Warcraft III Expansion Released, Reviewed

Vladimir Niksic writes "According to the official Blizzard site, Frozen Throne, the long-awaited expansion to Warcraft III is out. The review at GameSpy marks it 'another quality expansion that plays like a full game.'" There's also a review at ActionTrip which praises the new features which "enhance every facet of gameplay, great storytelling, [and] varied mission types", but notes the $35 price as "..a bit steep for an expansion pack."

Comments

Question about "Frozen Throne"

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only person that thought about my outhouse in the middle of February?

Interesting missions

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

One thing that struck me about this expansion was that the missions were in general a lot more interesting and varied. There were fewer of the plain "destroy all the enemy bases" missions, but they didn't make them all the standard "hero and some men, no base, only found reinforcements" RPG missions that were always the alternative either. For example, there's a mission where you have to assault an enemy base. You have a base, but no gold mine. You find gold in the enemy base to build reinforcements. You also have a squad of stealth assassin/saboteur type guys that you have to sneak around to defeat some of the base's defenses. Pretty cool.

That said, I found it rather easy... I have to replay it on the Hard setting.

Tim

I was in the beta, here's my reaction

[pezpunk]

first of all, as with all Blizzard products, the production value is very high. Not only does the gameplay feel tight and sturdy, but even the menus are in the exact right place and have the exact right options.

graphics: for their first 3D engine, it certainly is pretty. i can even play it on my laptop, with it's pseudo-3d graphics card. the individual models are stylistic -- bright, and cartoonish -- although very polygonal. that's understandable, though, seeing as there are often several dozen units on the screen at one time. i have noticed virtually no slowdown even during enormous battles wit multiple spell effects flying around on top of all the twitching polygons. that amazes me.

the new units are fun, and the single player campaign is more interesting and engaging than the original WarCraft III campaign was. Voice acting is, as is typical for Blizzard, somewhat above average for a video game ... but still not exactly feature film quality. the story's top-notch though. great characters.

multiplayer is really the only thing i can complain about. i played literally hundreds of games online during the beta, and was ranked in the top 500 (of 30,000 participants). my reaction is that online play is actually LESS varied and strategic than WarCraft III classic. yes, there are more units, but because of changes to how armor and damage works (and other tweaks), there are actually fewer viable strategies. in addition, although no one race is overpowered, some matchups are are a foregone conclusion -- night elves are at an undeniable disadvantage vs the undead, for example. even with all the new units available, the average game at the highest levels of competition in The Frozen Throne actually features less unit variety than classic WarCraft III.

i suppose that's a gripe that is not likely to effect the majority of players very heavily, however. it's still a great game, just not the home run that Brood War was.

now World of WarCraft ... THAT looks tasty ...

Re:But did they...

[FroMan]

I prefer the low unit cap. It makes keeping your units alive a higher priority. You have to think how to create/group units. In starcraft you could simpley make 70 zerglings fully upgraded for damage and take out just about any town, then when they are all dead make a dozen or so slower units for clean up while the other player is trying to rebuild his town.

Re:Linux Version

[Yorrike]

I've just been playing in Linux, thank you very much. These guys do a very good job at making games work in Linux, and Frozen Throne worked perfectly, first time for me. It runs just as smoothly and reliably in Linux as Windows.

Give them some cash, as the binary versions are better than the source (they've got some propriatry stuff in there). Honestly, I paid a tiny sum about 6 months ago, and so far I've been able to play WCIII, Civ 3 and Counterstrike with no problems what-so-ever (then I've got Quake3 and Mutant Storm as native Linux binaries, but that's a different story).

Yes, official support would be nice, and it's a shame that only the likes of Carmack, UT developers and Bioware are willing to give us Linux gamers what we want, but the more noise we make, the more likely people like Blizzard are to take notice. They'd also start paying attention if TransGaming start posting profits of hundreds of thousands of dollars (so go pay them).

Oh, you mean...

[devphil]

...the main two things that prevented the game from degenerating into a "build up a horde of zerglings and rush" scene, much like every other RTS? The same two things that encourage an active strategy and decision-making?

Upkeep is an excellent realistic step. For those who don't get out much, no nation has ever raised an army by paying its soldiers an initial fee, and nothing else for the rest of their career. I don't imagine Orcs are much different.

The 90-unit limitation is partially there to put a maximum load on the graphics engine, and partially to "strongly encourage" more active play, i.e., you can't just camp in your base building up a 500-member horde before finally setting foot outside.

Re:Do we love or hate Blizzard today ?

[Farscry]

I love Blizzard today, and always do. I could care less about whether Blizzard is open or closed source, because I buy their software to do one thing: play it. I don't pay a continual subscription fee (or license renewal fee) to do so; Battle.net is free to use.

Fact of the matter is, I have thoroughly enjoyed every game that Blizzard has created. I can't say that about *any* other developer out there, though some come close. Blizzard's games aren't for everyone, but the one thing they do know is their audience, and every game is polished very heavily for that target group.

Don't get me wrong, I love many other games of all genres; there's very little I don't like (one of the benefits of being easily amused, I suppose). But I have always been able to count on picking up a Blizzard game from the shelf confident that I'd take it home and have a game that installs without compatibility issues and is fun to play.

As for the closed source whining? I doubt anyone is going to use the game engine of Starcraft to run a hospital's server, or use the Diablo II engine as the basis for an open source OS, or something of that matter. And those folks who were working on Freecraft? Hey, maybe they could have done something a little less blatantly obvious and would never have been bothered. ("hey, I know, let's make an open-source RPG that achieves a lot of what Bioware's games do!" "I know, let's call it 'Faldur's Gate!' No one can complain about that, it's not even remotely indicative of a rip-off from the original product!")

Sorry if this seems a bit of a flame; I don't intend it to be that harsh. I just grow weary of everything being either open-source or evil. It's like the hyper-environmentalists who chain themselves to every piece of driftwood because a new beach area is opening up or something. I believe in fighting for a cause, but I also believe in picking battles that really matter.