Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos

Around 2 years after their last game (Diablo 2), Blizard release their next masterpiece game: Warcraft 3.

It's Blizzards first full 3D game. Blizzard's games usually have great quality, gameplay and style - and warcraft three is no exception.

Story

Through the adventure you follow Arthas, a Paladin, who wants vengeance for his destroyed land...

Warcraft 3 has two ways it tells you the story.

In-Game cinematics which are used most of the time and computer rendered movies. These movies are very detailed and almost on the same level as the great cinematics of the latest Final Fantasy games.

Races

The two old Warcraft games told the story about the evil orcs fighting against the good humans.

These both races are back in Warcraft 3 but there are two new races: The Night Elves and the Undead.

Units

The Orcs and Humans have similar units as in the previous Warcraft games.

The two new races are a bit special.

All Night Elves buildings are made of wood and stone. Their main buildings are living trees which can unroot themselves and attack in melee combat. The Night Elves are mostly ranged and flying units.

The Undead have a big advantage in creating their buildings. Their buildings are summoned by a Priest and after that the building completes itself. (think protoss) Some of their units are: Skeletons, Necromancers and corpse catapults.

Gameplay

You start the singleplayer campains with a prolugue in which you can learn the basic controls of the game. But for an experienced RTS gamer it's nothing new.

Warcraft 3 isn't a game like the other RTS games where you build the bigger army then all enemies and then crush them.

Blizzard limited the unit count to around 40 depending on the units. With this limitation they try to make the fights a bit more tactical and not chaotic.

There is also a small RPG element in Warcraft 3 but it isn't a very important part. You can control which spells the Heros learn first or which magical item he should posess.

Graphics

Warcraft 3 looks great. All of the units have a lot of different animations and all units have their own unique look.

The models arent very impressive for themselves but if you put everything together with the landscapes, huge forests, cliffs, rain, snow and the units it is one of most impressive games at the moment.

Conclusion

Overall its a great game. I expected a lot from Blizzard and as usual they did a great job.

In my opinion Warcraft 3 is the latest landmark of real time stragegy games...

Warcraft 3 Homepage

Vitenka's Notes

Hellcat was in and out of the lobby all day - saying things like "oooh" and "whee" and then going back and playing. He did drop two concrete pieces of information though. The first campaign (of three) is short (took him about three hours to complete) and easy. The second campaign thrashed him horribly. He also noted that it doesn't run in a window.