At long last, legendary game producer Blizzard has released WarCraft 3 to the masses, after a lengthy and successful public beta program and several appearances at E3.  The world first heard of Blizzard's intension of making WarCraft 3 at the European Tradeshow back in the early spring of 1999.  After several years of waiting the impossible finally happened, WarCraft 3 hit store shelves!

Like the campaign in the game, I'd like to start this review with a Prelude.  It is safe to say that most hardcore gamers will acknowledge that WarCraft 2 was one of the most influential games of our time, if not the best PC game ever made.  With the predecessor being superior and follow-up games like StarCraft and the Diablo series, fans of Blizzard expect absolutely nothing less than perfection from WarCraft 3.  This is true in my case too.  I believe in Blizzard's strategy of dismissing production timeline goals in favor of releasing a well polished, stable product when it is ready, whether it takes a year and a half (like Blizzard originally thought) or 3 years.  This has worked well for them in the past and should hold true today.

Blizzard set out to develop WarCraft 3 in 3D from the very beginning.  The standards for graphics from 1999 and 2002 have changed a bit.  When I was playing the beta, what I was seeing was an animated version of the hundreds of screenshots I had already seen up to that point, and to be honest, the graphics did not impress me too much.  At first the units seem small and hard to recognize, especially when a big battle is going on.  The footman sort of 'wobble' around and the detail of the units in general are lacking.  The interesting part is when you zoom into the game using the 'Page Up' and 'Page Down' keys.  The actual graphics of the game are much better than they appear, and when you zoom in you get to see what I am talking about.  Units look much nicer, but the game was meant to be played in a top-down view, so it really doesn't serve a purpose except for in game cinematics and for screenshots.  Having said that, when the game hit retail, the veil was lifted all the way and there were many extra details to be seen in the game that were not there in the beta.  for example the water on shorelines is very realistic and beautiful.  The maps used in the beta had less detail, but the final version was polished with added effects and items.  The magic spells and auras enhance the game and you really learn to appreciate the graphics as a whole.  I still believe that it is a better game in terms of strategy than it is eye candy though.  Using a GeForce 2 Ultra the game ran flawlessly (as it should) and had no hardware issues.

One unique thing about the game (in single player) is the extensive use of cinematics using the in-game 3D rendering engine, as opposed to making a video to watch.  I have read other reviews that say the in-game cinemas are not up to par, but I disagree.  Every mission has a cinematic sequence before the mission and after and sometimes at various points during the mission.  The graphics look great when the camera slowly zooms and pans the landscape and the voice acting is as good as it gets for PC game entertainment.  Familiar Blizzard voices grace many characters through out the game and if you've played StarCraft, you'll recognize many of the voices.  The World Editor that was packed with the game allows you to create your own movies using the in game cinematic generator, which should allow the computer developer types to make some fantastic custom levels and missions.

The plot itself is solid.  As you progress through the game, it seems to take a natural course and doesn't throw many curve balls your way.  You are forced to play the campaigns in a particular order, starting with a brief Orc Prelude followed by full campaigns of Human, Undead, Orc and finally Night Elf.  Given the order of the missions you can surmize in your creative brain how the plot should unfold, and having played previous Blizzard games it seems to take a logical progression.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is where the money is, as Battle.net games with StarCraft turned Blizzard into an icon for online gaming.  In my opinion, playing WarCraft 3 is a bit more difficult than Blizzard's last RTS game, StarCraft.  The control of the units seem a bit more difficult because many of the units are large and create obstacles for other units.  Managing your base is about the same in complexity as StarCraft was, but now you should be on a crusade to level your hero as fast as possible, especially in the beginning of that game when your opponent is weak.  The addition of the hero unit really makes the game more fun and allowing you to chose between three unique heroes per race keeps things interesting.  Your hero will allow you to cast a variety of offensive and defensive spells and auras that will keep your army at peak efficiency if you use them correctly.  Being so important, they are also often the priority target for your enemy, so you need to be very careful when confronting an enemy.  A few seconds of not paying attention and you'll find yourself hero-less and your army will lose the ability to heal wounded, strike offensively and most importantly, lose out on the opportunity to gain valuable experience.  Gaining levels and getting new spells gives WarCraft 3 the Role Playing flavor without the hassle of playing a game for extended periods of time.  Most of the time your goal is to reach level 6, which will allow your hero to cast his/her super spell, possibly turning the tides in a losing battle against an opponent.  I've heard the argument that you do "all the work to level your hero only to lose it all at the end of the game."  While this is true, I say try it before you make an assumption... leveling the hero is part of the fun in the game, the same way building a base with defenses and with expansions is done every time you play the game.  Even if you play the same hero, you can research different spells, changing the way you play and allowing for unique tactics.

The computer AI is very smart and perhaps a little too efficient.  Newbie players will have difficulty beating a CPU opponent, and playing a defensive game does not work nearly as well as it did in StarCraft.  In StarCraft I was able to build MONSTER defenses, stopping the best arsenals Battle.net players had to offer, but WarCraft is different, you need to play aggressively and continue to level your hero in combat against enemy troops or the scattered creeps (various monsters in small encampments around the map).  Once your hero's  level is decent, you need to take the battle to your opponent as soon as possible and restrict his money flow.  Units are more valuable than they were in StarCraft.  You used to be able to throw waves of troops to their slaughter, but doing that once in a game of WarCraft 3 can be your demise.  If you feel you are losing a battle, run or teleport away, something newbie players will have to learn.

Overall WarCraft 3 meets the high expectations of its fan base, including my own.  Having four playable races is great and the single player campaign in varied and entertaining.  Blizzard did it's homework and spent a lot of time molding a solid and well rounded game that has incredible depth.  Working with the public in the beta program also shows that Blizzard is a mature company and wants to make a game that make the fans happy.  Having input on the direction of the game is extremely rare, but is possible with the teams at Blizzard.  A year from now I will probably still be playing WarCraft 3 multiplayer, trying to master some new strategy that is the fad on Battle.net.  WarCraft 3 is a great game that will certainly win the respects of gamers of all calibers.

reviewed by Todd Alexander