Ask The Next Level's AFX how often our instant messenger conversations are interrupted by me pointing out that I'm joining in on some hot two-on-two action on Battle.net, and he'll reply with "Die." He'll also ask you when Blizzard's going to finally put a Dinner Hall into their Warcraft games, but that's just silly talk.

What's also silly is just how spectacular Warcraft 3 is. Blizzard is one of the few game companies in the world that has a reputation built upon their unerring game quality, and Warcraft 3 will surely keep critics up all night in tears trying to find enough negative adjectives to attach to it.

That's not to say that this title's development was immune from the wrath of the gaming public, as previews described a game far different from its current state. Blizzard had even created a new term to emphasize Warcraft 3's innovate shift in design: RPS, Role-Playing Strategy. As development stumbled forward, however, features were stripped down or removed from the game completely, and the release had seemed to go through more delays than natural mathematical limitations allowed.

However, as you can see by the gushing hyperbole I used in the introduction of this review, Warcraft 3 came together perfectly in the end. While it may be just another Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game instead of the RPS Blizzard described, it's one of the best RTS's you'll ever play.

The most striking and obvious change is the push of Warcraft into the third dimension. While this isn't too special on its own, it's Blizzard's phenomenal sense of style and artistry that really blows you away. Units animate fluidly and the top-quality artwork rivals the work from any other game, ever. If you have a Japanese fanboy friend who always likes to insult Western games' struggles with style, install Warcraft 3 and hope itstops the pretentious blathering.

One of the few holdovers from the original RPS design is the inclusion of the Hero units. Blizzard experimented with this type of unit in the Warcraft 2 expansion and Starcraft, but Warcraft 3 is the first game where you're not afraid to charge your Hero into battle instead of having him/her hide in the back of your base surrounded by defensive towers in fear of dying. This is accomplished through an experience and inventory system taken from RPGs in which your Hero gains experience points to "level up" with every enemy unit killed. There are also computer controlled neutral enemies littered across most maps for your Hero to kill and gain experience from if you don't feel powerful enough to fight your real enemy. Each new gain in level gives your Hero more hitpoints, an extra spell (or an upgrade for a current one), and more mana to cast those spells. You can also revive these heroes for a price at an Altar, a new building in Warcraft 3 specifically designed for Heroes, so there's no fear in having a Hero die other than having to tap your fingers on your desk while a resurrection meter fills up, hoping your enemy doesn't attack your leaderless army in the meantime.

Actually, "leaderless" isn't really the right word to describe not having a Hero in your army; it's more accurate to say that your army is now "useless." The Hero is the glue that keeps your units together, and without the power and magic abilities of your Hero, you might as well kill your own units yourself and save your opponent the trouble. The Human heroes can summon water elementals to join your army, smash hammers into the ground to shake the earth, and instantly heal damaged units. The other race's Heroes have their own spells that work with their racial identity (Orcs are the powerful brutes, Night Elves are quick and cunning, and Undead are great at... being scary and stuff), but I don't want to ruin the surprises.

The Heroes are also used to great effect in the 34 single-player campaign missions. While RTS's have usually only given you a basic storyline of "you hate them and they hate you," Warcraft 3 tells a dramatic tale of the valiant Human Prince Arthas's metamorphosis to an evil Undead Death Knight and the chaos that surrounds him. RTS games aren't known for engrossing storylines, but Warcraft 3 will grab you from the stirring opening cinematic and drive you to play through every mission until the dazzling end.

Due to the structured story, you have to play through each mission in order, so if you wanted to check out the new Undead and Night Elf races first, you have to create your own custom scenario. Also, many missions use Diablo-style "dungeon crawls" with a Hero and a few units instead of the classic "build a base and attack" standard of past RTS games. I found these dungeon crawls to be rather boring, but they admittedly help to vary the gameplay so you're not rebuilding new bases mission after mission.

The main draw of any Blizzard game is the online multiplayer combat on their free Battle.net service. Blizzard's learned a lot from previous games on how to improve the interface. After entering your username and password, you need to only press just one button before you're instantly thrown intocombat against random opponents equal to your skill level. This is so much more convenient than Starcraft's system where you had to scroll down a list of "BGH! LOTS OF GOLD! NO RUSH! KEKEKEGOGOGO" game descriptions to find a game you wanted to play. Of course, that type of game selection is still available in Warcraft 3, but because of the new random matchup system, custom games are used mainly for those crazy user-created mods. The actual online combat itself is radically different from Starcraft, and it may take veterans of that game time to adjust to the new style. Starcraft was built upon macromanagement (buildings and resources) while Warcraft 3 focuses on unit micromanagement (moving and using your units in combat). This focus shift is obvious from some new changes, including an upkeep tax (after making 40 "food" worth of units, you lose a percentage of the gold you mine to fund your army) and the food limit of 90. Battles are now usually fought with less than 30 units total and are won by how skillful your unit manipulation is rather than by how fast you can build and horde resources. It's a dramatic shift in game design that's been at the center of many "Starcraft vs Warcraft" debates, but it's nice of Blizzard to allow players the option of sticking to the macro heavy Starcraft or jump into the micro... err, "wars" of Warcraft.

If my endless stream of positive praise for this game hasn't moved you yet to own it, there's not much hope for you as a pleasant human being. This game is just one on the long list of reasons that Blizzard is one of the most respected developers in gaming history, and it'd be a shame if you went on not knowing the charm of hearing the Orc peon's determined "zug zug" work chant or the Human Mortar Team's promise of "mortar combat!" As anyone who's played this game can tell you, little moments like those are just the icing on this already delicious cake.

· · · OMGninjas