Customer Reviews

WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos Collector's Edition

5 star:		(76)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I just picked this up in a store in Burbank about 3 hours ago. I was a player in the beta, and I loved how Blizzard shook up the old, VERY tired RTS genre. The world doesn't need another StarCraft clone, and Blizzard doesn't need to make one -- they own the franchise, after all.

Warcraft III IS different: The heroes aren't just named ordinary units, like they are in StarCraft, but rather they are semi-RPG characters dropped into the game, that can level up and acquire new items. During the beta, nothing was more fun than finding a StarCraft player who ignored the value of a hero unit: One level 8 hero and a small entourage of units with him could easily demolish whole armies and towns that the StarCraft player was dutifully pumping out.

I am about halfway through the first of the four campaigns in single player, and so far, the Human campaign has a nice variety in its levels, with some featuring no building or traditional RTS play at all, but just RPG play. The plot is strong and it draws you into the game. Needless to say, the amazing cinematics and the cool in-game cinematics help out a lot in that regard.

If you pick up the Collector's Edition -- and you should, since the game plus the book it includes are almost the same price -- you get a beautiful fake leather box (it's HEAVY), the game with an autographed manual, The Art of Warcraft art book, a DVD of the cinematics -- BEAUTIFUL! -- a CD soundtrack and four art prints that are the covers of the regular edition. The art book is for sale seperately at Amazon and is a great book, full of pictures I've never seen in 7 years of playing Warcraft. And as I said before, buying the book plus the game is almost the same price. For a little bit more, you get all the Collector's Edition extras!

GameSpy and PC Gamer are already giving this game 90+ reviews and what I've seen so far from the multiplayer beta and the Human campaign, I have to agree. This is a must-buy for gamers!

A quick note on the collector's edition, just to get it out of the way: I found it to be worth the money. You get an art book, which to fans of the series, is worth the price difference on its own. You get a DVD, which contains not only the cinemas from the game, but a bunch of Warcraft trivia, that leads to the cinemas and cutscenes from the previous Warcraft games (scarily bad, in comparison). You get a soundtrack, you get a really nice box, and you get some prints of the other versions of the box cover art. I thought it was easily worth the difference in price, and I'd recommend it to anyone without reservation. The art book isn't chintzy in the least - it's defintiely coffee table quality.

The game itself is fantastic - the alterations to the standard RTS formula are almost all wonderful. I've always had a problem with Blizzard's relatively arbitrary unit control and unit number limits, but in WC3, it works. It makes the battles smaller, it makes the games quicker. Not only do you have to get resources, now you have to manage them to maximize their benefit.

The hero units are a fantastic addition to multiplayer, and it allows each person to play the game slightly differently, even if they're trying to "optimize" their strategies.

The single player game is a pretty radical departure from the previous games in the series, and has a linear storyline, told through in-game voiceovers, and in-engine cutscenes that frame the individual missions. There are both major and minor missions, and some that you only discover by uncovering specific areas of the map. The storyline is compelling, and the mission structure is widely varied.

Playing on Battle.net has been easy, and hooking up with friends is made extremely simple by WC3's battle.net interface.

I wholeheartedly recommend the game, and on top of that, I wholeheartedly recommend the collector's edition over the regular one.

A few days after I pre-ordered Warcraft III I though to myself, "What if this game isn't fine tuned enough and has tons of bugs?" Then I remembered that Blizzard was making it. The company with the best track record (another company that has one close is the Looking Glass studios, but they're gone).

Warcraft III is amazing. Hands down. Sporting 4 campaigns that are full of depth. And at the end of each campaign lies a beautiful cinematic. Starcraft players will notice some very similar missions such as the mission to gain mass resources for the next mission, defend a person for a time limit, and survive for a time limit are all here. The multiplayer community is already well developed with a Lord of the Rings scenario, paintball, and a hero arena. All are fun although LotR doesn't seem balanced enough. Also there are plenty of regular games going on too like shared bases, FFA, and team game.

