Customer Reviews:
 Still a great game, but needs more updates October 22, 2008
Videogamer1416 (Williamston, MI United States)
Warcraft II was the first RTS game I ever saw, and it's still fun to play today. You can be Orcs or Humans, and gather resources, build up large bases and massive armies and navies, then use them to destroy your opponent. There are land units, air units, defensive buildings, and even units with magic powers. You must be strategic and tactical to win, building enough workers to gather resources adequate while still leaving enough gold to train an army, picking the right units for the task (dragons to fry incoming knights, submarines to take control of the seas, catapults to bring down enemy guard towers, etc.), maneuvering your forces well (flanking the enemy and doing hit and runs and whatnot), and taking advantage of spells (using holy vision to see the layout of enemy forces, raising foes from the dead to fight for you with raise dead, healing injured forces with heal, etc).
The gameplay is quite fun and well balanced, mostly with traditional RTS missions but also more creative escort ones. While Orcs and Humans have nearly identical combat units, they look different, say different things, and have different spells, which makes a lot of difference in gameplay. You can lay runes in your opponent's path as orcs and watch them get blown to bits, or turn a fearsome dragon into a harmless sheep as humans. The emphasis on naval combat is also cool, since most RTS games just focus on land and air units. The control setup is also pretty well done, with hotkeys for everything and whatnot. But the biggest draw of the game for me is humor. Units say funny things when clicked on like "don't you have a kingdom to run?" and "this way! No that way! (two headed ogre)." All of it gives the game a nice unique touch and helps to make online and campaign quite fun.
Many say the graphics are bad but I think they're just fine. For 1995 they were pretty good and there's still something charming about them. However, the one complaint I do have about this title is lack of features. There is no history of Warcraft; the multiplayer over LAN still uses outdated protocols making it a pain in the butt to set up on newer computers (and in my experience, impossible), and the controls haven't been updated to Starcraft standards. However, it is a still a blast to play both online and off, and these issues really only make a difference if you're in to LAN parties. Overall, needs some touching up, but still a fun game to play.
|
