WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne English Review

Besides Blizzard Entertainment, just few companies may praise themselves with the results of their work influencing so much the evolution of video games. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans showed that not only RPGs but also strategy games can fit inside a fantasy universe. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness confirmed the future of this genre is the multiplayer mode. Diablo revived the RPG genre which is very popular nowadays and Starcraft was and still is the almost perfect game despite its graphics considered somehow old-fashioned even when the game was launched.
Blizzard is not known just by the fact that all their games are successful but because of the special care they pay to balancing gameplay elements. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos stand up by the way they introduced the two new races, the elves and the undeads, each with its own role and personality inside this universe and by the way they reached an almost ideal balance between the four factions. On the other hand, when Blizzard announces a new game you’ll have to wait at least two years and they will delay it a few times. Surprisingly this was not the case of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne which was launched exactly on the date first announced, the 1st of July. For the moment we don’t know if this was an exception but considering the fact we’re dealing with an add-on, the one year period of time necessary for its development is not that short.

Though Warcraft III is a multiplayer game Blizzard did its best to link the story in a believable way with that from the Reign of Chaos. On one hand we get better polished characters because they are well known from the original game and the intrigue goes on with the help of the newcomers. On the other hand the storyline is not so convincing during the dramatic moments because they still chose characters with personalities where good and evil is very powerful. This is why the twists are based on somehow forced emotions and motivations which don’t manage quite well to convince us. An example would be Sylvanna Windrunner, a secondary but complex character who reminded me of Kerrigan from Starcraft.
Who will win the race between Death Knight Arthas and Night Elf Demon Hunter Illidan to get the prize which consists of the release of Lich King Ner’zhul who is being held captive in the Icecrown ice mountain from the Northrend continent? You’ll get your answer after playing the three single-player campaigns which can really give you lots of headaches, especially if you play on the second level of difficulty. You’ll have to get used to the new units and the new abilities of the heroes, the enemy AI is also better, an improvement you fell mostly in skirmish were both adversaries start without any advantage. There are three levels of difficulty in the skirmish mode and sometimes is very hard to tell the difference between the AI and a human opponent but still, he constructs some buildings in the wrong moment or in wrong areas which don’t offer him the right strategically position. He usually knows when to retreat, when to attack and when to extend himself and sometimes it organizes ambushes for your units which are attracted right when you’re not paying any kind of attention.