Warcraft III
Published by Blizzard
Genre RTS with a dash of RPG
Similar to Warlords:Battlecry
Rating (1 - 10) 6
Reviewer Richard Egan
Review date July 2002

Guilt. Betrayal. Blizzard are the company that can do no wrong ... aren't they? Warcraft II was the Greatest Ever Game ... wasn't it?

How can this long-awaited, dash-to-the-shop-and-buy-on-release-day game merit anything but top marks?

I loved Warcraft II. Heck, I slept with it (well, when I closed my eyes after an evening's play, I could only see little orcs and dragons). And if you promise not to tell anyone, I'll let you into a secret: it was a big influence on my decision to move from Apple Mac to Windows, many years ago (the Mac version was released months too late for me. Elvis had left the building).

It all began when Richard John brought a laptop to our New Year party, and showed me Warcraft II. I barely stopped playing long enough to bang some pots and swig some campagne at midnight. I was that hooked.

So the announcement of Warcraft III - after false starts such as Warcraft Adventures - was bound to stir something in the breast. And I was there, in the shop, clutching my credit card.

And then I re-learnt an old lessson.

You can't go back.

Blizzard should have struck much earlier, kept the title current, avoided letting people build up expectations. Warcraft is a franchise title, but so many years have passed since Warcrarft II that I guess they were always bound to struggle with the new edition.

In Warcraft III, what's familiar seems trite, and what's new seems ... not Warcraft.

In my memory, Warcraft II was a giant of a title. Awesome graphics, great game play. But actually, if ever you reinstall, you see a funny little game with oversized units on an amusingly archaic backdrop. Warcraft III makes a brave attempt at a 3D interface. Yet it's rather clumsily done, with blocky units (Tomb Raider II more than X-box) and a strangely comic-book graphical style. Frankly, it seems childish rather than atmospheric. At best more Disney than Diablo (fine if that's what you want, but it wasn't what I expected).

Yes, hats off to them for trying something radically different from the usual RTS isometric view. And the strange zoom-effect as you move around the 3D map is very impressive. But after a while the latter becomes distracting, almost disconcerting - at times it's not easy to orientate.

The other major change is the emphasis on heroes who gather levels and magical items. Anyone who has played Heroes of Might and Magic will not regard this as new, and it feels very similar. But the latter is a turn-based game, and Blizzard heralded the merger of RTS and RPG as their next great innovation when they presaged the third Warcraft title many years ago. Unfortunately, they have been so awfully slow to develop the game that others long ago beat them to the punch (see Warlords:Battlecry).

To make matters worse, they are shackled by the baggage of a weak and laboured storyline.

Ah yes. The storyline.

Playing the campaign game, it seems you can barely progress a few minutes without a cut-scene interruption, revealing the next installment of a story which, frankly, the game would be better without. Yes, the cutscenes are very well done, but they aren't why I buy a game: I buy a game for interaction, not watching.

And the story dominates all: the quests and optional side-quests only serve to emphasise the linear nature of the game. Frankly, in the campaign game you are trapped in a storyline.

This is not RTS. And it's certainly not RPG.

The building and battling that made Warcraft II so great may have long since been imitated and mimicked beyond revival, but they were what made Warcraft ... Warcraft. This edition deliberately spurns the Cossacks route of adding bigger and bigger armies - you control very small collections of units, smaller than even Warcraft II (which, frankly, seems rather mean and paltry). Instead you are obliged to play along in a storytelling excercise.

I am sure Blizzard believe they have launched a new genre, but it's not one that appeals to me. The fact that the game sits in the Number 1 bestseller slot as I type means Blizzard are unlikely to care if old loyalsts like me stop buying the Warcraft line on impusle. But there is a part of me that thinks they've still made a mistake: how many of those buying Warcraft III did so like me, simply because the last version was so great? And how many, like me, will feel disappointed by the kiddy graphics and radical re-invention of the game as an excercise in computer-based storytelling? Or the absence of atmosphere as you play?

Warcraft represented a franchise that could have been milked, slowly evolved in the way that Heroes of Might and Magic has been. No-one would have felt cheated, so long as there was some sense of development and progression. But it didn't need a radical overhaul. Warcraft II was not a radical departure from the original, and neither was Age of Empires II a radically different game from its predecessor.

I like the use of night and day as an influence on units' strengths and weaknesses. I like the introduction of two new races. And if you want something a little different, with an original take on mapping, Warcraft III may be worth a try.

But if you're a Warcraft II diehard, don't be fooled by the fact that it's got an Orc on the cover. This is not the game you know.

Richard Egan

 


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