The game controls and functions very similar to Starcraft. And that's just how they wanted it. Warcraft III has 4 different races. The Night Elves, Humans, Orcs, and Undead. The undead is a lot like the Zerg in Starcraft. The Undead are just strange. Some of their units can eat corpses to gain health, their siege weapon hurls half mangled corpses at buildings, and one unit has stitches connecting extra limbs. The Night Elves are strange too, but in a different way. All of their buildings are tree-like things, some buildings can up-root themselves and attack units, and the worker unit is a ball of light. The Orcs and Humans are pretty normal, or at least compared to the other two.

The units are good but the real high point of the game is the hero's. Each race gets 3 different heroes. The heroes gain one level (usually) in the campaign and can get up to level 10 in multiplayer. Each hero has 3 regular abilities with 3 different power levels for each. Then there is one major power such as resurrecting a group of units, raising an undead army, or a "blade storm" that damages all surrounding enemy units. You advance or discover these magic abilities every time you gain a level. Each hero has an inventory that holds up to 6 items. These items can be gained at shops, by finishing optional quests, or killing other heroes. And don't think that you don't have to use the heroes because regular units are good but a good player with a hero and 11 units to back him up can wipe out groups of units.

Another new addition to Warcraft is upkeep. While it may be annoying it is a great idea. Upkeep keeps the game under control. This is how it works. Once your population reaches 40 you go into low upkeep. This means that instead of getting 10 gold every time your miner gets back you only get 7. Once your population reaches 70 you go into high upkeep and only get 4 gold per return.

So how is the Collector's Edition? Amazing and worth the extra [money]. It includes an art book full of drawings and explanations from every game from the Warcraft series. The environment setting soundtrack is nice to listen to if you're just lying around in bed or any other place. Also included are 4 pictures that appear on the regular boxes. These look very nice and add to everything else. A DVD with all the Warcraft III cinematics is also included. As said before, the cinematics are gorgeous. Just be sure to play through the campaign or else you won't get the movies. A collector's edition manual, technology chart, and product guide are also included. Another thing that is nice is the box. It is hard and doesn't open like a regular box, it slides out. The game itself is on a collector's edition disc and case. All of this makes up the collector's edition.

Note: The bug were people are kicked out of games or immediatly disconnected has been fixed and is a required update... In short, Blizzard delivers an average Blizzard performance.

Blizzard decided to put a spin on Strategy style gaming by adding persistent characters, as in a Role-playing game. You can still play customized battles against computer enemies or your friends, or with your friends against the computer--pure strategy game. But in campaign mode, you have a Hero that must survive each scene, so it's a little of both worlds. You get a new hero each Act, so your hero still isn't as important as if it were a true RPG. It takes some adjustment, but it's worth it.

This game has character, and that sets it apart from other strategy, and even some role-playing games. Units are more than just fodder and attack-bots, they have personality. The dwarven gyrocopters could be straight out of the Adventures of Baron Munchausen! And it actually feels evil to play the undead.

Single player mode can be a bit trying with some tedious objectives that don't make sense. Why again do I need to find exactly 100 zombies before the bad-guy does? What I love about Warcraft 3 though, is that it isn't about building the biggest force, since there is a practical limit to how large your army can be. It's about building a stronger force, and a powerful hero is crucial. Strategy takes more planning, which is important to me in this style of gaming.

This is sure to be a classic, definately worth getting.

Since the early 1990's, Blizzard has been a household name for all RTS fans. Blizzard quickly became one of the leaders in the video game field with the original Warcraft and Warcraft II. Later, they astounded the gaming world with the Diablo series. In 1998, people ran to the video game stores yet again to buy StarCraft. After all these major successes, it's hard to believe that Blizzard still has anything left to give, but let me assure you, they most certainly do.

