Rating: 
Summary: Chaos in Azeroth, Indeed
Review: The long awaited arrival of "Warcraft III", was the wait worth it? If you compare it to the hype for Diablo II (which in my opinion fell far short of the original), then yes. Single player game is greatly improved with great cinematics, fewer mission requirements and instead of those huge battles, smaller skirmishes. Plus, adding a feature from Starcraft, heroes with special abilities that learn and adapt as the campaign continues. A little pricey for a PC game, but what the heck, it's only money.
Rating: 
Summary: Uninventive and Disappointing
Review: ...These don't bother me. In fact it would be refreshing to duke out it with small platoons.Unfortunately, that isn't how the average bnet game plays out. If you join a game, and ask your teammates what the plan is, they'll think you're stupid. There is only one strategy: rush. The standing rule is to make as many units as possible, as quickly as possible, and send them to wipe out the enemy. No finesse, no strategy. What's worse, this is the only viable strategy. If you don't rush, you will lose. None of the races defense come online fast enough to stop it, and even if you could get a defense up, you'd run out of gold. As a result, all Bnet games are simply a race. Build your hero, build your barracks, then attack. Fastest man wins. That's not all. The single-player campaign is a joke. The story is so trite I can't believe they're calling it original. And 90% of the missions don't actually have anything to do with the story. The cutscenes are absolutely beautifully renderred, but only a few of them having any artistic panache. Most of them look like graphics demos and nothing more. The ending of the game doesn't even have a semblance of finality to it, obviously being left open for the inevitable expansion. ... You decide. There are good points. The World Editor is a marvel, allowing you full control of every minute aspect of a map. You can create a cutscene, create your own units, and even make a mini-game using the Editor. I also like the unit variety. If people would actually make more than 2 different units, they would discover some powerful combinations. Of course, the games never last long enough for this to take place The cartoony graphics do have charm, but they are somewhat at odds with the serious tone of the game. Invading demons just don't seem right when they bound across the scene like Batman and Robin. It may work for games like Freedom Force, but not for WCIII. If Blizzard had actually made a strategy game like it intended, I could forgive the weak plot and childish graphics. But the overwhelming flaw in gameplay is unforgivable. Good intentions count for nothing when this is the result; a game uninventive and disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but Red Alert 2 and StarCraft were better.
Review: First of all the video scenes were great. The idea of heros and skill levels was cool. But the unit count limit and the upkeep make it annoying to play. The graphics are good, but the 3D is wasted. The units would be better if they didnt have so many things to use, simplicity in battle is best. Overall i liked it, but RA2 and SC were better by far.
Rating: 
Summary: WarCraft Forever
Review: WarCraft returns once again to our home PCs. It's been years since I've (or we) entered the world of Azeroth and once again to fight evil, and surprisingly the evil are no longer the savage Orcs, but another terrible army of the Undead.
I've played WarCraft 1 and 2 since long ago, and when I saw the 3rd part, I've waited patiently all these years and finally I have a copy of it on the date of release. The story continues to uravel surrounding the humans and especially the Orcs, including new races, as we all know, the stalky and elite Night Elves and the waves of destruction of the Undead. Blizzard has done it again to make a fine balance of the races (similar to StarCraft, great job!) and it's tremndously fun to play on the net with people havng their own favorite races which are jsut as good as the other, that is if you know how to use them effectively. The graphics are not breathtaking but they are undoubtly neat and smooth and perfect for WarCraft 3, since it's a 3d engine based yet sticks to the upper view like the old ones. The music is extremly good, just too bad you can't hear it as it is quite dull in the background during the game, but when I started the WarCraft World Editor (yes, you can make your own missions, stories, world, etc) I went to the Sound Editor and I heard the music and let me say it is the finest soundtrack I've heard. I extracted it to my hard drive and copied it to a CD (yeah!). The editor is pretty complicated if you're new in programming, but eventually with a little effort you might make it by reading ReadMe files, and it will be very rewarding. If you have an unlimited imagination and effort, you could make a whole movie using the editor in a 3D world! Yep, imagine making your own WarCraft movie that could be War, Action, Comedy, Drama, well so on and so forth...Just without the voices...just text based. And there are literally TONS of characters and enivornments to pick and use in the editor.
