Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (Mac/PC CD)

I have a Pentium 3 866 with a Geforce 2mx 32mb graphics card and I am running Windows 2000 and I have no problems jacking the graphics levels up to max.

The Gameplay is what makes this game so enjoyable. The 4 races (Humans, Orcs, Night Elves and Undead) are all quite different from each other in quite anumber of aspects, from how they gather resources to combat units and abilities. For instance, whilst 3 of the races hack down trees to gather lumber, the Night Elves accumulate wood without destroying the trees (though be it at a slower rate).

The Micromanagement has been kept to a minimum, gather Gold and Wood, build a force, go kill. But there are differences to most RTS games. The use of heroes is especially a good move as is adding 'creeps' (Neutral monsters) which defend gold mines and other neutral buildings and provide potential experience and magic items for your heroes.

An upkeep has also been itroduced so that a player with a large force of troops receives less gold from mining than the others to help stop the larger force from growing to the point where you will face wave upon wave of forces. This does however make players more aggressive in their playing nature, as you can no longer churn out masses of troops at a quick t'rate and in order to receive more money again, it is wise to harrass the enemy and lose a few troops in the process in order to reduce the upkeep.

The story is also a highlight to this game, but the real star is perhaps the Movie sequences which look almost equally impressive as the film Final Fantasy. The detail is just awsome.

In short this game is about fun, the humour element has been kept (keep clicking on your units to hear some humorous comments, just like in Warcraft 2). The online multiplayer system is very fair and allows you to be matched up with players of similar ability via levels of experienc, depending on your wins/losses ratio.

This game keeps you entertained and is not just eye candy, I whole heartedly reccomend it.

Warcraft 3 is a real-time strategy game set in a universe of both technology and magic, where you order an army in an attempt to eliminate your opponent from the game by destroying all their buildings, or in single-player mode possibly achieve some other goal such as holding a strategical point on the map for half an hour. While many other games of this genre are very shallow and offer a few hours' worth of gameplay, Warcraft 3 has an involving and rich storyline, coupled with both in-game conversations between characters that may tell you what to do and out-of-game movies that further the storyline and look so realistic they may well have just come out of a film.

While the single-player campaign may be difficult, you can reduce the difficulty at the end of a mission you have just lost if you are finding it hard.

The 3rd edition in the Warcraft series also adds 'heroes', units that are both powerful warriors and can cast varying spells. They can also be levelled up in an RPG-style fashion, adding another strategic element to the game which works very well.

In the Warcraft 3 storyline, there are four races, each tailored to suit different styles of gameplay, and everyone can find one race that they enjoy playing as and tend to get the best results out of. The four races are as follows;

Humans: A well balanced force, consisting of cheap original ground units and solid air units and spellcasters.

Orcs: Especially strong ground units but somewhat lacking when it comes to spellcasting capabilities.

Undead: The most numerous army in Warcraft, the undead have the ability to raise the corpses of foes and friends alike into an army of walking dead! (Eek!) Weak ground units at first but once they get into their stride are very powerful.

Night-Elves: The last race, the Night-Elves, live in the forests of a distant land and are very reclusive. When it comes to their army, ranged units and spellcasters are their speciality but they lack in melee capabilities.

The soundtrack is very good and provides different music for each race, it never seems to get tiring - there is however little music on any options or title screen, apart from a sort of humming in the background which is slightly eerie and could be improved.

The real gem in the crown is Warcraft 3's Internet play capacities. While the online community is very unforgiving and requires a certain style of play, you will get used to it with practice and eventually will be using your technical terms like you've owned the game for years! There is also clan support so you can create a group with any friends you may meet, plus a world editor so you can design your own maps and host them online! Broadband is, however, recommended.

All-in-all, a wonderful game which should provide you with hours of fun!

There are also two new armies, the Undead Scourge and the Night Elves. This means there are now 4 races to choose from with very different styles of play. The Human and Orc armies have also changed quite a bit since the last game and can be counted as completely new armies only one or two units remain from the previous game. Each race is also different from the units they have; the buildings and how they are built and even the way each race gather resources. Humans have a varied mixed of units most of, which are quite cheap when, compared to the Orcs. But Orcs have some of the strongest melee units in the game. Only one air unit and very basic magic however compensates for these differences. The undead have either very strong units or very weak units. The magic is often limited to raising the dead and cold magic but it is still strong magic. The Undead can only build on blighted ground that is generated by buildings that limits the areas they can build in. The Night elf have very weak units and most of them are long ranged with little melee units but they have some very strong magic spells and more magic units than the other races. Also their buildings can uproot and defend themselves! A different style of play is required to succeed with each race and players will soon find a favourite.

New additions to the game are neutral buildings and creeps. Buildings often include Goblins who have everything for sale if the price is right. From items for your heroes to giant robot shredders to help you gather wood. Creeps represent the local creatures that inhabit the land, often found guarding certain buildings or part of a mini-quest. Creeps range from Ogres to Dragons and Trolls to Giant Lizards! Killing them grant’s experience for you hero, gold and often items.

The game itself is a mixture of a RTS and an RPG (the game was originally going to be a RPG) . With the addition of Hero units to the game that gain experience with every enemy slain, obtaining items that grant special abilities and gaining abilities themselves with each level of experience gained. Hero’s in multiplayer add a powerful unit to your army and make conflicts with other people more interesting. Heros in single player mode act as the main focal point of the plot and help the game move along. Weak to start off with they soon grow tougher in conjunction with the difficulty of the levels the further you get into the campaign and the last few levels are often very hard and take hours to compete.

The tutorial is laid out as part of the plot line and helps you get familiar with the controls as well as get to grips with the story. Once this is done the game is set out as a number of missions for each army, after they are complete you move onto another race. With four races and roughly 10 missions per race it takes a while to complete the game.

Warcraft 3 is a well-planned and well-executed game. Improving on every aspect of the previous game, Blizzard never cease to amaze me. Both single player and multiplayer aspects are addictive and will be played over and over again. The only downside is that you will need a pretty decent PC to play the game without any jerkiness in the flow of the game. Also the difficulty Normal is too easy and when the game is purchased it should be played on Hard but apart from that it is Easily THE best RTS I’ve played.