Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

SUMMARY:
WarCraft: Humans vs. Orcs and WarCraft II were completely dominant on the PC system for quite some time. With an interesting storyline, state-of-the-art graphics, and a fully-commited production team, Blizzard released one of the best strategy games of the 20th century. However, with their release of StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War, it was likely that the Blizzard RTS franchise was going to be condemned to the 2D world forever.

Then, WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos was announced. Featuring a completely revamped unit control system, updated graphics, and a 3D environment, the game was, and still is, another Blizzard masterpiece.

Reign of Chaos follows the story of four races. The Human race follows Prince Arthas, the heir to the throne of Lordaeron. He has become a Paladin Knight, and is being trained by a much more experienced soldier, Uther. The Orc storyline follows the young warchief Thrall who has a vision from Medivh, the last guardian of Earth. He leads his people to Kalimdor, an ancient continent just west of Azeroth, for a new beginning and escape from decades of demonic corruption. The Undead campaign follows the rise of a new Death Knight and his goal to re-establish the Burning Legion, an army of demons, back unto the Earth. The last campaign follows the Night Elves and their alliance with the Orcish Horde and the Human Alliance, following their defense against the Undead Army and the Burning Legion.

All of this topped off with a SUPERB multiplayer makes this a must buy.

Overall = 5/5
Grade: A+

THE BAD:
Not quite long enough, leaves you wanting more. The map editor is absolutely horrible and should be erased completely.

SUMMARY:
This game takes Warcraft 2 beyond past the next level. It is very logical to play and the missions are detailed, various, well written, and intense. The graphics are breathtaking when compared to the pathetic Warcraft 2. The biggest new addition is heroes; very powerful warriors that can grow in level and use special abilities. At last, there is something else for the game to revolve around. Also, there are artifacts and side missions to expand from the original "Defeat the opponent to win" deal. Worth every penny. I swear.

THE BAD:
AI appears to cheat in multiplayer games
Sheer number of spells available makes it difficult to try and use everything you want to

SUMMARY:
I bought this game after playing Warcraft II and hearing that this one was a massive improvement, and it didn’t really disappoint me. There were plenty of units and spells to choose from and a good storyline to go along with the single player mode. The inclusion of 2 extra teams from Warcraft II only adds to the diversity of playing in multi-player. The vast number of things can be a downside though.

This game is played from an isometric perspective and although you can rotate the camera around I never really did it because I didn’t find it that useful. In one player mode you play as Arthus on the human side. You have to play your way through the story mode in that and when you get to the end of it you will unlock another campaign for a different race. The transition between Human and the next campaign is a very interesting one and was cleverly done in my opinion. Once you’ve done that you unlock another and then the final race.

Each race has 3 heroes, that is 3 characters that are far stronger than anything else you can build. They also rise up in levels through battling and killing enemies. When you raise them up a level you will be able to buy a special ability. These abilities are different for every character and they range from being invincible for a short amount of time to resurrecting nearby dead units. Some abilities have more than one level and can be upgraded, but not until your character reaches a certain level. To cast a lot of spells you need to have Mana Points. As with Hit Points for heroes, MP will regenerate slowly over time. When you have enough to use a spell the icon for it will light up. When you get a Hero to level 6 they will be able to use their ultimate ability. These ones also cost MP, more than others, and range from doing things like turning your character into a hulking giant to teleporting 24 nearby units to any location on the map. These ultimate abilities can turn the tide of battle if used carefully so keeping them ready is always a good idea. When a hero dies they must be re-trained at your Altar for a cost of every type of resource (first hero you buy is free). The higher level your hero is the more it will cost. You can only have one of each type of hero on the map at once.

Around single player maps (and multi player maps from neutral enemies) there are items to pick up. The higher level the enemy you beat to get the item, the better chance of finding a high level item you have. These items are ones that you have to hold in one of 6 slots and their effects remain for as long as you have them equipped. Examples are raising attack, defence, Hit/Mana Point regeneration rate and many more. This makes going around multiplayer maps early a very fruitful journey. Only heroes have the ability to hold these items though. Sometime going for an even balance is good but at times if you have a large force to divert attention, upping the attack strength of your hero can have devastating results, especially if they are a melee fighter.

While this game has a good single player element, the multiplayer is where the real fun kicks in. Having mass battles between several forces in the middle of a wide open map is it’s own reward. With 4 forces to choose from, the diversity of units and strategies in play, especially online with other people, are endless. It means that you can’t just blindly charge in with only one type of unit because if the enemy has a good unit to counter, you’re sunk. Also, heroes sometimes have abilities that help all nearby units by increasing defence or other things. So bringing heroes in your attack force can significantly bolster your chances of beating the opposition.

A word on the forces now. The Humans are your average force being fairly skilled in all aspects of fighting. The heroes are 2 melee fighters and one spell caster. Pretty good for almost any strategy. The Orcs are primarily melee fighters. One of their heroes is the strongest melee fighter in the game. If going in with brute force is your style then pick the Orcs. The Elves are mainly a ranged fighter team, relying on archery and spellcasting to get the job done. If going in with hand to hand combat is not your style, then the Elves should be your choice. And now we come to the Undead. As the name suggests, death features heavily in this side. If you find these types of games difficult or you are just new to the genre, then pick them. Their ability to use recently dead troops, friend or foe, and bring them back to fight for you allows you to have an almost unlimited army for as long as your spellcasters have mana. So this fact alone makes the Undead very hard to defeat unless you have superior numbers (a large superior number mind) or an excellent strategy. Simply going in with no plan will make you come off worse as Undead spell casters can be set to automatically revive the dead. And even just a few of them can make your life hell.

