Author: scharfschutze
Type: PC Game
Released: 2002
Designer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Genre: Real-time strategy
As the game design world rapidly expanded to embrace the new 3-D graphics that became available near the end of the '90s, it became clear that games like StarCraft and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 - both 2-D games of high quality and more than reasonable graphics - were a dying breed. Any future real-time strategy games would have to be a fully 3-D affair. Not surprisingly, though Blizzard announced development of a sequel to WarCraft II in 1999, it took almost three years for them to complete work on the ambitious title. Not unlike the release of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun in '98, reaction was mixed to the new game.
WarCraft III, like preceding titles, in the series, takes place in a totally invented world. The story begins fifteen years after the end of WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. In the storyline of the game (which I won't spend too much time on), the war between the Orcs and the Humans has ended as the Orcs recede from some sort of demonic corruption that had perverted their race. However, the Humans' problems have hardly ended, for some sort of plague is sweeping through their lands, turning upstanding citizens into twisted, nightmarish Undead. Far across the sea, in the new land of Kalimdor (or old, depending on how you look at it; story-wise Kalimdor is the oldest continent in the WarCraft world), the ancient and mostly female race of Night Elves watches the new developments with increasing worry.
Like almost every real-time strategy game, WarCraft III has one campaign for each race: Humans, Orcs, Undead, and Night Elves. Unlike the other titles in the WarCraft series, which has the campaigns happen simultaneously in the same timeframe, WarCraft III follows StarCraft's lead in having each individual campaign further an overall story. In this format, the campaigns happen sequentially, with the player finishing each campaign to get further along in the story. I would like to say at this point that I am completely in favour of this approach, as it prevents gamers from being forced to play each battle "from both angles". To be more specific, in simultaneous campaigns (such as those in WarCraft II), it isn't an uncommon thing to fight on the same map in each campaign. The advantage of having a sequential campaign structure (besides making a story more involved and enjoyable) is that it allows the designers to truly customize each campaign and scenario to capitalize on the strengths and weaknesses of the race/faction/whatever involved.
The four different races are very well designed, and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The Humans are, as in the preceding WarCraft games, a rounded race: the RTS equivalent of a Jack-of-all-trades. Their specialty is siege warfare, possessing a number of units geared for the task. The Orcs, by comparison, are geared towards brute force and open warfare. Their units have more hit points than anyone else's, but they lack finesse in most situations. The Undead have one primary strategy: throw as much as you can at your enemy. Their units are the cheapest, and their spells are primarily geared towards raising the dead (no, really?) and summoning demonic critters to do their bidding. The Night Elves are guerrilla warfare experts; all their female units (a substantial portion of their tech tree) can go invisible at night (I'll get into this in just a bit), and they lack a dedicated melee unit, but their ranged units can tear the hell out of most forces before they get close.
In previous Blizzard titles, there were special, unbuildable units called Heroes. These units tended to simply advance the storyline and provide objectives in-game - specifically, keeping them alive, which could often be a bitch of a task. In WarCraft III, Blizzard decided to pull in aspects from role-playing games to add to these heroes. Each race now can build three heroes, each with their own special abilities. These range from passive (Auras that affect the performance of units around them), Defensive (healing spells), and the all-powerful Ultimate spells. Each hero only gets one of these battle-winning spells. When a hero is built, he (or she) does not possess all the spells available to their specific hero. They must instead gain experience in battle to "level up" and gain access to more and more spells. This allows them to finally act as truly unique units, instead of just hyped-up versions of the basics.
Spells in this game are very interesting, because they are divided between Point-Effect, Area-Effect, and Passive. Passive spells, as their name implies, do not require any mana to cast, and are always on. These include Auras, which affect the performance or stats of units around the caster, and other abilities that affect only the unit itself. Point-Effect spells are targeted at and affect only a single unit, either enemy or friendly. Area-Effect spells affect a group of units, and quite often cause damage to anything in the blast radius, including friendly units. Some spells can also have the Autocast ability. This last skill is an exceedingly useful addition to Blizzard games, as it allows important spells like Bloodlust and Healing to be cast without the player having to micromanage his spell-casters in the heat of battle.
