Customer Reviews
Like World of Warcraft, but with a story and a point! - By: A. Illman, 20 Sep 2008 
Ok, so World of Warcraft is officially the biggest MMORPG, but buying this game gives you the opportunity to experience Azerothin a whole new way.
If you have played WoW, you will recognise many of the environments, characters, & even musicin Warcraft 3; even down to the additional quests you can undertake with the floating yellow exclamation & question marks, this game.
However Warcraft 3 takes the format, & gives it structure & a storyline. Its almost like a WoW mod, which is proven as there is a WoW mod for Warcraft 3.
I recommend this beautiful game to anyone who has experienced Azeroth, & to anyone who wants a brilliant rts.
WOW it's amazing - By: James Rogers, 01 Aug 2008 
When i bought this game it was because a mate recomended it. i had no idea it was going to be so good. the storymode is brilliant fun. the only fault, which was quite big, was that the skirmishes seem impossible. Thats what i found anyway.
THIS IS THE FIRST WARCRAFT GAME I PLAYED AND I LOVED IT - By: stuart, 30 Dec 2007 Let me get this straight about Warcraft III - I don't want to be writing this review. I'm tired, I haven't slept, & I'd really rather be playing the game than writing about it. It's addictive, it's epic - hell, even the voice acting is OK. Is that good enough?
Damn it.
The game starts off with a cut scene that is of hugely high quality - just like the ones that pepper the game. It's stirring stuff, which brings to life the world of Orcs & the Undeadin a way that reveals to a non-fan like me what RPG & Tolkien fans have been fervently imagining all along. If my mind's eye worked as well as these cut scenes, I'd be off to get an armful of Dragonlance, Terry Brookes & Tolkien right now.
The story of Warcraft III begins with a bad dream. A Shrek-alike (actually Thrall, young War Chief of the Orcish horde) is having a nightmare about a pitched battle. So begins the prologue, & also training campaign. Even seasoned players shouldn't skip this one, as you'll miss out on the beginning of the story.
A great catastrophe is coming, & a mysterious prophet is warning that the Orcs should evacuate the land as soon as possible. It's time to round up the clans, including those kidnapped by those pesky humans - & so the game begins.
It's basically a real time strategy - & will be instantly playable for anyone familiar with Age of Empires, or obviously the earlier Warcrafts. It also mixes RPG elements - your 'hero' characters have abilities & items that can be usedin battle, with experience adding to their 'level'. Let me say this to any console gamers who might be reading - if you can handle Final Fantasy, you will love this game. Now don't sniff PC readers, they have to be encouraged somehow!
Each campaign (Orc, Human, Undead & Night Elves) follows a wider plot - & the way you see the events from each side is genius. You don't simply play through the plot from each group's perspective, but explore different aspects & timelines of the storyline - as well as get different experiences. For example, you can explore your dark side as the undead, building meat wagons & refreshing your troops with the corpses of the recently slain.
Each campaign constitutes missions, which can change & be added to as the game continues. This doesn't stop play - either characters will tell you what's required, or a short movie will make your new objectives clear. Either way, you're never lost - nor spoon-fed either. Optional side-missions are available, these are recommended for the experience your character will earn, or the items they will pick up.
It's fantastic RPG fun without all that nuisance about dice, paper, imagination & painting those damn pewter figures. As such, it will appeal to a wider audience, whilst delighting existing RPG / Strategy / Fantasy buffs.
The feel of the game is damn appealing too - it mixes cartoony style chunky characters with tongue-in-cheek voices. Games like Circus Maximus on the Xbox & PS2 have mixedin modern parlance or attitude with historical style characters & come a cropper, but the tone here is great. 'Breaking the sound barrier now' respond your bearded, Scottish Gyrocopter pilots - just one of the Heath Robinson units you'll be controlling. 'Take that, yer little sod', growl other dwarfen Scots. These comedy responses are mixedin with more dramatic ones, & although your heroes' utterances (especially Prince Athras') will get grinding as you explore a map, generally the sound helps maintain the sublime & atmospheric tone.
The selected, or talking character, is represented by a detailed version of their face at the bottom left of the screen, which adds to your impression of their personality. The game is lush. Orgasmic. Can I go & play it again please?
Sod it.
New to the Warcraft series, unless I was dimly missing it last time, is a new view option. Twiddle away with your scroll wheel on your mouse, & the camera swoopsin to reveal a 3D, almost-front-on perspective. Although this looks fantastic, it's not really practical for anything other than occasionally marvelling at the graphics (especially when you combine it with 'insert' or 'delete' to swoopin & spin at the same time).
As with other real time strategies, bases need to be set up. But that's all it is - there's no empire to be built, or civilisation to drag up from the mud & stone. It's more Command & Conquer than technology-tree based expansion or progression. There are three major leaps to cutting edge technology - with your town centre becoming Keep, then Castle (if you're a human). Throwin some blacksmiths & workshops - then finally aviaries, & you're away.
