Warcraft III Reforged - Review

Many, many moons ago I remember purchasing Warcraft III Reign of Chaos, and the add on Frozen Throne. It was one of the best Real-Time Strategy games I have ever played and I have put so many hours into it over the years.  The first time I set up a LAN party was while playing Warcraft III.  We had three laptops connected up together in a small cold room on TV dinner size tables and it was awesome. Nearly twenty years after it was released Blizzard announced they would be remastering both the Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne, along with The Founding of Durotar campaign.  Naturally, when it was released earlier this year I snagged myself a copy.


I love M&M's, there are so many different types and flavors, so no matter what mood you are in there is something for you. I have gone through bouts of eating bags and bags of them and made myself feel quite sick but loved consuming them all the same.  Playing Warcraft III Reforged made me wonder whether eating so many M&M's was a good thing?

Story


The Warcraft Universe is huge and highly detailed and that was way before World of Warcraft was released. Warcraft III Reforged has sixty missions!  It is hard to sum up everything that the story covers in Warcraft III Reforged but I will give it a try. There are multiple campaigns and races you get to play with; Humans, Orcs, The Undead, Night Elves, Blood Elves, and a Mok'nathal. A demonic race known as the Burning Legion is trying to take over the world, this is essentially the base story. Within that, each race has its own story, the Humans are trying to stop the Burning Legion's army known as The Scourge. The Orcs are trying to deal with being part of the Burning Legion for a long time and now being free to be their own people. The Night Elves are trying to stop the forests and essentially mother nature from being destroyed by not only the Burning Legion but also all of the races taking resources to build their armies. The Undead wants to claim the world for themselves but there are a lot of different ideas on how this is to be done and who should be in charge. The Blood Elves are dealing with no longer having a pure source of magic and are essentially a dying race being bullied by the humans. Finally, there is Rexxar, a Mok'nathal who is a lonely wanderer trying to find his place in the world.


There is so much happening in the story, what makes it interesting is that there are a lot of grey areas. The heroes are not always as pure as they seem and willing to go to extreme lengths to get what they want. The villains are not just simple one-dimensional characters but complex characters who often made me wondering who the real villains were.


Overall a fantastic story that still holds up exceptionally well especially for a game that is almost twenty years old!

Visuals


When it comes to RTS's visuals have never been that important to me. I grew up playing series like Command and Conquer and The Settlers. Over the years RTS's visuals have improved massively, great examples of these for me personally would be Halo Wars and Frostpunk.  The visuals have definitely been enhanced, remastered and upgraded since the release of Warcraft III in 2002. Each of the units looks a lot sharper and more defined, and when zooming in characters don't look pixelated. The levels themselves look really good (but being honest I always thought they looked good). I really love the visuals in the Night Elves campaign, the forests look lush and alive.  One thing Blizzard has always been synonymous with is their cinematics. They look so good in fact that it makes me excited for a day that games have the same visuals for the gameplay itself.


Overall the new visuals help make a good looking game even better and I never tired of looking at them.



Music


The music for Warcraft III Reforged is the same as the original Warcraft III Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne.  It has a distinctly old school sound, it's not quite retro, perhaps the best way to describe it would be to say it is a more civilized music, from a more civilized time (yeah, I have kind of taken that from a New Hope and repurposed it). That isn't a knock on it but is definitely very different from modern-day video game soundtracks.

The soundtrack is composed by Glenn Stafford, Tracy W. Bush and Derek Duke, who between them have provided the sounds of Warcraft II, III, and World of Warcraft along with Starcraft, Starcraft II and Overwatch.

The soundtrack is just shy of two hours and my favorites tracks include; 'Comrade Ship', 'Doom', 'Human #1', 'Human Defeat', 'Main Screen', 'Night Elf #2', 'Orc #2', 'Orc #3', 'Orc x1', 'Undead #2' and 'Undead #3'.

Gameplay


Warcraft III Reforged is like many RTS games, build a base, manage resources, build an army, destroy the enemy.  Outside of the normal missions, you have ones where you have to defend an area or destroy one in a limited time. Then there is Defence of the Ancient (DOTA) style missions where you control one or two heroes and a limited amount of units, not hugely dissimilar to the mechanics of Diablo III.


Each race has its own strengths and weakness and you will get to explore all of them as you journey through each of the campaigns. The human race (ROFL) has well designed and strong buildings, mages and great siege units, the downside is that many of them are quite weak and can easily be killed. The Orcs have less refined and more tribal looking structure (which I really like), they don't tend to be very strong but make up for it in the strength of their units. The Undead have a big effect wherever they take up residence, a lush green area can be transformed into a deadly poisonous one. The base defenses are quite strong, while some units can be killed easily they are often cheap to produce and the stronger ones can easily take on multiple units with ease. Night Elves use nature to their advantage and rather than cutting down trees they kind of absorb the wood without destroying them?  Don't ask me, do I  look like an arborist?  Their biggest strength is that at night they appear or don't appear visible to enemies making it easier to sneak around.  The base structures are all living and can be moved around if needed which is really cool. The Blood Elves are quite similar to Night Elves, at least base structure-wise but I found their units to be a lot more battle-hardened and magic rich.