As previously mentioned, the time of day has an actual effect on gameplay in WarCraft III. There are two states: Day and Night. The game progresses between the two on a regular basis, with a second of real time corresponding to approximately a minute in the game. The effect of time is calculated mainly in the visual sight range of each unit. Only the Night Elves' sight radii do not decrease at night, and even they must research technology to do it. Everybody else loses vision at night, making battles a little more hairy by the light of the moon. As well, only Night Elf units heal themselves (albeit very slowly) at night; Human and Orc units do by day, and Undead units heal extra fast on the Blight, a patch of dead earth created by any Undead building. As well, creeps (a new form of hostile non-player creatures that are on the map and attack anybody), usually sleep at night, allowing you to slip by them unnoticed or get a surprise attack on them. A word of warning: big creeps like Dragons and Golems don't sleep, so they'll attack you by day or night!
Each race has a style of construction unique to that race. The Human builder, the ever-popular Peasant, builds the structure from outside the site. While this leaves him vulnerable to attack, it also means that for additional resources, extra Peasants can be allocated to finish a structure in less time. The Orc builder, the Peon, constructs buildings from inside the site as in the preceding WarCraft titles. The Undead builder (the Acolyte) takes a page from StarCraft's Protoss builders; he summons the building, but can move away immediately to perform other tasks. The building will construct itself from there on. The Night Elf builder also goes inside a building to create it, but if the building is titled as an Ancient, than the building unit (the Wisp) is used up in the construction. While this sounds like a bit of a con, any Ancient can uproot itself and move around like a giant walking tree! These Ancients pack a wallop in their uprooted form, and can even eat trees to regenerate lost health.
The maps are as detailed as any in a RTS game, ranging from bleak deserts to snowy mountainsides. The ground has actual contours ranging from little hills to tall mountains and even cliffs and waterfalls. The single-player campaigns are quite in-depth and pack a good deal of replay value. To top it off, Blizzard included in WarCraft III their most detailed map editor yet, allowing a would-be designer almost unlimited control of his or her own WarCraft III battles.
The graphics in WarCraft III, though very detailed 3-D models instead of 2-D sprites, have their definite problems. Specifically, I am of the opinion that the graphics look far too "cartoonish", instead of giving a realistic feel. As well, anything less than 1024 x 768, or a computer without a high-end video card (Radeon 8500 or G-Force 3 or 4), will run the game with a very decided chop to the models.
Effects: 8.5/10Here, unlike graphics, the designers of WarCraft III spared almost literally no expense. Each and every spell has its own graphical and audio effect, coupled with the casting unit making different motions depending on the spell. The clashing of armies is a sheer delight to listen to, with the cries of dead units and the smashing of steel on steel amplified by whatever spells your men are casting.
Gameplay: 9/10The Blizzard designers really topped themselves in this category. The addition of Auto-casting spells and a massive array of hotkeys make WarCraft III's immersive controls a lot easier to get into. The addition of formation movement solves a lot of tactical problems - specifically, light units outrunning the heavy weapons and getting slaughtered before support can arrive. Fully customizable heroes and much-expanded spell-casters allow you to modify your spell-casting strategy "on the fly". Grade-A effort.
Replayability: 8/10As mentioned before, WarCraft III's single-player element is much enhanced, and well worth more than one replay. Where this game really shines, however, is on Battlenet play. There, the sheer bulk of variety inherent in the game can really come out, making this game one of Blizzard's best in this category.
Overall: 8/10Although reaction to this game was rather mixed, with some people absolutely loving it while others were disappointed in a major way, I believe that WarCraft III is a solid, enjoyable real-time strategy game that does not rely on the popularity of its predecessors to hold it up.