So Blizzard made a sequel to the best selling Warcraft-series. Once again it was time to fight the evil orcs, or fight with the evil orcs. A number of new units were presented, and for the first time magic would play an important role, but how did Warcraft III compare to the previous games?

After Blizzard had invaded the preview pages in leading gaming magazines with the never finished flop; Warcraft Adventures. They had to come up with something new, and quickly. The company fell silent and suddenly a sequel to Warcraft II was out on the shelves.

At first glance Warcraft II and III differs a lot, they have completely different graphics engines and the third game is much more beautiful to look at. All the graphics are in complete 3D, with stunning lightning effects. The units are nicely modeled with smooth movement. It’s also possible to zoom in and out as you want, so you can see your units in close action when they are fighting. Overall the graphics are similar to those in RPG games like Silver.

A nice looking feature and practical one is that Blizzard has now added night and day. This means that the game will go darker during the night, opening up for attacks on unprepared enemies.

Warcraft III features five campaigns, one introduction campaign (which is more to get you into the game and evolve the story) and then one campaign for each race in the game. Aside from the usual orcs and humans, there are also two new races. The Undead and the Night Elfs.

The Undead is a scary bunch of mummies, vampires and other demons. The Night Elfs are more like humans, only with really strange ears and more focused on magic. A new feature is that each race has its own heroes that can strengthen units in the field. In the campaigns the heroes are connected to the main story, in the custom and multiplayer game modes they are produced. A hero is much stronger than ordinary units; they can also help units with different spells and terminate enemy units by more dangerous spells.

Blizzard also added a number of items that you can pick up during the game. These items add spells, strength and so on. I believe that the heroes and items really add to the sequel but make it more like an RPG strategy game than pure strategy.

The story in the game is easily followed through the different campaigns. Blizzard has done what they do best, that is connecting the story to the game. Before each mission you are presented with the standard cut scenes. However during the missions the story and objectives often change, just as they would in the real world. There are also often sub quests hidden in the missions that can give you extra items or spells.

Warcraft III does have some downsides; one is that you can only have 250 units in multiplayer or custom games. It might be a small downside, and it’s there for balancing and performance reasons. However it also limits the game much since there will always be small skirmishes without any real weight. Blizzard has also removed the sea units from Warcraft II, I think it’s a bit disappointing since they could really have done a great deal with them.

Warcraft III is definitely a hit and one of the better real time strategy games ever created. However it might not appeal to the same kind of fans who like the Command&Conquer series like Warcraft II did since there are more magic and RPG elements.

Requirements:
Pentium 400 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 8 MB Graphics Memory
Tested on:
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon Graphics Card, Windows XP