Warcraft III

Mark's Comments: Tom's got an interesting take on Warcraft III, and it shows how two people can agree on a number of points and still come to opposite conclusions.

I haven't played all the way through Warcraft III, but I'm convinced the single player game is a classic or near-classic. It's a tight construct that eases the player through the design subtleties of the four playable races by interweaving a compelling fiction told through seamless in-game cinematics and beautiful rendered cinematics. That sentence sounds fancier than I'd like, so just think of the single player game as more interesting, fun, and dramatic than nearly all RTS games prior to it. There's also great voice acting and let me reiterate how enjoyable is the art in the cinematics. They combine to tell an interesting story. No one does this better than Blizzard. Just the first campaign as the humans has more plot twists and turns than a Bill Clinton testimony.

I agree with Tom's criticism of the interface. Blizzard has willfully turned its back on the many RTS games that have come before and shown that there are better ways to handle a lot of these annoying interface issues. This is not an accident of design, but Blizzard just assuming they know better because they're the ones with the million-selling games. That's too bad because historically the little guys who struggle are often the ones who figure out how to do things better in an attempt to break through.

Still, even though the interface is more cumbersome than it needs to be, it's not so clumsy as to keep me from enjoying the important thing - the game itself. What Tom either overlooks or doesn't get is that the single player game is quite forgiving. You have plenty of time built into the game to make those extra clicks, so the interface becomes a minor issue. I think what Tom's complaints show is that at heart he's more of a multiplayer/skirmish player of these games. In those arenas his criticisms bear more weight.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Blizzard has introduced more micromanagement in the classic death-match RTS gameplay. Now I not only have to micromanage my base and quickly build an expansion base, I have to micromanage my hero to level him up. Blizzard forget to include an extra arm in the box for multiplayer. Bad on them.

The skirmish AI is also ruthless. It builds a base, a second base, and sends a couple of heroes out to kill creeps all at the same time. Meanwhile I'm trying to remember if I should build a barracks or blacksmith first. Blizzard should really have included a difficulty setting for it.

Warcraft III is certainly not Blizzard's weakest game as Tom claims. The single player campaign may be the best yet from Blizzard -- certainly better than Warcraft I and II and possibly better than Starcraft. The multiplayer game I'm less sold on. In fact, I'm probably not going to play it much at all. You can sign me up for the inevitable expansion, though. I'll be first in line for that new single player campaign I'm sure Blizzard will include.