Let's face it, if you're interviewing candidates to perform a voice-over for a highly polished cd-rom title, it's hardly likely that you're going to pick someone with a highly embarrassing speech impediment. Imagine David Bellamy in a state of feverish excitement trying desperately hard to pronounce lots of words featuring the dreaded letter 'R' and failing miserably, and you've got the Warcraft intro in a nutshell.
Even bloody simple stuff like 'brave warriors' suddenly becomes 'bwave wawwiors' and while we all found this highly amusing in the office, it's hardly the sort of thing that atmospheric intros are made of. Still, as always it's the actual game that matters, and when I finally got to the opening level I was greeted with Warcraft 2 has hi-res graphics which, it has to be said, look very impressive indeed when compared to the graphics in the first game.
The sprites are very big with lots of detail, and the scenery graphics are rich and. Suitably impressed with all this graphical loveliness, I innocently began to click on a few sprites when The voice-over from hell was back!
Click on a peasant and they respond with 'wot iz it? Click on a footman and he says your owders? This was just too much. I went straight to the options screen, turned unit acknowledgments off, and when I went back to the game there was sweet, sweet silence.
Finally I could get round to playing the damned thing without having to listen to the most irritating twerp in the universe. I suppose that the obvious question to raise at this point for anyone who's played the first game is: "Has it got any better? This is because Blizzard the designers have kept the learning curve for the sequel pretty much the same as it was in the original, in as much as each new level introduces a new aspect of game-play.
This will probably suit newcomers to the game, but it's bound to piss off Warcraft veterans. The game's designers seem to think that the average pc gamer can only cope with getting used to one ;jor two new elements of gameplay per level - come on guys, we're not stupid you know. If they'd made the first level bigger they could have taught the player all the basics in the game which aren't exactly difficult: you cut trees for wood, mine for gold, train peasants to do your work etc , but as it stands you have to plod through loadsa levels before you get into the real meat.
When you finally get there, you'll discover lots of new things to play with. You now get fighter ships, transport ships for taking your units across the sea, scout planes, new ground vehicles, cannon and scout towers to keep the enemy at bay, lots of new mage spells and a much higher level of resource management than was offered in the first game.
This all adds up to make the whole thing challenging and rewarding. Whereas the original Warcraft was a tad too easy and the gameplay repetitive after continuous play, the sequel really is genuinely difficult when you get to the later levels, and the missions are varied enough to keep you interested right up until the end.
Apart from the speech, the only thing that really pissed me off about the game was the artificial intelligence or the lack of it, as it were. Take this as an example: send a peasant off to cut some wood and he'll go off and cut down trees miles away from where you sent him, stupidly ignoring a big bunch of trees right beside the lumber mill he's meant to come back to.
And the fighters are a bit thick, too; if you don't tell them to attack specific targets they'll often just stand around admiring the scenery instead of taking the initiative and kicking the shit out of the nearest baddie. Okay, so it has to be said that the dodgy ai is slightly annoying - but it doesn't change the fact that overall Warcraft 2 is a very addictive and enjoyable game.
It's even better still if you are able to take advantage of the multi-player option and take on a human opponent over a network. It's a definite 'must buy' for anyone who liked the original.
Nostalgia Is a wonderful thing. Actually, I'm lying, nostalgia is usually little more than a distorted and over-romanticised view of the past, especially when it comes to games. Let's be realistic, as much as we loved playing the likes of Warcraft II when they first crawled out of the evolutionary pond which spawned the RTS genre back in the mid '90s, we'd be hard pressed to find anything worthwhile in them now. For starters, graphics do count, and Warcraft Il's boast that it features Super VGA graphics at x is a bit like an aging Casanova bragging about having a 2in penis in a room full of 6ft Amazonians.
A bloody war begins and all the decisions on which the victory of one of the parties will depend lies on your shoulders. You have to choose a race for which you will need to fight. During the passage of the game for Orcs and Humans, twelve tasks are presented according to the plot.
Their combat system is practically the same, but there are differences in the appearance of the characters. Quests for each race have their own individual strategic history. The gameplay of the game has some very interesting gameplay features.
It has the ability to limitlessly improve the abilities and characteristics of the characters. An older version of the real-time strategy classic, this fantasy adventure still holds interest despite out-of-date graphics and limited advanced features. Warcraft II allows you to play either as a human or an orc, and each race is given its own special set of abilities and talents.
The goals are basic: build bases for your peasants, collect gold and lumber and keep the enemy at bay. Gameplay is straightforward and the game's graphics, while not state-of-the-art this version was released in , after all are not so basic as to detract from the game itself.
You aren't able to queue build orders, or assign group numbers to selected units, as just a few examples. During testing, we found that the demo works well on Windows XP, as well as on older versions of Windows. If you consider yourself a Warcraft II junkie and are looking for a simple nostalgic challenge, then this demo is worth the download.
Full Specifications. What's new in version demo. Release November 9, Date Added October 18, Version demo. Operating Systems. Additional Requirements None. The game contains new features such as the "fog of war" option that elevates strategic planning to a higher level, much larger maps and combined-arms tactics.
New units in the sequel include elven archers, gryphons, death knights, battleships, airships, dragons and more. For fans craving even additional scenarios, both a sound and map editor have been included, ensuring longer life of the product. Multi-player action is supported via LAN up to eight players , modem or direct link, with the latter two accommodating two players. WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness provides the player with two interface and preference choices for gameplay.
The first configures keyboard and mouse commands to replicate functionality of the style used in WarCraft: Orcs and Humans that allowed automatic centering on the mini-map by clicking the right mouse button. The second configuration replaces that functional key press by giving the player the capability to induce automatic commands instead with the loss of auto-centering on the mini-map.
In addition to an in-depth background story regarding the warring factions, the manual contains complete information on legends, creatures and resources of Azeroth along with full disclosure of tendencies and attributes inherent to the Nations of the Alliance human faction and the Orcish Horde.
These include data on units air, ground and naval , spells, buildings and a "dependency" tree for tracking pre-requisites during development of each race's infrastructure. For the kingdoms of Azeroth the real-time battle between Humans and Orcs continues with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the sequel to its highly succesful predecessor
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