Somebody needs to remake Warcraft I and Warcraft II!!!!
22 Mar 2015I’ve always thought that the lore of the Warcraft universe is pretty awesome. So lately, I’ve decided to play through the Warcraft games again and see what kind of story unfolds. Frankly, I wasn’t aware that Warcraft I had any story of any kind. I remember playing through them when I was like 8 (using cheats, duh). Anyway I’ve discovered a couple things.
Warcraft I has insanely powerful units. Basically, if you get attacked by a group of four guys, they can pretty much level your base. There is no drag selecting of units, and you can only have 4 units selected at any given time. This makes the game fairly difficult because it makes reacting to situations take forever. Again, if you simply send one unit in at a time to deal with the guys, they’ll pretty much kill your guy in four hits. So basically each unit would get one hit in before they died. So yeah. Pretty outrageously difficult. Did I mention that there is no right-clicking in this game? I didn’t? Okay, there’s no right-clicking in this game. If you want to move, hit ‘m’ then left-click where you want your selected guys to move. Need to attack? Hit ‘a’ then click on the guy that’s about to get turned into a blood puddle. Oh yeah, and ranged units are crazy. I had several spear throwers guarding a bridge, 6 if I recall correctly, and yeah. It was a death trap. Basically, an enemy would approach, you’d hear a “Thhhhrsh” (sound of spears being thrown), then “THACK” (sound of spears hitting a unit), then “ARRGH” (sound of enemy hummie dying). Oh and the units are slower than dirt in this game, sooooooo I really can’t overstate how op ranged units are.
Seriously, check out how slow the units are in Warcraft 1
Warcraft II is for the most part, totally playable. I’ve noticed that Dosbox seems to lag a little bit when I play games on it (as in Warcraft III runs more smoothly, which really doesn’t make sense when you think about it). There is only one thing that is frustrating about this leaf of the Warcraft tree. That is, the AI is retarded. Say you have a group of ogres standing guard some where. The top left ogre gets hit by an Elven Archer. The top left ogre then goes to exact revenge on the archer, and gets promptly butchered by the several Alliance scum bags that are now attacking your group of ogres. Next, the melee units of the attacking group move in and attack the next ogre. 2-4 of your group of 9 (now 8) ogres moves in to assist. Of course the player is left wondering “Uhhhh, I guess the rest of the group rolled nat 1’s on their awareness checks and have no idea that the ogres standing 3 feet from them are under attack???” Anyway, beside that small hiccup, the game is fine, for the most part. The only other thing I can think of is it seems like the enemy AI is lacking as well. What I mean by this is the following: for the most part, the only enemy units you will encounter throught the scenario will be the enemy units that exist when the map is loaded. There will be VERY few (none?!?) units the enemy AI will build to replace the ones you kill. I remember the last orc scenario there were several landing parties consisting of a few paladins, and other units that I killed during the first…I don’t know, 10 minutes or so. Then, for the rest of the hour long scenario, not a single landing party. So yeah, I’m fairly certain Warcraft II is incredibly difficult to actually lose in. The most difficult part is if you run out of gold. And there were a couple scenarios where I think every drop of gold on the map was mined.
Warcraft III is awesome. No seriously, it’s awesome. AI is great, the unit control is 10x better than Warcraft II and so much better than Warcraft I that the ratio approaches infinity. So far, I’ve beaten the Human and Undead campaigns of Reign of Chaos. The story is much more in depth than the other two games. For one, story unfolds throughout the individual scenarios, as well as several cutscenes and videos. In the first two games, no story of any kind is unfolded during the actual gameplay.
In Warcraft I, there are two fat orcs who give you vague information
and in warcraft II there is a talking map that orders you around
SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALL THIS??? IS THIS A WARCRAFT FRANCHISE REVIEW??? MAKE YOUR POINT ALREADY!!!
OKAY STOP YELLING AT ME :(
The point is, I think the story of all the games is interesting, but the gameplay of the first two games is distracting. I think it would be…nay, I think it is mandatory that Warcraft I and Warcraft II be remade. Warcraft III’s map editor would be more than sufficient, BUUUUUUT, with Warcraft III’s assets going public on Starcraft II’s map editor, it may behoove the modern modder to make the remakes as modern as possible and go for Starcraft II’s editor. Problem is, this is nowhere near as straightforward as one may assume. So seriously, if you’re reading this and have the knowhow, get to it. It may even be appropriate to change the script and include things that are relevant to the lore of the Warcraft universe, but aren’t in the original games. Kind of like what Peter Jackson did with The Hobbit. Personally, I loved that he added extra stuff in there that wasn’t in the book, but I wish he would have skipped the whole 3D thing. I freaking HATE 3D movies.