The units seem well balanced, & you'll have to have your 'resource managing' head on to a degree if your mighty war machine isn't to trundle to a halt. Starting with basic foot soldiers, you'll soon find yourself riding, trundling, then flying into battle. Weaponry, machinery, building, technology, all is carefully balanced & designed - without such a heavy reliance as with Civilisation or Age of Empires - & you'll soon be marvelling at your new army.
Quite often, the mission will be a standard exploration mission, where reinforcements either don't exist (so it becomes a classic 'don't lose all your lives' affair) or have to be boughtin the shape of mercenaries. In that case, it's all slaughter & no resource management at all.
Stand out missions include the defence of a city - for a full half hour. Last minute surges from the undead surrounding the city means that you could conceivably have to restart twenty-seven minutes in. This flood of the undead merely gives more sense of urgency - & frantic unit production - than the first go. Amazingly, I wasn't frustrated once. Only determined to do better next time. If you fail, it's clear that it's your fault, not the games - one of the mental checklists for game bliss I ticked off along the way.
Multiplayer is genius. I wish I'd have had more time to concentrate on it, but things like sleep & relationships kept gettingin the way, as they crumbled into non-existence. Whether it's online or LAN, it will steal your time, & could wreck friendships as you crush your mate's town centres. 'I spent ages building that you bugger!' I screamed to no avail as one of our Warcraft-savvy developers marauded through my base, reducing my chances of creating the units for a fierce rear guard action to zero.
Fog of war isin place, & the frantic building, patrolling & grabbing of such resources as gold mines are made more pressing by the nagging fear about what your fellow players are up to, just out of sight. Also trying to defend all your new resources, keep the population fed & attempting to be the first to attack, mean that you'll have to have hands like lightening, & a mind like a razor, to stay competitive online with Warcraft III.
Fortunately,in both single & multiplayer versions, the game doesn't add any major control issues to trouble you when commanding your army. Handy keyboard shortcuts are a blessing - & it's advisable to learn them all. You may find separating types of units out for an ordered 'get the mortars at the back, sendin the knights first' attack may be difficultin the heat of battle, but I should imagine an ordered regroup when giant spiders are spurting webbing all over your gryphon-riding dwarves would be hecticin real life too.
The overall tone of the game is fun, mixed with effective fantasy trickery, plots & characters. It seems devoted to bringing such things to a mainstream audience without turning off the faithful - not the easiest thing to do - & Warcraft II pulls it off with aplomb. The Orcs may be a bit Klingon at times, & the Human prince hero occasionally comes across as obnoxious ('can it', he says at one point), & his particular character's journey from the light isn't always convincing, but it is gripping to see. Unlike most games, you won't necessarily see where this one is heading, & there are some surprisesin the single player mission that will draw you ever deeper into the game.
Play through the single campaign & your experiences as the Undead, Orcs & Night elves will help you understand how to battle them online, & the same is true of the humans. Expect a community to grow around the game, & long, long discussions with much beard stroking about which units are best, & the most sucessful tactics for using them.
If all that wasn't enough, a more than competent mission builder has been included, so you can create your own adventures, maps & missions. I personally can't wait to see what fresh mayhem springs from this particular addition.
Are you still reading this? Go buy, go play. For honour, for the light!
Disappointing - By: holdyourlight, 16 Jun 2007 
I really enjoyed Warcraft 2 & a couple of years later I decided to play Warcraft 3. The first impression was, wow the graphics are MUCH better that the previous 2 games! But, the truth is I never really liked that kind of surrealistic graphics & after a while they started making me like dizzy. The same goes for the navigation system which is a little different than most RTS games out there. They tried to do something like a 3d navigation system, which for me didn't worked at all!
But is Warcraft 3 an RTS game? No it's not. It's an RTS/RPG clone. I like both genres equally, but I NEVER liked clones! In Warcraft 3 you get to play an RTS game but there are some main characters that the game "pushes" you to role-play. It does not work for me.
Ok let's put it all together. What I didn't like on Warcraft 3 (or mostly what I hated)
1) Too short for a strategy game. It took me like a week to finish it with average of 3 hours per day.
2) Cartoonist graphics which although I love them on Adventure games, I don't on other genres.
3) The 3d navigation system
4) Too many "video" sequences that slow down the game play
5) The RPG characters
Well, I won't spend more of my time reviewing a game I didn't like, eventhough I know it sold like crazy & it has too many fans out there. After finishing the main campaign, I installed the expansion & after a couple of levels, I uninstalled it.
Not recommended by me.
Another masterclass in gaming by Blizzard. - By: M. Beckwith, 09 Jun 2007 Blizzard, have, once again made a brilliant game. It has a fantastic online system that's easy to use (and easy to download mods for, it lets you do itin the system itself) & the Single Player is unrivalled, it's one of the best stories I've ever seenin gaming.
A must buy.