THE RACES:
The Humans and Orcs are pretty much similar to the 1st and 2nd part of the game series, with a bit of new techs and heroes. The humans have more modern technology and magic (the wizard is amazing) and more "powerful" foot soldiers and ground forces. But they do not beat the Orcs in close battle, who are masters of close combat. They are my second favorite race and they pack a hard punch and are hard to defeat in battle (literally!)and they have more "raw" magic and has faith in brute strength.
In the story, the Orcs have become more noble with honor and with the leadership of Thrall, who as a child been raised by humans, must find their destiny and shamanistic ancestorship.
One of the new race is the Night Elves, my favorite of them all. They are the oldest of the races and 10,000 years before WarCraft 1, they defeated the Burning Legion, a powerful demonic army that used the Orcs to wreak havoc in teh 1st and 2nd part. But the Orcs failed and were defeated by the humans. Anyway, they are unique as they can literally turn invisible during the night and they have the best ranged weapons, as they hate to come into contact with the foe. But however they are relatively weak and could be easily defeated in battle if not handled well. They have unlimted tree gathering, since their "workers" called Wisps, do not cut them down, but circle around them. Now as the threat of the Demons return, the Night Elves once again go to war.
Finally we have the Undead, who inevitably are "cool" and at the same time disgusting. They are now the new armies that the Burning Legion is using to substitute for the Orc's failure and to pave way for their invasion once again. The Undead are probably the best in building as their workers (called Acolytes) build the same as the Probes in StarCraft. They have the largest selection of troops and they are pretty hard to use, and requires and solid tactic.
The races are well thought out and are effective in their ways.
WarCraft 3 is not anything new, but it can sure keep you playing for a few days non-stop. For those looking for a game to play, buy this WarCraft 3. I've heard alot about Neverwinter Nights and it's bugs that drove many people crazy with problems and crashes repeatedly, but save your money and but this title instead. It might not be an RPG but it works. The story in W3 is by far one of the good ones in any game right now and I got very curious about what was going to happen next and so I kept playing on and on. And the end was extremly rewarding! Just so you know, there is an evil twist in the plot!
So, in all try this game, it's well made and does not have any high requirements, but yet it's not a revolutionary game, as it is practically just a normal strategy game, but you cannot build a whole horde of troops, but just a platoon of them (just 10-20 troops), this might be a dissapointment to those looking for a full-scale warfare, but it's just as fun. For those who like a good strategy title, buy this!
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of [...]
Review: With over 1 year of anticipation for this title to be released, what a Disappointment!! Many other games out today FAR EXCEEDED the graphics, sound effects and gameplay. The graphics look like a "Tonka Truck" game for your 3 year old. The sound effects and gameplay are the same as WarCraft 2. Where are all of the major revolutionary breakthroughs Blizzard promised?? The only reason this game will be a hit is because of all the pre-order hype and all the [...] like me that bought it without waiting for the reviews to come out.
Rating:
Summary: I expected so much more.....
Review: I am a tremendous fan of Starcraft and Diablo, although I never enjoyed the older Warcraft games very much. I had very high hopes for Warcraft III but have been greatly disappointed. I find the game's focus on tactical-level combat to be interesting, but it is very poorly implemented. Here are the principal things I don't like: 1. Useless graphics for graphics' sake. It seems that Blizzard has determined that the more intricate the graphics, the better the game. The building and unit models are highly detailed, but when the camera is pulled as far as possible away from the units (which it has to be to play effectively), the units are indistinguishable from one another. Twenty intermixed units of varying shapes and colors, each surrounded by an aura and with a floating icon over its head, all arrayed against a needlessly intricate background and surrounded by various spell effects.... it is just pointlessly complicated and extraordinarily messy. 2. The game runs very slowly. I run this game on a Mac G4 400 Mhz machine using a 16 meg video card, all well within the stated minimum specs. Even a small game using the absolute minimum graphics and sound settings runs so slowly that it is impossible to control troops effectively. I wish Blizzard had been honest about the required processor speeds. 3. It is impossible to zoom out far enough. One can zoom in so closely as to see the faces of individual units, but it is impossible to zoom out far enough to see a sufficiently large piece of the battlefield. The view is much more narrow than is the case with Starcraft although it is probably comparable to Warcraft II (which annoyed me in the same way). I have such respect for Blizzard, and particularly its support for the Mac, that this release is shocking to me, and I desperately hope that a patch will be released which will somehow address the issues discussed above. In the meantime, I am sure that these problems could be solved by my buying a new machine with a 2GHz processor. Will Phillips
Rating:
Summary: Why is Warcraft 3 3D?