Warcraft III is easily one of the best RTS games I've ever played, and I've played pretty much all of them. Never before have I seen a game with this level of polish and fine tuning. It's immediately obvious when you put the CD in how much time went into this game, not just creating it, but tweaking every last detail until it couldn't be made any better. Another area in which this game shines above most others is difficulty. It's not easy. Unlike games such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, you aren't going to beat this in a day. You're not going to spend a month playing it and then finally give up either. It's not too easy, and it's not too hard. It's just the right length, and just the right difficulty.

Although the game is exceptional on it's own, I personally would reccomend buying the collector's edition. The artbook by itself is enough to warrant the extra [money](at least in my opinion). It's roughly 200 pages of drawings and pictures including conceptual drawings from Warcraft I, II, and III. It's really interesting to see the artist's original ideas. Some of them changed drastically before production, and some of them never made it into the games at all.

The Bonus DVD is also a very nice thing to have. Be honest now: how many times have you played through a game, saved at a certain point, and replayed the next part over and over just to see one really cool cutscene? I have to admit I have. The Bonus DVD contains all of the prerendered cutscenes, along with the Cinematic Trailer, which, if you're like me, will save you some time.

Also included in the Collector's Edition are the four 8x10" prints of all four races, the CD Soundtrack, and the Collector's Edition manual, which is signed by the complete Warcraft III development team.

All in all, Warcraft III is one of the best RTS games ever made. It's just that simple. The campaign mode will keep you busy for at least a week or so (twice that long if you go on to hard mode), and after that, playing on Battle.net will keep you occupied for months to come. I definately recommend buying this game. It's the best I've seen in quite a while.

"We never payed any heed to the ancient prophecies...like fools we clung to the old hatreds...and fought as we had for generations...until the day the sky rained fire and the new enemy came among us...we stand now on the brink of destruction...for the reign of chaos has come at last..."

I remember first seeing that trailer 3 years (?) ago and thinking "man I can't wait until next year when it comes out!" And then when they kept pushing it back, and back, and back, I thought maybe my grandchildren would be around to play this, but not me. Well, it's finally being released!!!! From what I can see of the game, and what I've read, I think it's [almost] worth the wait. Unlike other game companies, Blizzard PERFECTS its games, which have been 5 (not including expansions) over the last 8 or so years, to where they are almost perfect, instead of trying to push out game after game as fast as they can. It's this dedication that pays off when their games sell milions of copies and get Game of the Year, and their battle.net multiplayer server crashes because of the sheer multitude of people wanting to play their excellent games (they say it's not gonna happen this time) on the day a game comes out! Anyone who hates Blizzard because they take so long on their games (I have also been so unforgiving in the past) should understand this! This is the reason they are so good! The Lord of the Rings wouldn't have sold 100 million copies if J.R.R. Tolkien hadn't have been such a perfectionist. I hope that in time people will forgive them for their perfectionism once they actually play the game and see for themselves how it can pay off.

On other matters, this collectors' edition is an excellent idea (I know they did it with Diablo II). If you look on Blizzard's site, you will find the Starcraft dvd for $[money], which is about than the difference in price between the collectors' edition and the regular. Well, you get a Warcraft III dvd with this one, and I'll bet it will cost $[money] if they ever release it outside the collectors' edition. Being a big movie score fan, I am also looking forward to the soundtrack cd, which I expect will be fantastic. You also get a coffe table book of never-before-seen Blizzard artwork and 4 cards with the 3 types of heros on them. It's worth it to pay...more for all of these (I'd guess the items themselves would sell for $[money] without the game). Being a huge fan, I ordered my collectors' edition over 3 months ago, and I hope that any *true* fan of Blizzard games will also pick one of these up...

