WarCraft III: Reign Of Chaos Comments by Rob Fahey

Does anyone know how this runs on a P2 350 64 megs of Ram and a Matrox G400 card? I'm drooling over this and NWN...but afraid that none of them will run, even with everything toned down...

Aaaawwwwwww! I want a PC now...

skal, can you hear me laughing?


...I am only amused because my comp is even worse than yours ;-)

But honestly, I read a performance statistics in a German Mag which brought me to the conclusion that it wouldn't even run decently on my gf's PIII 500/196MB/Gf2. They are not always reliable, though.

edit: *cough* 192 MB, of course

It is indeed excellent. Well done on the good review.

The Cut Scenes are magnificent especially a later one featuring Grom.

It is also one of the longer games of recent months, they have crafted an interesting single player game and i didn't manage to complete it in under a week ;)

Actually this is definitely the best thing I've seen on PC recently and may be good enough to tempt me away from my Medal Of Honour online addiction. My flatmate's got it and watching him play it has been most entertaining, if frustrating ('cos I wanna play). So I usually just slink back off and play some Frequency on PS2 (which is not getting nearly enough recognition anywhere as far as I'm concerned - bloody excellent game).

You think you've got it bad? I'm currently running a 486 SX 33 Mhz with 8 Meg of RAM.

I'm holding out little hope that this'll run.

Oh, Lou and Skal - I've seen it running on a PII 400 with 512MB RAM and a GeForce 3 (64MB I think - could have been 32) and it ran pretty well. The detail had to be notched down a bit but it still looked pretty nice. So Skal, you may well be out of luck but UncleLou should be okay.

But don't quote me on that ;-)

Blank - I'd save your energy and stop holding out *any* hope to be honest.

Well I've just started on this game and, same as Tricky, I'm wanting to play WC3 more than MOHAA. The presentation is absolutely superb, on a 1900XP+GF4600 it looks lovely. And those cutscenes - pure Blizzard.

For those of you buying this, purchase this from GAME/EB and you get WC2 Battlenet for free. I had to ask at the counter ; don't ask don't get!

"on a 1900XP+GF4600 it looks lovely"

Go away, troll, haven't you read what we are talking about? ;)

looks like i'll have to get the warez version floating about (160mb) and see how it performs on my system before i splash out and buy the full thing..

..of course, if i see a demo on a magazine tonight i'd happily stop breaking the law :P

Who's that trip-tripping across my bridge.

Hey, let me bask in glory, I only just got to upgrade!

"I'd save your energy and stop holding out *any* hope to be honest"

Yeah, you're right. Maybe I should splash out on that DX 66.

I doubt that that version is the game at all Pirotic. The full install for WC3 is something like 700MB. Remember kids, don't do it... bloody pirates.

No Blank - go for the full on speed of the DX4 100. If you paste go-faster-stripes on the chip it may help too ;-)

Hello hello who's been messing with the page formats!

Damn good game this - nothing really revolutionary in it, but what there is has been done well and it does feel like a polished game. Especially those pre-rendered cutscenes, which do put FF10 to shame.

The 90-max food limit is not that bad - if you do notice yourself running out of space for more units, then you probably should be attacking someone already.

Only being able to select a dozen units at once is a lot more annoying though, but the unit AI can handle itself well enough in a pitched melee, so you don't have to micromanage it too much.

EG - no problem as such with moving comments away from the article they (in theory) pertain to, but at least could the 'new comments' column on the right of the screen link to the comments themselves, rather than the story?

Maybe this'll slow Otto down at last! !

fat chance

Ah, fixed...

Nice one rauper ;)

>> I doubt that that version is the game at all Pirotic.

hmmm.. appears to be, single-player works fine once you get a crack, it has no FMV and no music. which could explain why its smaller (together with compression)

Runs fine on my 1.5ghz (Geforce2).. so, looks like i'll be buying the full thing, must be an irony that if it wasn't for the warez version i would not of bothered (i always play demos first, just to test perfomance)

skal, can you hear me laughing?

Yeah I hear it, and are those jackals in the backgrond?

I'm waiting for the demo for a while. Or hope to get that fucking job.

Especially those pre-rendered cutscenes, which do put FF10 to shame

Care to back that up, especially considering that PS2 CGI is mpeg2 encoded and PC stuff is... well, a bit naff.

Fair enough P. Get the full version though - it's so worth it for the multiplayer and the cutscenes are, as kifkludge says, tremendous. Underneath it all it may be a fairly standard RTS but it's got atmosphere in buckets and that wins it for me every time.

I've been playing this game for about a week and am still trying to decide whether or not I prefer the micro focus vs the macro of starcraft. The 90 food limit and upkeep is a very novel idea in that it changes the emphasis on those that can keep an economy going to those who can organize an efficient assault group with efficient balance.

Because you can no longer organize a huge army and keep a huge army at home, space management and surveillance is much more important.