Separate to all the races you have the Mok'nathal, well one of them, named Rexxar. A traveler who is always accompanied by his pet companion Misha. There is no base-building involved with him and he can be controlled solo. His role starts as the new Orc empire is being established, he helps complete small missions which when combined together offer many hours of gameplay.


The game features many heroes and villains, there are around twenty of them in total. The standout ones for me were; Thrall, Lich Kel'Thuzard, Illidan, Prince Kael'Thas, Lady Vash and Rexxar. Each of them can be leveled up and gain four abilities that can then be further upgraded.


Some missions will seem quite quick, there are some really tricky ones along the way that I had to replay a number of times before beating them but it was all part of the fun.  Overall the game holds up pretty well after all these years and the gameplay very solid.




Final Thoughts


So, after almost seventy hours (yeah, you read that right) how did I feel?  Pretty damn good. It was great to revisit a familiar world with a fresh coat of paint and some tweaks.  The main story and side stories are really interesting and are easy to see why there is so much literature on it.  The visuals went from good to great, the more refined, polished look really helps bring it closer to modern-day RTS visuals.  The music remained the same, I can't knock that but certainly feels a little aged or maybe I have just gotten too used to modern-day video game music.  The gameplay is good but is often not for the faint of heart or those not willing to dedicate some serious hours to it.  Overall this one gets a solid 4 out of 5

The Age Of PC Gaming

I have been playing PC games for a long time now & while it may not be my go to platform it offers something many consoles do not.  One of the most important things PC games have over console games is the price.  While the original set up can be expensive once you have a good PC many of the games can be quiet inexpensive. Some of the older games did not even require you have the disc once the initial install was completed.  You could borrow the game to your friend worry free if they lost or damaged the disc (obviously if they did that they would be dead to me).

Another big plus of PC gaming is that you have a trusty mouse & keyboard.  I just feel there is a level of control you get from them that just isn't there with a normal console controller. For me if I want to play an real time strategy game I will always go for the PC version over console.  I love being able to map keys to what works best for me & the game I am playing. The mouse allows great speed & control which in an RTS can be very important.  Anyway lets get on with the show & talk about some games.

For me I feel the Command & Conquer series really got me into PC games.  I loved building up my base, creating a ton of units & then moving in & crushing the enemy. One of the most notable things about the series were the stories & actors used. Some of my favorites actors were; Joseph D. Kucan, James Earl Jones, Michael Biehn, Nicholas Worth, Udo Kier & Micheal Ironside.

While the series has a few turkeys in it like; Renegade & Tiberium Twilight as whole the series is very solid. My favorites titles being; Red Alert 2 & 3, Tiberium Sun & Generals.  If you like real time strategy games I strongly recommend playing one or all of them - except for the crappy ones.






If you have not played Half Life then you probably don't own a PC or have never played a first person shooter.  Outside of that you have no excuse not to have played this game.  My interest was peeked watching my friend playing it one day & I thought I must try this game for myself. After a brutal fight I stole his copy of Half Life & ran home as fast I could. Looking back I think using a crowbar to knock him out may have been excessive.

The story is set in a top secret research base.  They scientists are experimenting with other worldly forces, which funny enough does not work out to well.  A smallish tear is created that is large enough to let through a lot of crazy creatures.  Who will save the day?  A scientist called Gordon Freeman. He graduated MIT with a PhD in theoretical physics & later went on to be an ass kicker & savior of humanity. Hail the Freeman!

Two official add-ons were released where you got the chance to see the game from two other perspectives. The first was through the eyes of Corporal Adrian Sheppard part of the Black Mesa Black Ops clean up team. The second was through the eyes of Barney Calhoun a security guard. Don't let Barney fool you he is much more than a mere security guard.

Closing advice: play it. That is all.

When most people hear Warcraft they think two things: oh World of Warcraft, that MMORPG with way too many expansions & oh yeah isn't there a movie coming out about that? While I did spend nearly three solid months playing World of Warcraft the key driving force which led to me to playing the game in the first place was Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos.

Warcraft 3 was the classic build your base up & complete objectives.  You could pick from four races; Humans (not bad), Orcs (Awesome!!), Night Elves (don't mess with them), Undead (creepy but crazy strong).  Each race had their own back story which intersected with the others.  The music & level designs always fill me with me excitement & pull me right into the action. The add-on; Frozen Throne added new units along with new story & the same great races.

Within all of this awesomeness was a little more awesome.There was a set of maps for something called Defense of the Ancients.  You play as a hero character completing missions & traversing the lands, you could play solo or with/against other players.  Originally I had thought this would what World of Warcraft would be - it really wasn't!

I loved & still love this game & when you consider how far the series came for the original to Warcraft 3 its amazing.  I look forward to Warcraft 4 especially if Blizzard make it an RTS. Once again all I can say is play it & play it hard.


Well its that time again where I say that's all folks & move on. Before I do that I want to mention some games that require your attention: Unreal Tournament (I don't care what people say the original is the best), Settlers 2, Sims, Plants vs Zombies, Commandos, Die Hard Trilogy 2 (I just really liked it).  All the best & I will see you next post!