I signed up for the beta test on a whim. I am not a gamer and this was a whole new experience to me. The game is phenomenally addicting.
The graphics are remarkably realistic and with a very new high end gaming platform the game whizzes along. I have been playing since January 2002 and have noticed several issues. First, large online multiplayer games tend to lag down to speed of the lowest computer which can be incredibly annoying. Second, since the first day of beta release Blizzard has struggled with balance. There are four different "races" each with I believe 10 different unit types and as many different buildings. Then each race has threee different "Heroes" with multiple different "spells". Mathematically the game is a phenomenally complex multidimensional matrix. Inevitably, gamers have found strengths and weaknesses to exploit in this complexity leading to what is know as "Cheesy" gameplay, meaning the ability to defeat one's opponents not through skill but through exploitation of the game's inevitable balance problems (example... early in the beta the "Undead" "Necromancer" could produce unlimited numbers of "Skeleton warriors" which would almost always lead to victory (this problems was fixed)).
These issues won't however be apparent to the average new user (at least until he or she becomes an addict) but they frustrated me and, sigh, led me to play the game all the more.
Overall, aside from Chess, this is the best game I have ever played.

I have to admit that I've killed many orcs over the years and never felt an ounce of remorse about it--and who could blame me? They smell bad, they drool, have terrible dental hygiene, steal the jobs of hard-working dwarves and gnomes, and of course...they eat people. Or so I was told. (*Mild Spoiler*) You can imagine what a shock it was to learn in Warcraft III that not only are the orcs not enemies; they are allies you need to save humanity's collective bacon. So as you play the game, you'll need to drive that Lord of the Rings propaganda out of your mind and find peace with your inner orc.

Warcraft III is a terrific real-time strategy game that goes farther in blurring elements of role-playing and strategy than any game that's come before it. The inclusion of heroes as role-playing characters is terrific and provides extra incentive to explore the entire map because you never know what items or quests are hidden in remote corners. It just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you find those hidden magic boots or that ring of protection. Warcraft III also marks the best story to date for a Real-Time Strategy game. In the third campaign of the single-player, I tell you that I was an orc...for about an hour. It's also worth mentioning that the tale cleverly unfolds in a way to allow you to play each of the factions (Human, Undead, Orc, and Night Elf) in a compelling progression.

Anyone who has played RTS games before will be familiar with the interface and gameplay of Warcraft III. All of the usual unit types are there--it's just that in Warcraft III they seem more polished than in other games. Whether it's the endearing signature responses when you click on them or the way the units intelligently form up, move, path find, and attack, every aspect of every unit has obviously been thoroughly tested and balanced. Not once when I gave an order did a unit wander off from the pack to explore some random corner of the screen and cause me mouse-crushing, game-cursing rage (see how well I found my inner orc?). It may not sound like much, but those of you who have played many real-time strategy games know that this is not a given. When I ordered a unit to march to a certain place and kill, they did just that.

I realize that the game is over a year old now, but it's worth noting how technically sound this game is. I did not have a hiccup in this game. Never in my single-player campaign did the game crash to desktop, freeze, stutter, spit or delay. The load times were very reasonable and there were also no graphical problems changing resolution or color depth. The graphics themselves are probably the weakest element of the game; all of the units certainly look very blocky and dated. But of course, for a real-time strategy game, who really gives a crap? You don't need state of the art graphics for an RTS. I certainly didn't find that it affected my experience.

I only played the multiplayer a couple of times and I got stomped like the kid in my elementary school who used to wear cardigans that looked like they'd been swiped from Mr. Rogers' closet. It was that bad. This game has been out long enough that even if you seek out a so-called newbie game, you're dealing with people who obviously eat, slept and breathe Warcraft. But there was no problem finding a game and I didn't have any problems with lag or people bailing out of games. It just so happens that I stink.

On the whole, this is a beast of a game: fun to play, compelling, balanced and technically sound...and I think it's time we thought about an orc for president.

.... Blizzard Entertainment is the most dedicated company I have even seen before. With hits like WarCraft I & II, Diablo I & II, and StarCraft, how could anyone doubt the incredible game that WarCraft III will be? With four detailed playable races (Humans, Orcs, Night Elves, and Undead) there is something for everyone. Blizzard also included a fifth race called The Burning Legion to play the villains in the game. Allowing players to control hero units that gain levels, learn abilities, and can equip items adds some role playing elements to the old school game play.