You rarely can use more than 2 or 3 full control groups, as opposed to SC where you might have 5 or more if you played a zerg race.

The control group issue, thus, isn't as big a deal because without careful management of what each spell caster is casting, you can't maximize your combat efficiency.

Another big difference is that you can probably bring your army from battle to battle. Losing your entire force is something much more devastating now. There are many more ways to preserve your beseiged forces now.

It's actually very different.

I'm not sure I like it better, but the subtle differences make a huge impact on how the tactics are played out.

BTW:
I've been gone for a while. Has ES been banned?
I haven't seen any flame wars for awhile...

Tricky - Do you think I'm made of money?!?

jt-
point conceded. The upkeep should be looked at as a penalty for keeping large forces.

The individual unit focus is one of the more remarkable, though subtle features of this games.

"Care to back that up, especially considering that PS2 CGI is mpeg2 encoded and PC stuff is... well, a bit naff."

Sod the encoding - WarCraft III just has plan better videos. Better art direction, better rendering, breath-takingly good music... No, the encoding isn't as crystal clear as the PS2s MPEG2 playback, but I really don't think that's the question here.

That said, some of the bits of Xenosaga I've seen look better again....

Especially those pre-rendered cutscenes, which do put FF10 to shame

Care to back that up, especially considering that PS2 CGI is mpeg2 encoded and PC stuff is... well, a bit naff.

Soz - was working for a change and missed this. I was just going to say what Shinji's said more eloquently anyways. Polymath's comments were spot on as well.

Warcraft's videos have atmosphere, but in FFX ... I dunno, something's missing and with all the time Square spends on FF games I expect more. Keep buying the damn things tho.

including the ability to repeatedly click units for a variety of amusing speech clips, some of which are fantastically funny.

Did you LOL and stuff? Are they actually that funny!

"you didnt even mention the addition of the heros"

You didn't even read the review, or you would have seen that they are mentioned at the bottom of the first page (admittedly briefly).

9 is abit high imo..8 or even 7 would have been more accurate.
MY reasons why :
1.Graphics are great, cant touch that, except the in-game(during-mission?) cinematics.. they are just plain blocky. Seeing that pally run makes me laugh.
2. Engine, while I understand that the zoom out was predetermined because of balanced reasons, there was no reason whatsoever not to implement full sideways 360 degrees movable camera..as it is right now, you can only move abit right/left and the thing goes back to the original position on its own (very annoying).
3.Sound- is great, same with speech. Music is very weak. There is only 3 songs per race during the match, and 1 of the 3 in each is worth listening to; others are just mediocre at best.(you'll know which ones, that's how big the gap is)
4.The story.. so far I got half way through Orc campaign(~75% of the whole game?), and I can say it's nothing to write home about, but I guess a step forward from your preditable warcraft2. Yeah, like you didnt know he's gonna switch sides, common..
(not gonna say anymore details so I wont spoil it for those who wish to rent/buy it, but don't expect any "wow how did that happen" twists.. at least not till end of Orcs I guess)
5.The cinematics between scenerios..I dunno, the trailer seemed a hell of a lot more spectacular in what is going on then the ones presented in the game..I guess that's just trailers thingy, they are suppoused to make you run out and buy it.
Still, a shame.
6. Multi- great fun, although it slowly accures to me everytime I play I'm doing mostly the same thing..same amount of peons, grunts, get a hero, go like mad toward healing ward & doctors etc..still fun I guess.
One more thing, if you are a die hard of Starcraft, you'll still be playing that on b.net rather then War3.

Few points to respond to :)

Sneti :-
I do see where you're coming from and there's a lot of personal opinion involved in my criticism of this factor. That's why it didn't affect my final score greatly. However, of all the people here playing it, all of us found the food limit MASSIVELY painful and annoying... Which suggests to me that a lot of people will think similarly.

Kifkludge :-
Oh I don't know about that... Some of the videos in FFX were utterly breathtaking in every respect; WC3 has better ones, but that doesn't make the FFX ones bad by any measure or means. The Tidus/Yuna in the lake video with Suteki Da Ne playing in the background is one of the best bits of video I've ever seen.

Reto :-
Yeah, I actually LOL'ed at some of the stuff. In real life, like. With my lungs. Or whatever bit of you technically does the LOLing :)

AltF4 :-
I have to disagree really strongly on the music. I've got the soundtrack to the game, and it's excellent - some superbly dramatic orchestal stuff. Beats the crap out of 90% of game soundtracks.

Multiplayer, hmm... I have to admit that the first time we played it multi, I wasn't impressed, but it's grown on me a LOT.

Maul :-
Read the effing review FGS :)

Actually,
I think the multiplayer is where blizzard will get to see whether or not the game is really worth their effort. The campaign scenarios are still based very much on the traditional RTS balance, which means huge standing armies hang around waiting to pounce having large bases for you to destroy. Now that we're using small skirmishing bands of units, it's disproportionately difficult to deal with 4-5 similarly endowed groups in terms of mass and size.

