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Macguide Issue 11  So you have Warcraft III - Reign of Chaos (see Macguide #7 for a review if you don't) and you have by now finished all the single player missions: you have crushed Lordaron, settled Kalimdor and defeated the Burning Legion. What next? The Frozen Throne, of course!
Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne is the expansion pack for Blizzard's award winning Warcraft III game, and it's packed full of goodies that improve on excellence.
First on all on the table are new units and heroes for all the races; the Night Elves get the new Warden hero, who sprays her enemies with a fan of knives, along with a much needed tank unit in the Mountain Giant and a new anti-magic unit, the Faerie Dragon. The Humans get the blood elf hero who can rain fiery doom down on the doomed heads of his doomed enemies, along with a highly effective anti-magic unit the Spellbreaker and a light, flying anti-tower unit in Dragonhawk riders.
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I bring Pandamonium!
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Die you, you, elves you!
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There is nothing more scary than a glowing pink Archmage
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The Undead get the tank hero they were missing in the Crypt Lord who can spawn scarabs from dead foes along with a healing unit, the Obsidan Statue, which can morph into an anti-magic unit the Destoryer. Finally the Orish Hoard gets the healing it was missing in the new Troll shaman hero, as well as an explosive flying unit, troll batriders and an elusive Tauren new magic-user.
As you can probably tell from the descriptions above [that's if you have any idea at all what he's talking about! Ed] the new units perfectly complement the forces they have been introduced into, filling gaps and increasing the balance of the game on no end. Alongside these new units there are a multitude of other changes such as the ability to cue upgrades and the upgrade to Steam Tanks that lets them attack flying units, all of which just improves the gaming experience.
New campaign and race
But wait, there is a whole lot more! You also get a whole new single player campaign which starts with the Night Elves then moves on to the Humans (though really it's mostly Blood Elves) and finally to the Undead. Each race has eight missions (though one of the Undead missions is split into three sub-missions) which all in someway revolve around The Frozen Throne of the title. These missions are enjoyable, especially if you are a long term Warcraft fan, and they introduce a new race, the Naga, all fully realised with there own buildings, upgrades, hero and units. That said the missions do assume that you know what you are doing (as you have clocked Warcraft III already, they presume) so they don't go easy on you.
Finally, there is a whole new lot of multiplayer maps and features with the best being the ability to hire neutral heroes such as the great Pandaren Brewmaster.
But it isn't all roses. First of all, there are only two cinematic scenes in the whole game, one at the start and one at the end and while they are excellent you feel a little ripped off that there wasn't one at the end of every race like in Reign of Chaos. Secondly, it is disappointing that the Naga are not fleshed out a little more and turned into a fully multiplayerable race, because they are enjoyable to use and would add volumes to the multiplayer experience.
Finally, the Orcs have been left out of the single player storyline and instead given an RPG type game, but unfortunately Blizzard's idea of RPG seems to be Diablo, so it mostly consists of running errands and chopping your way through respawning monsters. Yawn.
Pros:
It's Warcraft but better!
Better multiplayer
Secret levels are great
New storyline, units, upgrades and balance changes
Cons:
It's still Warcraft
Naga not fully realised
Not enough cinematics
Hack and Slash RPG is boring
© Parkside Media 2004
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