Bruce Von Stiers

The long awaited next installment in the Warcraft series has finally hit the store shelves. Is it worth the hype and the wait? You better believe it. Everything from the graphics to the sounds and the AI has been, as Emeril would put it., kicked up to notches unknown. The game that I am referring to, for those who aren’t heavily into gaming, is Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. It is the third in the series from Blizzard Entertainment.

Over 5 million copies of the game were shipped for the July 3rd release of the game. That is the most copies of a game ever shipped at one time. I don’t know exactly how many of those were pre-sold; I heard that a bunch of them were. It just goes to show you that the gaming world was anticipating great things from this game.

In the world of Warcraft III, there is a lot going on. There are four different races on the planet, each trying to rule it. There are Humans, the Undead, the Orcs and the Night Elves. Each race has their strengths and weaknesses.

How well you play determines the outcome of the various campaigns in the game. Each race will have its own campaign. A campaign is broken down into chapters instead of levels. A chapter will have at least one required quest that will need to be accomplished in order to move forward in the game. There will also be optional quests that can be taken on. The optional quest in Chapter 7 of the Human’s campaign has you searching out and destroying an Undead base full of Crypt Fiends.

Every race in the game will have their heroes. These are special warriors with extra powers and skills to aid them in battle. One such hero is the Orc Blademaster. His primary attribute is agility and he is very fast. Then there are the basic worker and warrior units for each race. The Undead have the Acolytes to harvest gold and repair buildings. A basic human unit is the Peasant. One of these guys can be made to harvest both gold and lumber.

For those who haven’t played this type of game before, you are given a fairly extensive hands-on tutorial. Learn how to move the different characters in the game, either individually or as a group. Discover which weapons are useful and learn how to follow instructions quickly and closely.

As for the movements in the game, Warcraft hasn’t charted any new waters. Click on individual units to move them, or drag boxes around a group of units to select them all. You can have predefined hotkeys that will perform certain actions. You will only be able to control 12 units at any time.

For those online gamers, there is a great multiplayer option. My son, who does a lot of online Starcraft playing, hopped right it on the online playing. You can play through Blizzard’s online gaming platform, Battlenet. I watched Josh play on Battle.net for about two hours one night, going through different maps and battles that other players had set up.

The game also comes with an extensive world editor. This makes for some real interesting gameplay through Battle.net

The long and short of it is that WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos is a kicking game. It will keep you entertained for untold hours. With the ability to play others through Battle.net, the campaign strategies are endless. It is quick paced and offers some twists and turns that would make even the hardest hardcore gamers salivate.

As I mentioned earlier, lots and lots of copies of the game were distributed on July 3rd. By now the rush should have died down and a copy should be available on store shelves.

For further information about WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, visit the Blizzard web site at www.blizzard.com.