Warcraft III (PC)

Ok, so a friend at work has been waxing lyrical about all the ingame lore and history in World of Warcraft which ties into the Warcraft III RTS scenarios. Except I’ve never played them, and I’m feeling all left out.

So, off to game for a rummage in the bargain bin where I managed to find both Warcraft III and the Frozen Throne expansion pack for next to nothing. It’s a pair of old games, so I wasn’t expecting the beatiful pre-rendered cutscenes and beautiful cartoony (although low polygon count) graphics which have greeted me so far.

The good thing about playing older PC games is that I can turn all the settings up to 11 on my laptop (with 2GB RAM and a nice X300 mobility video card) and run it as the devs intended. Having said that, WoW clips along at a steady 30fps as well, so it’s not that bad 🙂

Anyhoo, I’ve only done the Orc tutorial / prologue and the first mission of the (filthy) Alliance campaign so far, but it’s ACE. I particularly like the fact the, even in an RTS, there are quests to be discovered in each area and the hero units level up and can be upgraded RPG stylee. I can see where the Warcraft interface elements come from too – in fact, with a well picked squad and the ability to use a caster, it’s almost like playing Warsong Gulch with a whole party at your disposal 🙂

Now if only there was a Shenx unit…..