In multiplayer, since we all start from the same initial resources, challenging one another in terms of micro, macro, reaction time and map awareness is huge. Additionally, coordination between partners appears to be even more critical than games like SC due to the much greater requirement for attention. The micro two teamed players can achieve in one battle with shared unit control is absolutely frightening.

The outnumbered guy will be shafted.

In a sense, the game has become unit control, not economy. More Tactical, less strategic...

Talking about it makes me go home and play!

I also liked the food limit. It made you avoid the 'build a huge army of pooning and go rush the enemy base' of other rts's. I'm sure the limit raised when I created a second base too, but I might be going mad?

Biggest fustration for me, apart from the unit selection, was the utter waste of oppurtunity from the 3d engine. Very little in the way of camera controls, no rotating, etc. Silly. Might has well have left it 2d.

Well, after having played a bit of it at my brother's last night, I have to say I've never understood and never will understand why Blizzard won't let that 12-unit selection rule go... it's insanely annoying when you need to move 13 or 14 units somewhere... and it's something that's so fundamental it's scary that they haven't addressed it.

fredrick - in a way i see your point, but then again your saying 'its clear your system spec meets the requirements' yet we both know the specs on the box are most of the time totally unreliable, anybody remember TA:Kingdoms? 300mhz recommended.. yet it ran like a dog on anything twice that speed.

if i see a PC game i like, first thing i do is check the official website for a demo, then and only then would i consider getting a pirated version. i've ordered the full game from Game (comes with Warcraft2 battle .net edition). so i dont think my actions hurt anybody.

Khab: why Blizzard won't let that 12-unit selection rule go... it's insanely annoying when you need to move 13 or 14 units somewhere...

Yeah, that's when it annoys me the most - when you're just a few units over the limit. Wish they'd have included a "kill-your-own-unit" key.

Shinji: The Tidus/Yuna in the lake video with Suteki Da Ne playing in the background is one of the best bits of video I've ever seen.

Certainly - there's quite a few that stick in my head: the one where you see Yuna sending for the first(?) time, the clip of them "arriving" at the wedding and of course, the battle scenes.

I just found myself watching the FF vids for the technical details, seeing how they've come on with facial animation and movement.

On a side note, I still get surprised at the length of the credits in an FF game - am I underestimating how much work does go into it or is it commonplace to have someone do the menu programming and nothing else, someone do the hair animation and nothing else?

Well done -- Rob "Shinji" Fahey

a very good review.

I kinda, almost, well i did like Warcraft 1 and 2 but it got pretty lonsome on an alien planet. Pretty much the graphics were good, and if these graphics were good warcraft 3 will be better i guess. so 2 thumbs up ill give it.

great game, i dread to think how much love and attension has gone into thoose fantastic menu screens.

Been playing online for a fair while now, its far more complicated then i at first perceived, i spent some time to read thru the guide on the website, and theres alot of stuff u simply would not know about if you didnt so having a read is highly recommended.

The FMV IS incredible, if you have a problem with the quality order the collectors edition version and you get a DVD which contains all the cut-scenes without the rather poor-quality divx compression

The FMV doesn't really suit the game tho, its a nice reward but its so dark and gloomy in contrast to the games colorfull 'mario-esque' graphics.

Well i did actually manage to complete the single player game in just over a week, still really great though.

skal, have you tried in the meantime if it runs on your comp? I have read in a forum that a lot of people with PII 400 say it runs fine, but your RAM might be a problem. My girlfriend bought it (yes!) and she says it runs perfectly fine on her PIII 500, GF2 192 MB, so with a bit more RAM you might be fine.

Sorry Lou haven't gotten to try it yet. I'm gonna try and borrow a copy from a mate, and then see for myself.

Warcraft III should at least be a better choice than Neverwinter Nights, because a friend told me NWN is hardly playable on his PIII 500/GF2 setup, while WCIII runs fine (in case you rather trust a man than my girl-friend.) Yes, i know a lot of people with cheap comps.

Well, with my PII300/Voodoo3 I don't even need to bother at all.

"Warcraft III should at least be a better choice than Neverwinter Nights..."

Speaking of which - has Eurogamer any plans to review NWN? All the minor problems aside (and I have experienced very few) it is a very good game indeed!

MUCH more enjoyable than Dungeon Siege and Morrowind.

"has Eurogamer any plans to review NWN"

We're working on it, but it's a huge game and we didn't even get sent a review copy until a couple of weeks after it was released. :-/


"HALF THE GAME IS LOST CUZ THERE IS NO NAVY AT ALL"

I doubt that has anything to do with the conversion to 3D. :)

i got the full game now :) been playing it for ages, infact was just about to win a 3 on 3 game but then the server decided to cut me off.. :( seems to be really busy today.