Warcraft 2

This is a First Glance review.

After their surprise hit from last Christmas, Warcraft, things have been looking up for Blizzard; they are busy writing up Pax Imperia 2 for a second quarter '96 release, and they were working on a sequel to Warcraft. Warcraft 2 will not disappoint the gaming community. Loaded with new features like SVGA graphics, air and sea units, enhanced AI, and lots of cosmetic upgrades, this game is a feast for the senses. This First Glance review will just quickly go over the rudimentary aspects of the game and we will follow up with a much more in-depth review shortly.

For The Alliance...

At the end of Warcraft, assuming you played the humans, you had vanquished the Orc enemy, or vice versa if you played the Orcs. In this sequel, you choose between these two races again, but now you have allies to help you out in your battle to control the land. The Humans ally with races like Elves and Gnomes, whereas the Orcs team up with the Ogres. Some of the earlier missions are "proving grounds" to show your allies that you are worthy of their help. Once you enlist their aid, they will give you new units to create, like the Elven Lumber Mill, Gnomish Flying Machine, or the Ogre Mages.

All these new units (tons of them) really make Warcraft 2 shine over the original, all the units will talk back to you, showing off the excellent voice capability included in the game (I don't think I'll ever tire of being called "Exalted One" by the Elven Archers). The new SVGA graphics are also an excellent touch, the Blizzard team really paid a lot of attention to detail when they made up the art.

Artificial Intelligence?

One of the main problems with most strategy games to come out to this day has been the lack of smarts that the computer opponent has had. Playing network games has always been a good way around this, but its always nice to have a little one-on-one with the computer when no one is around to play against you. Command & Conquer, similar to Warcraft 2 except set in the future of Earth, had some major AI overhauls from previous strategy attempts, but still really didn't get over the problem of the computer falling prey to simple traps, or having to resort to bending the rules of the game to get an advantage. Warcraft 2 promised to change all this, has it?

After only a short few hours of gameplay, I can decisively say "Yes". And "No". WC2's AI no longer falls into simple patterns of attack and defend, it does actually seem to make some intelligent decisions, however, its intelligence is limited, and it will not do anything too risky. End result? The game isn't that challenging until the very high levels, and even then it isn't anywhere near as hard as Warcraft or Command & Conquer. This is not such a bad thing however, other games really began to grate on me by the higher levels since the computer really had to start cheating to hold its own, at least the WC2 AI can hold it's own and play by the rules. The units are also smart to some microcosmic extent, as if they are heavily outnumbered, or badly hurt, they will run away from you, and not fight to the death.

The Fog of War

One of the main improvements in this game over typical strategy games is the aforementioned feature, which addresses a complaint that many gamers have had. Once you have explored the surrounding lands, and filled in the map with what you know, a "fog" falls in places that aren't within range of any of your units. This adds for an element of surprise, you don't know when the enemy is going to attack, or where the enemy is. This also adds an element of realism to the game; in other strategy games prior to this, you started with an empty map as you didn't know the territory, but as soon as you explored all the map, you could see any units, enemy or otherwise, anywhere on the map.

There are lots of other small additions to the game, such as a third natural resource (oil), unlike Warcraft's two resources (gold and lumber). The game also includes a Windows95 map editor, and a sound editor for the game too, so you can strip all the sounds out and replace them with your own, or just listen to some of the great voice samples from the game.

Warcraft 2 is a great improvement over the first game, which is saying a lot. The graphics, sound, gameplay, and features are all upgraded in this version, and it really is a very entertaining game to play. Any strategy gamer who is looking for a very entertaining, somewhat challenging, and very good-looking/sounding new game, this is the place to look.

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