I'll admit it, I haven't played an RTS game ever since I was playing in the StarCraft: Brood War beta. The whole genre really got sick to me, and after playing StarCraft, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires and countless other RTS games, I had to stop. Since then, the only RTS-ish game that I've played would be Pikmin, and that's a mighty stretch. So for the past two months I've been playing WarCraft III beta one thing has come to my attention: I completely suck at these types of games now. Receiving my beta copy 9 weeks later than everyone else didn't help matters either, but with some research and impressions from other beta testers, I was able to at the very least hold my own against most of the people I played against. So you're probably thinking why haven't we put up some impressions earlier, right? Considering this was a beta test, we could easily spout about how beautiful this game is and merely say that the game play is "balanced" and leave it at that. There have been numerous patches during the course of the beta test which have altered a lot of the balance in the game, so we decided that it would be better to wait until it was almost over to give our impressions instead of attempting to do it during the beta.

The first thing that caught my eye when I played WarCraft III were the graphics. The fully 3D environments and characters are really a sight to behold, with each unit having awesome animations in combat or elsewhere. The colors used in the game give it a really nice, vibrant look to it. In fact, the game looks a lot like Grandia II to me. The character designs are really nice and it's obvious that the artists at Blizzard have a wild imagination. Everything from the Night Elves' Keeper of the Grove and Demon Hunter to the Undead Scourge's Meat Wagon and Abomination have truly awesome designs to them, not to mention dealing out an insane amount of pain to boot. Because WarCraft III is a fully 3D world, you can actually scale your view in or out to get a better view of the action.

Getting down to it, WarCraft III is a much different beast than StarCraft was, and very different from what WarCraft II was. The most important addition to the WCIII system are the new heroes for each of the four races. Each hero acts somewhat like the leader of your army, and has the ability to really turn the tide of each battle to your favour if used correctly. For example, the Orcs' BladeMaster has the ability to create mirror images of himself as well as the ability to cast an extremely powerful spell called Bladestorm. On the other hand you have a hero character such as the Paladin who is able to cast healing spells on your units or completely ressurect them if they fall in battle, which becomes extremely useful during melees where you're outnumbered. To add a little more spice to the game, Heroes also raise their levels in an RPG-ish fashion to 10 levels in a game, each level giving a hero more power and hit points as well as making them faster in some cases. In addition to levelling up Heroes, their abilities can also level up as well, making them more powerful as they progress. My favourite Hero in the game right now? The Night Elves' Demon Hunter, based on pure looks. Talk about your badass warriors!

Unlike StarCraft, in WCIII you'll have to work for your resources, literally. While lumber is plentiful around every starting point in the game, you're going to have to battle neutral enemies for control of the gold mines that are scattered around the map. These neutral enemies (called Creeps) aren't exactly the toughest units you'll face in a multiplayer game, but they do bring something that's a little new to RTS games. What really makes WCIII stand out from its competitors is definitely each of the four races in the game. The Humans, Orcs, Night Elves and Undead all have their different strengths and weaknesses, and with the inclusion of night and day cycles in the game, actually recommend that you time your attacks perfectly to maximum the potential of your armies. WarCraft III also puts restrictions on your upkeep and thus affects the maximum number of units you can have in your army. Unlike in StarCraft, you won't see people massing hundreds of little Zerglings and Hydras in an attempt to overwhelm their opponent, which I think is a good thing. WCIII attempts to stray from the norm by emphasizing smaller rushes backed up by Heroes, as opposed to the huge, intimidating armies found in SC. Overall the basic gameplay in WCIII is very well designed, and is really a break from the imitators and also-rans in the genre.

But that's not to say that WCIII is perfect by any means at this point. There are still a couple of issues that need to be resolved in the game, and it's uncertain if they will because of the underlying structure of the Hero system. The main problem I have with the game is that it sort of lends itself a little too much to mindless massing of units. Seasoned veterans of any RTS game know that it's better to mix up your army rather than produce dozens of one unit. In WarCraft III the ability to win by massing shot up a little bit, and that's partly due to the Heroes in the game. The abilities that the Heroes possess in the game can often times make what's called a hard counter, soft. In most competitive games, hard counters refer to a rock -> paper -> scissors type of strategy, where rock will never beat paper, and paper will never beat scissors. In WarCraft III, a mass army of Human Knights wouldn't have a chance against cleverly placed Undead Meat Wagons stationed on a ledge above your expansion or main outpost because Knights are melee units and cannot attack, while Meat Wagons have limited long range attacks. However, throw an Archmage Hero into the mix and he'll wipe them out by himself using Blizzard, thus making an otherwise hard counter soft. While I don't expect Blizzard to fix this because the Hero system is such an integral part of the game, I'm hoping that Heroes get a little de-emphasized by reducing their power a little bit. Admittedly, it does change the way that RTS games are played, but those looking for a competitive game might have to look elsewhere, because I feel that WarCraft III is geared a little more to people who actually want to have fun, rather than those who want to just win.

July 3rd is just around the corner, and I'm certain that the 4.5 million people who have already preordered WarCraft III are going to have one hell of a time with the game. The single player mode of WCIII is terrific, perfecting blending RPG and RTS elements together in what's probably one of the best single player campaigns since... well, Brood War. The voice acting for all of the units as well as the NPCs are very well done, and actually remind me a lot of WarCraft II. The backstory of the inevitable Burning Legion coming to invade Azeroth only gives us a peek at what Blizzard is planning on doing for the expansion pack that is certain to come out after the release of WCIII. Personally, I can't wait for Blizzard's latest masterpiece to come out, and from the looks of it, neither can 4.5 million other gamers!

· · · Reno