Warcraft 3, is it fun/good?

[kandrathe]

Compared to other Blizzard games I'm still somewhat a newb. I bought it and Frozen Throne after playing it at my nephews house this summer.

IMHO, it is just like Starcraft with the exception of;

- more colorful and vived graphics
- a little cartoonish and the sounds are very humorous (if you like that sort of thing -- it's a big hit with my 12yo nephew)
- the story/plot (as with many of Blizzard games) is an even thinner veneer for getting to the game play.
- Heros which add a variable strength vastly upgradable unit.
- Fantasy characters (er, uh, like Zerg, and Protoss are in any reality...)

My beefs with it (tainted by my WCII and Starcraft play);
- the Hero's start at level 1 without stuff in each game so they become just another Unit/Strategy
- the Computer AI is insane! The computer AI has the Hero's scream around the map taking on
everything, sacrificing their units, grabbing all the loot, and leveling their heros at blinding speed.
It seems like every minute I get a message saying that the computer has lost their hero again.
Anyway, I play it on "Painfully Slow" speed, just so my human reflexs have a chance.
- I was hoping for something more like Heros of Might & Magic IV -- its not, but that may not be bad.
- not enough RPG -- but then again I like RPG's more than RTS's so that may just be me.
- removing the naval combat component -- that was a very fun aspect of WCII and is a big hole in WCIII which
makes WCIII more like SC in that you only have ground units and air units.

I really love;
- Night Elves -- the whole tree thing is just amazing to me. Trees that throw rocks are very cool.
- Undead Spirit Towers - sap/drain the life out of enemy units -- cool.
- I didn't have to learn all new unit commands and interface (mostly the same as SC).
- Taking on 1 computer AI player on a really big map, so I can get to some of the loot.

Summary: For them to spend the moolah to make this thing they didn't deviate too far from what they already have in Starcraft or Warcraft II. Anyway, this is a serious RTS, with a fun and humorous face on it. The back story is a bit morose and is a pretty dark cover for what is really a quite bright and funny game. It may be that they wanted to strike a compromise between the vast differences in their demographics and failed to deliver to either. It may be too twinky and light for a serious game, and too dark and "adult" for the (parents of ) children. I have a good friend that loves to play Starcraft and he is pretty good at it. He is very frustrated by how ineffective he is at playing Warcraft, so it is in many ways a different game and will need to learn new strategies. He often says "Lets just play Starcraft."