Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Gamers, including myself, have marveled at the old game Warcraft II for a long time. When I heard that Blizzard Entertainment was developing a new version for that classic, I was overjoyed. The old Real-Time Strategy (RTS) has left its mark as the best Game of the Year 1995, Best Online Game, and Best Multiplayer Game. Although the gameplay graphics and cutscenes art are somewhat lacking, it has pretty good graphics, funny sounds, and appropriate background music. The game's online gameplay of this game is fantastic since it takes Blizzard's free online gaming server, Battle.net, and uses it in this classic's upgrade. Warcraft II Battle.net Edition's AI is much in need of improvement compared to the other new games, though. But this game was not supposed to be completely new, so Blizzard decided not to improve some of the features, but to fix old bugs, add small improvements, and add a super multiplayer option.
The story of Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition takes place after their first big hit, Warcraft I: Orcs and Humans. After the death of the Orcish Warchief Blackhand, Ogrim Doomhammer quickly took his place as the new Warchief. Meanwhile, the tattered humans from the destroyed land of Azeroth seek refuge in Lordaeron, the other power in the Alliance, a group of humans, elves, and dwarves allying up against the fearsome Orcs. The humans have won the second war against the Orcs and have destroyed their only way into human lands, the Dark Portal. As they find out, though, the rift allowing passage to their lands still exists. They Alliance must travel the rift to Orcish Lands to stop the Orcish threat.
When you first start out on a single-player campaign, if you choose one from the Tides of Darkness, then you'll start with a small amount of units and a basic building to start out on. This just teaches you how to build things and gives you a basic feel for how you play the game. Eventually, you'll move into much harder levels which involve keeping someone alive as you travel enemy territory, building up a strong enough force to overcome a powerful enemy, and developing strategy in order to outsmart your computer enemy.
The multiplayer features in this game are comparable to some of the top games out now. Popular online games, such as Starcraft and Diablo, use Blizzard's personal gaming server, Battle.net (the top online gaming service in the world), to make a very easy and powerful multiplayer option. There are also the basic multiplayer options such as connection over an AppleTalk or IPX networks. There are traditional modem games, which are only two player, and there is direct-connect (null modem). This game's multiplayer is also compatible with the old version of Warcraft II. You can select either the enhanced (which fixes bugs and adds Battle.net option) or you can choose normal (which is the only way you can play against other people with Warcraft II, but without Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition). This enhanced game has new features such as Shared Vision (the ability to see what your ally sees), there is the new food bar (which allows you to see how much food you have without selecting a farm), and there is fixed bugs and smaller new features that would take a while to list.
This game is a pretty basic RTS. Proportionally, the graphics are way off, but otherwise they are pretty good. For example, you walk a unit next to some trees or a building. From the sizes they use, you would only be able to fit about 16 units into the biggest building (the Town/Great Hall). Those must be very big units because the smallest unit is a peon and supposedly it takes up as much space as a catapult. The cutscenes in this game could be better, too. While they are much clearer and sharper then the original Warcraft, they still could be better.
The sound in this game is good, but not as good as I hoped. They have added a few new sounds that they had forgotten in the original, but those sounds go usually go unnoticed. While it's really funny to hear an Two-Headed Ogre burp really loud and then the two heads argue over who did it and to hear a Footman complain about what he's supposed to do, that's basically it in the sound department.
I highly recommend this game if you are/were a frequent Warcraft or Starcraft player.
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From the initial, unexpected invasion of the Orcish Horde to the quest of the Great Alliance to forever seal the Dark Portal that links their two worlds, you will experience the epic saga of the mighty battle to gain dominance over the kingdom of Azeroth.
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