Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

Game: Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Developer: Blizzard
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1995
Stephen's Rating: 6/10

Basic Plot

The story follows the event known as the Second War. The Orcs have previously conquered Azeroth in the First War (the story of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans) after arriving through the Portal from their homeland of Draenor. The humans have fled to Lordaeron since and now the Orcs have set their sights on taking Lordaeron too.

Both factions have gained new allies and forces (including spellcasters) and the war ends with the Alliance (humans and their allies) capturing the Orc leader and closing the Portal (stranding the remaining Orcs, and preventing reinforcements from arriving).

Gameplay

Warcraft II was a giant leap toward the modern day real time strategy game (RTS). As with all real time strategy games players gather resources (wood, gold, and oil) and use those to build structures and military units. Resources run out, so part of the game is about spending them wisely.

A big shift from the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was the emphasis on character and story. This theme ran strong in the sequel games as well as the StarCraft franchise. The ultimate culmination of the building up of the Warcraft universe was the development of World of Warcraft.

Unlike the previous game, units were divided into land, sea, or air, greatly extending the array of units available to both factions. It also meant different maps were played out with different strategies. For example; an ocean based map could be more easily won by investing in sea or air forces.

Multiplayer was included in this game and became the norm for every RTS game that followed.

Positives

Dynamic and free flowing gameplay and good multiplayer support. Being able to group select units was a major improvement on older RTS games.

Negatives

Unlike StarCraft one of the major issues I had was the similarity between the two factions. The Orc and Human units were identical in almost every way except how they looked cosmetically. This ultimately meant it didn't matter which race you went, both had essentially the same unit composition.

Memorable Moments

When you clicked on a unit for long enough they would say little "extra" comments such as "stop poking me!" if you clicked a peon for long enough. Quirky and memorable.