Other features include:
-Brilliant three dimensional graphics
-Neutral Buildings, accessible offer a variety of wondrous magic items and fearsome mercenary units
-Neutral Units inhabit the world of Azeroth and impede the unwary but yield precious treasure when defeated in combat
-Full Multiplayer support, including Internet play over Battle.net®.
-New Multiplayer Features including shared unit control and resource trading between players.
-Improved Battle.net Features including improved ladder and clan support.
-Advanced World Editor Design Tools allow players to create their own maps and customize many aspects of the game.

There are hundreds more features besides this,.... For the rest of you, what are you waiting for!?! Buy this game now!!!

I have long since been a fan of Warcraft, ever since the first game hit PCs well over ten years ago. Back then, Warcraft was nothing but a simple RTS game with bland, flat graphics and generally average gameplay. Yet there was something about it that just pulled you in. When Warcraft II hit a few years later, it revolutionized strategy gaming, and spawned the still immensely popular Starcraft. But Warcraft III finally hit with a bang...and its quite possibly one of the best games I've ever played.

Taking a giant leap into uncharted territory, Warcraft III does away with Orcs vs. Humans and expands the story to encompass 2 new races, in addition to the Humans and Orcs:

Night Elves, which are blue-skinned, nature-loving distant cousins of the Elves that joined the Alliance in Warcraft 2. Consisting mainly of archers and ranged weapons, the Night Elves are a formidable force with unique abilities.

Undead, which are gruesome, evil creatures spawned from the demonic Burning Legion wash over the world like an unstoppable plague. Consisting of ghouls, arachnid-like Crypt Fiends and other grisly monsters, fans of Starcraft will immediately see similarities between the Undead and the Zerg. In fact, there is almost zero difference between the Zerg and the Undead, other than the units.

All sides have an array of unique buildings, abilities and units. The story in Warcraft III is vast and is told through excellent in-game cut-scenes using the game's new, sophisticated 3-d engine. The graphics are outstanding and the sound is excellent. Tons of voice-over bring the units and characters to life.

Most notably different in Warcraft III, other than the 2 new races, is the inclusion of Hero units, which are now the central focus of the game. Hero units gain levels and experience, getting new abilities as they progress through the game, adding a genuine role-play experience. Abilities and expereience carry with the hero from mission to mission, and the story mostly revolves around these few, key characters. These heroes can also collect items, which enhance abilities. There are also new NPC creatures called 'Creeps' which serve as fodder for your hero characters to gain experience.

The game gets progressively harder as you go, and novice Warcraft players will definitely find some missions so overwhelmingly difficult that they will either resort to cheats or stop playing the game all together. Otherwise, seasoned Warcraft Veterans will find the game to be quite challenging and fun.

As usual, Blizzard does not disappoint with its amazing cinematics, which are truly awe-inspiring. These cinematics convey the story brilliantly and are great rewards for completing each campaign.

This collector's edition comes packaged with an art book, which is a great insight into the development of the characters and serves as a great companion piece to the game. A word of advice: DO NOT look at the art book until after you complete the game! The art book is full of story and character spoilers that will ruin the gameplay experience for you.

Other bonuses include the Warcraft 3 dvd, full of special features and cinematics from the game(which, again, is recommended you do not watch until after you complete the game.) You also get the game soundtrack. These extras are well worth the money.

The bottomline is this: Warcraft 3 is probably one of the best RTS games out there. It improved on previous games in leaps and bounds and is a memorable gaming experience. Fans will probably love using the level editor, which is simple enough to learn, though it may take 2-4 weeks of dedicated learning to do so. The level editor enhances the game experience by allowing you to make your own levels, make your own events in these levels, and even create entire campaigns! WC3 has tons of replay value and is definitely well worth the long, long wait that Warcraft fans experienced these past few years.

BUY IT if you are a Warcraft fan...that goes without saying. You can't even dare call yourself a diehard fan of Warcraft unless you buy the Collector's Edition! This game will keep you playing for weeks on end, whether it is creating your own levels with the editor or facing other players worldwide on Battle.net!