groxx's Full Review: WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos for Windows, Mac
My first impression when I got this game: ooh, 3D! Ooh, crappy framerate!
Then I got a better video card :)
Anyway. Let the review... COMMENCE!
Graphics are mediocre at best. Yes, it's in 3D, but the units are EXTREMELY chunky and largely unoriginal. They also UTTERLY lack the sense of impeccable style that Starcraft has. The units, land tiles, trees, EVERYTHING looks like stuff you've seen before, only mildly modified to make them "new".
To make it worse, if you have a LOT of units, the game starts to lag painfully. Even on a built-to-frag gaming computer, you'll see framerate lag at times. If your video card isn't good enough to handle Unreal Tournament, you can't turn the graphics up very far, and it'll still lag with a lot of units on the screen. It strikes me as overly processor-intensive for what the game is, and how little overall detail there is. Some games have downright brilliant graphic engines, this is NOT one of them.
Sound is traditional Blizzard fare. Good, but lacking complexities, and with background music that you never really notice. Sounds are fairly flat and simple, so you never hear those subtleties that make you think it's realistic at all, which is a BIG drawback to me, but only factors minorly into the game itself. I've played games with great sound, and it makes a big difference over crummy sound.
The music is quite like Starcraft had: unobtrusive. Except at a few times, you don't tend to notice the music. This can be good, and it can be bad. If the music is selected carefully, a good rocking tune at the right time, it really improves the game. This doesn't have that, but at least you don't really notice it.
Gameplay is a mixed bag. Here's why:
Units are far too similar between the races. Yes, they look and sound totally different, but that's not what I mean. I mean that each side has almost identical units to fill attack/defense slots, with really only one special unit for each. Play any of them, and you can be good at the others, because they're essentially the same. The biggest differences are the Heroes, which I just plain don't like. And even they are essentially the same unit with different looking attacks.
Races are fairly well balanced, but NOWHERE NEAR as well as Starcraft achieved. I was expecting great things in this department, I am horribly disappointed. They're balanced because they're so similar at the core, not because they were carefully designed. Each side has its expected advantages, with little imagination involved, and the strategies for each race are almost the same.
Strategy is sorely lacking. Some may disagree here, but hear me out first. As each race is so similar, certain strategies work better than others. In Starcraft, if you imagine an attack force, it can work. In this, if you don't use a couple unit configurations, you're screwed. I, personally, HATE that. It comes down then to who can micromanage attacks the best, which is what the WHOLE STINKIN GAME is. Micromanage EVERY aspect, or lose. Period. Your units are SO stupid for what they attack, when, and how they use their abilities, it's pathetic. You HAVE to babysit every battle, or you flat out lose. If you're good with managing, you can wipe out almost anyone with a small force, but if they do the same it boils down to a resource war (which happens COMMONLY).
Micromanagement isn't a bad thing. It's a large part of the strategy for many games, and I like that aspect. But this is excessive to the extreme, and makes it annoying, not challenging. Very little emphasis is put on the ACTUAL units and upgrades you use, almost everything is making sure they do the right thing at the right time. Which they do NOT do if you leave them alone.
Play online for a while, and you'll see what I mean. Everyone uses the same strategies, everyone gets the same units, and then it's just down to who can get more units faster, and who can micromanage the battles the best. Not fun to me.
My overall impression was disappointment. I completed the single player campaign (which, I must say, is impressively long and covers all the races), played online for a bit, and haven't gone back. There are good parts of the game, and bad parts, but I'm picky. You spent years developing a game, MAKE IT RIGHT and don't rip me off with a poorly-designed product.
The graphics, while pretty good at first glance, get annoying. Repetitive, blocky, and only decently skinned, with a graphical engine that suffers.
The characters have more great lines if you click on them, typical of Blizzard. Frankly, that's probably the best part of the game. Some are quite funny, and across all the races there are a TON of units.
Ultimately, some people will like it, some won't. I fall on the "don't" side. The game needs a serious re-working and rebalancing, then it could be among the best. As it is, it's only OK, and not really worth the money.
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