Onto the downsides of this brilliant game now. A problem in many games is that to make the AI worthwhile they have to have some kind of advantage. Here all enemy heroes in multiplayer games seem to be much higher levels than yours in almost no time at all. It’s infuriating to be attacked by 3 level 5 heroes when you only have 1 hero at level 4. So in that respect online gaming is a much better way to enjoy the game.

The other downside is that there are just so many spells and things to use, that if your army becomes too large then it is very hard to find and use a spell at the exact moment you want it. With the spells available in theory your force should be able to deal tons of damage, but unless you are exceptional at micro-management then you may find yourself using mainly spells on the heroes and maybe on a couple of other people.

But other than that this game is a superb game for both single and multiplayer games, which is a rare find nowadays it seems. This game vastly improves upon Warcraft II by first adding 2 more teams and then by adding a whole heap of new stuff. A top notch game.

THE BAD:
A little too short of a game; has major tendancy to lag during big battles (not just on my computer)

SUMMARY:
I bought this game because I had heard some good things about it, and it seemed interesting. I was proven correctly when I played it. It is a great story with cool characters to go with it.

It all started with the first WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. You would play as both Orcs and Humans (the latter being the final campaign) and basically you would battle against the opposite race till your mission was complete, well WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness was released, and it showed a great improvement from the first one, still Orcs vs. Humans.

Then, this game was released years later. It stands as an improvement to the other games, as now you were able to play as four races: The Humans, the Undead, the Night Elves, and the Orcs. Of course it keeps with the traditional RTS platform, so you must command many groups of units to succeed in your mission.

The story starts as the dawn of a third war not only between Orcs and Humans, but with the connection of the Undead Scourge, and the Night Elves. The story itself is very good in my opinion, and the major background to the entire series of games is the same way. This game is a little too cartoony, but I can say the same for Final Fantasy X; it doesn't get terribly annoying though.

I didn't care much for the music in this game, so I cannot state a review on it. (partially because I hardly hear the music because of the sound effects)

The graphics are well done, especially in the cinematics. But of course as you all should know, graphics are not what makes a game good.

Story, like I said, is very good.

Gameplay is just as good as any other strategy game.

This is a very good game, not great, but very good. It is quite short, and all that is left to do on the game is just Battle.Net things. Besides that I give it a good rating

Oh and as a last note, this game is also quite difficult to beat, so have your wits with you when playing it. (the Night Elves Campaign is probably the hardest)

THE BAD:
Annoying voices whenever you click on a soilder or character, blocky graphics, and to short of story..

SUMMARY:
War Craft 3...ahhh I remember back in the day of playing War Craft 2 for the PS..it was fun, and now they advance into this game? Great game, I loved playing this game, to bad it was only for the PC not PS2. Anyway...the good and the bad...starting with the good... The battleing in this game was fun, I like going to war with undead, elves, and the others. Building up your town and creating a army to rid the other player or AI of their army..fun fun. Now to the bad parts, the story was good and all, but I wish they would of made it longer... the voices of the soilder or character got on my nerves because they would say the same dumb thing over and over.....and last but not least the blocky graphics...

THE BAD:
The only thing i find bad is that the game make cant fuly stop the player from cheating, other hen that this GAME IS GREAT

SUMMARY:
This is one of the hottest games I have played this whole year - superb graphics and a soundtrack by NIN make this a great action romp. Some other users have diss'd the game cuz they say it's too short, or it doesn't have enough weapons.... forget what they say, cuz the game is freaking HARD, and the weapons that you have access to require some serious skill to really master, so all in all the game is tuff to beat, and not at all suitable for pansies. Two thumbs way up!

SUMMARY:
Well looks like I can finally write this review up after playing so much.

Units-
The selection of units in the game is pretty good, all the races have a nice amount of ranged, seige, melee, and flying(except the orcs) units, theres always one unit to counter another. Each race's heros have a lot of great skills to help kill off your enemy's army.

Buildings-
Each race has their own buildings, and each fits along with them perfectly, the humans have meidevil-like buildings, the un-dead have dark and evil buildings, orcs have primative looking buildings, and Night Elves have trees which can up-root to fight an enemy, the only problem is that the human tower defense it often to strong, a cannon tower can blow a few guys to pieces like nothing

On-line gaming-
Battle.net offers players with a lot of options, they can play a normal style game with other people to get their rankings up, or they can arrange a team and play against the other arranged teams, also they could play coustom games like hero arenas and LOTR type games.

Over all I think this game is pretty great and can offer a lot of play

THE BAD:
Should have done it better by doing...when you make a account you pick a race and a hero and you play with that hero and level him up like diablo 2 but you add units to him for more power.

SUMMARY:
Perfect and with the unit book that is avalible to the users it gives the stats and tips and such so you can look at them and compare them. Along with the expansion thats comming up should prove to be one of the best games blizzard has mastered.
Hint: Buzz going around STarcraft II and Diablo III are comming, keep posting!