.

Finally, Blizzard keeps this from being an typical RTS game by limiting the unit numbers to a low amount. You have a 90 food supply and each unit draws from that amount. (Not necessarily on a 1 to 1 basis most units are 2 or more) They have a penalty called "upkeep" which says if you are over a 30 supply then the rate at which you mine gold becomes less efficient and another hit at 60+ supply. So if your supply is less than 30 you mine 10 gold per peon unit and depletes the mine at 10. 30+ you get 7 gold while depleting the mine at 10.

Some of the issues are that the races don't really feel that different, but as of yet the game is still in Beta and those are some of the changes they are working on.

As for my review I can't give a game 5 stars before it is in production, but I don't doubt it will become that. Keep in mind that Blizzard is a company devoted to producing a quality game. Their most criticized game was Diablo II and that has sold over 2 million copies. Starcraft is a game which is over 4 years old and it's still going strong. Fans of Starcraft may be slightly disappointed that it's not a true RTS but given the proper time I believe it will still rank highly.


Brilliant game!   March 31, 2002
Nicholas Blanton (VA)
48 out of 53 found this review helpful

(I received the Beta) This is easily Blizzard's best offering to date. The graphics are amazing, and gameplay is very original and extremely fun, and the multiplayer support promises to be very reliable.

However, fans of Blizzard's "Starcraft" may be surprised by the style of gameplay: the focus is much more on unit efficiency and small numbers of well-organised, highly-upgraded, coordinated and mixed units than on massive numbers of identical, quick forces. Emphasis is on teamplay and cooperation.

In general, players who liked warcraft II love warcraft 3, but players who liked Starcraft and its expansion have had mixed opinions.

This is a definite buy for any blizzard fans.


Good game but nothing special   July 3, 2002
J. Xiang (Madison, WI)
29 out of 40 found this review helpful

I have finished the single player campion and here are some of my impressions:
1) The graphics is surely a big improvement over the previous Blizzard games. But it is not truly 3D, the 3D environment doesn't play a role on how the units act.
2) The four playable races are not very balanced. Some are definitely stronger than the others. The unit generation and interface are very similar to Starcraft, each races are different but still in the same models of the three races in Starcraft.
3) There are plenty of units but all pretty standard. I actually think the units in starcraft are much more versatile and exciting.
4) The storyline is semi-complete at most. Major heros pretty much just dissapear after their particular campion(until the last level, which is a dissapointment, see later notes). And the major bad guys didn't even make an appearance yet. Guess Blizzard is saving all of them for WC4 or an expansion pack.
5) The levels are not well designed. There are not that much varieties. The last level is very dissapointing since it's a defense level, you just need to last 45 minutes and a big part of this 45 minutes are played by computers. (You can help, but not command).
6) Although Blizzard said that Heros play a major part in the strategy, in Multiplayer mode, it probably won't matter since you won't have time to develop your hero and they are pretty weak to start with.

Overall, if you are a rts game fan, this game is probably worth it; if not, you may want to wait later to pick up [an inexpensive] copy when the price goes down.