Archive for October, 2009
WarCraft III: Reign Of Chaos
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
Rites of PassageHogwarts cameo?
Real-time strategy franchises tend to attract fanatical followings,
from the legions of Command & Conquer fanboys to the near
religious fervency of Total Annihilation devotees. None more so,
however, than Blizzard’s WarCraft series – and its futuristic
spin-off, StarCraft – a series of RTS games which have honed to
perfection a formula which balances relatively simple gameplay with
surprisingly complex mechanics, innovative graphics and a healthy
dollop of bizarre humour. It’s a long time since the last game in
the series grabbed the attention of the strategy gamer, making
WarCraft III one of the most anticipated PC titles ever; can it
possibly live up to the legacy of its forebears?
Set years after the conclusion of WarCraft II, with orcs and
humans living in an uneasy co-existence, much has changed in the
lands of WarCraft. For a start, they’re entirely rendered in 3D
now; from the intricately animated menu screens to the often
stunning battlegrounds, every element of the game has been given a
polygonal, texture-mapped makeover. The interface, which will be
immediately familiar to fans of StarCraft, even features animated
3D portraits of each character you select – right down to the
bored-looking sheep who occasionally wander through the map.
Purists need not worry, however, as nothing has been lost in the
conversion to 3D. The basic gameplay of the series remains intact
and, perhaps more importantly, the character and humour of the art
in the original WarCraft games has been moved seamlessly into the
third dimension. Blizzard were perhaps wise to wait until 3D was
quite mature before releasing this latest game in the series;
uninspiring, badly textured models would have ruined the feel of
the title, but the quirky and beautifully animated models and
portraits seen here carry the classic feel of the title admirably.
Nothing offered, nothing gainedThe level of detail is almost unmatched in the genre
Those running low-spec systems will also be pleased to hear that,
despite the graphical splendour of the game, it won’t cripple even
the most basic of systems. Playing four-player games on a network -
usually the type of play most likely to bring an RTS title’s
framerate to its knees – saw smooth and perfectly acceptable
framerates even on our lowest spec system, a Duron 800 with a
GeForce 2. With a little tweaking, the game is undoubtedly playable
on systems even less well endowed than that. Real time strategy
titles have never been the most demanding games on the market in
terms of system spec, and it’s good to see Blizzard continuing this
tradition and resisting the urge to add curves, bump mapping and
all manner of other widgets which would rule out much of their
audience unnecessarily.
But while little has been lost in the conversion to 3D, little has
been gained either, although admittedly the move is nowhere near as
disappointing as Command & Conquer’s abortive foray into
voxels. The switch to 3D has opened up significant scope for
in-game cutscenes, but for the purposes of pure gameplay WarCraft
may as well have remained in two dimensions. Camera rotation and
movement is shockingly limited; you can’t zoom out (and the default
camera is very tight indeed, often making it impossible to see an
entire skirmish on screen at once) and the 3D terrain is very
obviously a polygonal sheet draped over a resolutely 2D map.
Aside from the updated technology underlying the game, the “big
idea” behind WarCraft III is the inclusion of hero characters, with
three distinct types for each race. These form the focus of the
single player campaign and add a role-playing element to the
gameplay by gaining experience through involvement in battle, with
players earning a point to spend on upgrading their abilities every
time they go up a level. Heroes are remarkably powerful and
flexible characters, and their presence changes the mechanics of
the game dramatically. Some have automatic status effects on all
units within their range, others can cure units in their group, and
most possess powerful physical or magical special attacks.
Leader of the PackWelcome to the dark side
Elsewhere, the gameplay of the series remains almost untouched, bar
various tweaks. There are four races to play as now, with Dark
Elves and the Undead being added to the traditional line-up of Orcs
and Humans, and the influences of StarCraft are very obvious – the
Undead are effectively a clone of the Zerg, complete with blighted
land to build bases on. Each race is nicely balanced in terms of
strengths and weaknesses, with the interesting addition of resource
gathering abilities to the mix of differences. The Undead, for
example, gather resources far more quickly and efficiently than
other races, making it far easier for them to expand earlier in the
game than the other races.
Frustratingly though, the unit control and production foibles of
StarCraft have also made their way into WarCraft III. Many aspects
of the control and grouping system are superb – the ability to
select all units of a single type by double clicking on one of them
should be enforced as law for every RTS game, and the
“sub-grouping” system which allows you to press tab to move between
unit types in your current group, enabling you to access all their
various special abilities, is another excellent addition. However,
the crippling inability to select more than a dozen units at any
given time is every bit as annoying here as it was in StarCraft,
and is seemingly arbitrary; the only explanation we can find for
this unit limit is that that’s the number of icons which would fit
in the group panel at the bottom of the screen.
Much more frustrating, however, is the absolute food limit in the
game. Each player is restricted to 90 food units total, and once
you hit that limit you can build as many farms (or equivalent
food-producing buildings) as you like, but the limit won’t budge.
Not only that, but many high-level creatures and units take up
several food units apiece. Micromanagement near the food limit is
astonishingly annoying – RTS should be about battles, not trying to
get some low-level units killed so that you can afford to fit in
another high-level unit! Food also quickly becomes the most
important resource in the game, much more so than gold or wood,
which is a ridiculous situation. The limit may be there for balance
purposes, but if so it’s a clumsy and cack-handed way to balance
the game, and possibly the single most negative factor about the
title as a whole.
Cinema ParadisoScariest doctor ever!
These issues aside, there’s a hell of a lot to enjoy in WarCraft
III. As mentioned, the sense of humour of the previous games is
retained, naturally including the ability to repeatedly click units
for a variety of amusing speech clips, some of which are
fantastically funny. There’s a massive single player campaign which
is entertaining and varied, even if the difficulty curve could have
done with a little tweaking in some places, while multiplayer is
perfectly balanced and a lot of fun, either on a LAN or through the
superb Battle.net system. This performs excellently and makes
playing on even a humble modem possible. Our only complaint about
multiplayer is that many units pop up in the single player game
which aren’t available in multiplayer – a somewhat frustrating
oversight.
One element of the game worth special mention is the cinematic
clips that punctuate the single player game. These are, in a word,
superb; possibly the most impressive examples of rendered video
we’ve ever seen. While much of this splendour is purely technical
progress – cloth, leather, fur and feathers all look excellent -
quite a bit of it is down to first-class direction and animation,
and the game’s classical score contributes in no small measure as
well. While these sumptuous cutscenes aren’t quite up to the
standard set by Final Fantasy X in terms of facial animation, in
every other respect Blizzard has leapfrogged Square’s video
department – an impressive feat indeed.
So does WarCraft III live up to our high expectations? Yes. It’s
not perfect by any means – the food limit and unit selection limit
will drive you nuts after a bit of play, and the “Upkeep” tax on
your gold mines when you have more than a certain number of units
is frankly daft, since it encourages you to build as few units as
you possibly can. It is a worthy update to the series though, and
makes the transition to 3D with flying colours while adding some
interesting new gameplay elements to an already hugely enjoyable
title. No fan of real-time strategy should be without WarCraft III,
and many RPG fans will want to take a peek as well.
9/10Read our Scoring Policy
Article Source: www.eurogamer.net.