Review: The game is a lot of fun to play and has lots of replay value. But my question is: "Why is Warcraft 3 a 3D game?". It plays as a 2D game, the 3D features are not very useful in any real game play. The vast majority of the time you always use the default camera angle anyway. The rotation feature is also useless since you don't see anything you couldn't have without rotating, so why rotate? Basically this is a 2D game that also comes with all the disadvantages of being 3D. Warcraft 3 would have been much better if it had been a 2D game like Warcraft 2 and Starcraft, and it wouldn't have needed the steep system requirements either.
Rating:
Summary: Blizzard knows how to make them
Review: What I think is great about this game, was the fact that although it was supposed to be released a couple years ago, Blizzard changed the gameplay b/c of poor reponses from beta testers. I think the original gameplay involved mainly heros and not the traditional starcraft/warcraft game that many people have learned to love. But I think Blizzard comes through brilliantly with warcraft3. There's just enough about it that's old enough for the die hard SC fans and WC2 fans to move on to this game, but at the same time, new enough features to make this hands above the rest. I liked how they capped the units at 90, it gives the game much more strategery than the normal build a legion of units and rush them in blindly. The single player is also really fun (for those of you devoted to multiplayer, you should really give it try). And now, there's even difficulty settings for more experienced players. One of my favorites features is the built in replay features. If you scour the net, you will quickly find some of the top players have recorded their games, and you can watch and quickly learn how the best players do what they do. Finally, the game has gone through a ton of beta testing, but Blizzard is always monitoring comments from fans and making the game more balanced. When I first heard about WC3, I thought that it would be Blizzard's first failure, but like my friend said, "Anything Blizzard touches is gold."
Rating:
Summary: From someone who hated previous Warcrafts
Review: I hated the previous Warcrafts/Starcraft gameplay. They all came down to resource management and I always felt that when you strip away the eye candy these games were nothing but beauracratic training tools. I barely gave WarCraft 3 a chance but I'm glad I did. There's a plot line running through this game that blows away many dedicated role playing games (with some very balsy plot twists that left me grinning). Also the designers broke up the day-long city seiges with very creative small-party quests. Blizzard took a hard look at the warcraft gameplay and fixed just about everything that was previously booring. Do the 3d graphics make a difference? Yes. They drew me into the game far more than the 2d sprites ever could. They are very cartoonish, to be sure, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The designers obviously had a blast coming up with the beasties and it's a ton of fun watchcing them go through their animations. Also you gotta give some credit for the stunning cut scenes which surpass the movies in Diablo II.
Rating:
Summary: Warcraft III: Yet another standard Blizzard sequel
Review: Warcraft III does well in the long tradition of Blizzard sequels:
Outdated graphics upon release, terrible voice acting, thin plot, but gorgeous cut scenes. It has a number of similarities to Warcraft II, which makes it easy to pick up, but also detracts from the overall appeal. The peons still have the same ridiculous Cockney accent, the Grunts are Warriors are still your standard Orc and Human shock troops, etc. etc. While the two new races are welcome additions to the Warcraft world, and day and night adding a little diversity to game play, there really isn't much to hold my attention. Yeah, it's neat that my heros can retain skills, spells and items from adventure to adventure, gaining experience as they go along, but Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Dungeon Seige, etc. etc., they all do it better. Warcraft III is part adventure, part role-playing, part mindless "make lots of guys and attack", and unfortunately, the game's whole isn't greater than it's parts. If you loved the mindless hack-and-slash of Diablo II, this is right up your alley. If you're wanting anything stimulating or challenging, I'd suggest going somewhere else.
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