Friday 8 February, 2008

Gamelog #2

GAMEPLAY

The campaign in general was very smooth. The story was also up to par generally. The major thing that I have against the story was that I couldn’t help but notice the numerous parallels to Starcraft. For example there was that mission in which Arthas had to survive for 30 minutes before help could arrive- extremely similar to the Starcraft mission in which the humans had to survive for 30 minutes before being saved. However Blizzard did add a few twists to the various missions, such as adding in optional quests like having to save Timmy and destroy a grain caravan.

Gameplay wise I would have to say that it was near perfect. Each of the four races has a distinct feel to them, which enables the player to adopt very different strategies. For example the Undead can field massive armies of skeletons which can then be used as shields to take damage from melee units, while the Orcs have to rely on a smaller (but stronger) army. Then there are also different hero units for each race which further impacts the player’s strategy.



DESIGN

The most interesting part of this game is the inclusion of hero units. Since each hero has its own special powers the hero that the player chooses will directly impact the strategy later on. For example if a player knew that his/her opponent would be undead, then the logical choice would be to choose a paladin as the hero. In addition, the hero units also give the game a bit of a feeling like an RPG game instead of a traditional strategy game.

However the greatest weakness of the game was the in-game cutscenes. It’s actually not just the cutscenes, but the entire tone of the game. The art style is obviously cartoonish- units are drawn in cartoon style with bright colors. Although some players might find this funny, I would much rather prefer a more realistic tone to the game. For example I would have preferred something more akin to Starcraft or Command and Conquer. Add in the fact that the cinematic scenes are done in a realistic style, it results in that the player is hungry for the cinematics which they barely pay any attention to the in game cut scenes.

[Nicolas Kent - Grader]

A agree with you on both the cut-scene and cartoon points. The truth is, while in many ways I respect Warcraft 3 as a more interesting game than Starcraft...Starcraft has still always felt somehow better. Of course, I suck horrendously at both.

Good log, by the way.