A beautiful corner stone of the RTS genre which was only hampered by the similarity of it's combatants.
User Rating: 7.6 | Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness PC
Warcraft 2 entered the RTS scene with a bang. It's predecessor was a promising early entry during Blizzard's formative years, and the new version addressed several shortcomings of the original. Warcraft 2 crafted a beautiul universe with crazed orcs, tough speaking dwarves, and more than a little tongue in cheek humor. It's solid gameplay delivered a simple interface and enjoyable experience, even if it was slightly lacking in comparitive depth with a few of it's peers. Players enter the world of Azeroth a second time as refreshed orc forces are sweeping across the land, laying waste to everything in their way. They'll be in command of either the fearsome Orc Horde or the honorable Alliance of Azeroth, complete with single player campaigns and multiplayer skirmishes. Gameplay is solidly rooted in resouce harvesting, base building, and small squad skirmishes. Any RTS fan will be immediately familiar with their surroundings, and the superb interface will allow even the most untested gamers instant access to command functions. Units are easily directed with an intelligent "right click" driven interface that intelligently performs momvemnt, combat, spell casting, and base assaults. Players will find themselves on maps ranging from the arctic tundra to open ocean environments, and each side is replete with infantry, cavalry, naval and even aerial units. Base building plays a huge part of the gameplay, and this feature does not dissapoint. Players can build barracks, town halls, guard towers, lumbermills, farms and more. The step-ladder approach to base building is very intelligent, and allowed for a tight "arms race" where players can race towards various technologies. Structures could also be used to purchase unit upgrades to existing troop types, and could also be equipped with new capabilities. A huge portion of the game's strategy comes from your approach to the economy of your force, and commanders that over specialize or develop slowly will assuredly be crushed by a non-stop flow of forces from the other commander's base. Blizzard established their trademark for polish with this game. It was unquestionably a monstrous achievment in art, sound, and overall ambiance. Graphically, the game gleamed on a few levels. The units themselves are bright, animations are clean, and the building design is fantastic. Bases will vary if on a snow covered map, and the ork buildings are appropriately "ork-ized" with horns, pallisades, glyphs, and haphazard nail placement. The human structures are typically feudal, but the overall style is, again, clean and presentable. Spell effects were well done, and the between mission cut scenes are some of the best ever to grace the genre. Sound is really where this game shines. Blizzard is, once again, a master of this area. The orchestrated score is phenomanal, well paced, and matches in game missions perfectly. The quality of the sound is amazing as well, and it was the first time I ever looked at my PC speakers and thought "wow, I should upgrade these…" Unit sounds are perfect, and this is where Warcraft 2 received it's kudos for humor. All of the units have various "acknowledgement" sounds, which would eventually reach a fever pitch if you persistantly clicked on them. The famous orc "Zug Zug" will eventually turn to "heheheh, that tickles", elves will berate you for touching their more, ahem, sensitive areas. Death Knights, one of the better voiced units in video game history, will assure you that they are coming back for you after finishing off the foe! Brilliant. Warcraft 2's value is where the kinks begin to appear in the armor, and contain my major qualm about the game… the sides are incredibly similar. Units, structures, and overall approach to the game are practically identical for each side. While there are "special units" they are few and far between, and the sides major seperation is cosmetic in nature. This is a damn shame, since the game is outstanding on so many other fronts. The multiplayer, lauded in it's day, degenerates due to this issue. So what's wrong with this title? Nothing immediately noticeable, but there are some serious gameplay issues here. Warcraft 2's virtually identical sides equate to a ton of attrition based combat. The special characters and units help abate this to a certain extent, but this game always ends one way… at the end of the research tree. Warcraft 2 innevitably develops into a sprint to reach the end-game tech, and hordes of these units are them pumped out to assure victory. In practically every loss I ever suffered in this game, legions of identical looking ogres/knights rampaged into my base and proceeded to assassinate anything that moved. At this point, you're done. Bottom line is Warcraft 2 is a solid RTS title. It's presentation is matchless, and it provided other developers with a glimpse of what could be done and accomplished in the RTS genre. Had the sides differed more and offered more depth of gameplay, it would have assuredly been one of the best strategy titles ever made. As it stands, it's a solid entry into the RTS genre and one of the crown jewel's in Blizzard's cap.
