From humble beginnings to forever classic!
My first experience with this was actually at primary school when we got our first computer lab, they had this game on the computers. Like many others it was also my first exposure to a RTS genre in games and it left it's mark alright!
While compared to today's graphics, this game obviously bails in comparison to many modern day titles, but that's beside the point. For the time this game came out... this was big! I for one am a fan of many DOS games and even today I would still rate this game high! (in terms of graphics.)
On the other hand, the game-play was no doubt quite restrictive, as units could only move in adjacent squares (in a sense) therefore it was a little annoying when using mass amounts of units, however it wasn't that big a deal! Also the units are equal amongst both humans and orcs; meaning a human foot soldier is equal in strength to an orc grunt, archer to spear hunter and so on. For this day and age this would have been bland but again, for it's time it was acceptable. Also a demon with "unholy armour" cast on it was practically unstoppable, also the human equivalent with the Elemental. However that only made it more enjoyable!
In terms of sound, what can I say... Blizzard had it spot on! Considering all the successors to the game (Warcraft 2, 3 and their associated expansions) the audio hasn't actually changed much at all (by that I mean the basic concepts are still their (for instance the dialogue.)
Overall this is where the Warcraft lore began and I have no doubt that it's legend will live on in the hearts of many! I give this a solid 8.5 out of 10!