WarCraft 3 (PC) Review

By RyThom

Every once in a while, a game comes along that tries to re-invent a genre.  Sometimes, it succeeds by delivering changes in gameplay that set it apart from the rest.  Other times their claims of innovation just decorate the game's package.  WarCraft 3 is one of the games that fits into the first category as a truly groundbreaking game that takes the real time strategy genre to a whole new level.

At a glance, War 3 looks much like your standard RTS, such as StarCraft or the original WarCraft games.  Build a city, make units, and attack your enemies.  To give things some variety, you can chose to be one of four different races: the noble humans, barbaric orcs, evil undead, and the mysterious night elves.  Each race has their own buildings and units for you to master and unleash upon your foes.  The races are as different as can be, with totally different methods of construction and destruction.  For example, the humans can simply send their peasants into a gold mine to harvest the riches inside, but the undead "haunt" the mine and acolytes gather outside and summon the money out with magic.  The differences between the races are so numerous, it would take a hundred pages to cover them all, and hundreds of hours of playing to research everything.  The game just has that much depth.

So what gives WarCraft 3 more depth than other RTS games?  A few things, the most notable being the introduction of Heroes.  Heroes are a special unit that have their own unique abilities and the strength and toughness equal to multiple lesser units.  Heroes can be "leveled up" role playing game style by fighting wandering monsters and opponents and subsequently earn skills ranging from summoning water elementals to the mass destruction of starfall.  Heroes can also collect magic items that they can keep in their personal inventories to enhance the skills of themselves and their allies.  Its because of these powers that heroes become the field generals of your army, sending them into battle with the rest of your troops.

Once you get your troops into battle, the game is a work of art.  The polygonal graphics may slow down some slower computers, but looks absolutely amazing.  The tiny units are also loaded with character and great animations that bring them to life, almost making you actually care about sending the little suckers to their doom at the hands of the undead.  The units may be low-poly, but that doesn't mean they don't look good, especially in large numbers!  Spell effects such as fireballs, lightning, and the like are all complete with lighting effects, and some even terrain deforming shockwaves.  Take that combined with fantastic buildings (that match each races theme perfectly), shadowing, and environmental effects and you have one of the best looking games of all time.

The most important thing of any game is, of course, the gameplay, and War 3 is one of the most tight, balanced, and fun games around.  At times, it almost seems like too much work and not enough "playing" especially in a heated multiplayer game, but in the end its very satisfying.  The single player campaign is very well done and I could easily recommend buying the game on that alone.    The real meat of War 3 lies in its multiplayer mode, though.  If you can get past the initial poundings you will no doubt receive on Blizzard's free gaming service battle.net, be prepared to waste entire days of your life mastering the art of WarCraft.  The races, maps, and game types have so many intricacies that it's nearly impossible to master everything.  In short, buy this game and play it online.  Its awesome.

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