This much anticipated title has finally come, and, unlike many such titles, it lives up to the hype. Now in a 3d perspective, a la Myth, the game takes the genre of RTS adventure to a whole new level. Blizzard, being the perfectionists lot they are, have produced a rock solid game that is great fun to play and will keep you occupied for a long time.
You play all the races in the game as you figure out how to face a threat from the stars. The storyline contains treachery, murder, greed, pride, and stubbornness. You get to play human, orc, undead, and night elves. The difficulty is well measured so that there are very few levels that are really hard. In many cases there are two different ways to do things, one RTS, another more RPG like.
It is very much a hero based game, but there is unit control, as well, there are times when it advisable to split your group into two and have them behave seperately. This is possible by a very good pathfinding system which allow multiple tasks to be set up. It means it is no longer necessary to take care of each unit in a frenzied manner away across the entire map. You play a certain hero through different stages of the game, guiding your troops' minions through the adventure by building them a small town, suppliers of necessary items, and leading the troops into battle. Some scenarios require little building and function as merely questing. Most levels include mini quests in which you can find extra spells, supplies, or other goodies.
Graphically it looks pretty immpressive, with graphics that are far and above that of Warcraft II. On a good monitor the game is stunning to behold. The major cutscenes are even better than those of Diablo II. The human cutscenes are especially impressive. The game is a great pleasure to look at whether playing or sitting through a transition.
Gameplay is very good, with excellent scrolling with adjustable view via mouse wheel. Even on the lowest of machines the game plays smoothly and accurately. There is no skipping, freezing, or crashing. In over 40 hours of playing with WCIII (two complete play-throughs & various random maps) WCIII did not once crash. There are very few games in existence for the Mac that can live up to that level of stability. Requirements listed on the box are a very generous, I have found the game to run fine on a G3 50 mhz below required in OSX.
Article comments
1 - RC
A great game. Very fun for multplayer online with edited maps. Blizzard has the best online gaming community out there.