Warcraft III Battle Chest - PC/Mac

Locked away in my room at 3am, headphones on my head and whispering into my microphone at my teammate on Skype, I play Warcraft like an addict. The single player version is very interesting, with a great storyline and cool cutscenes. You get to play as several different heroes from different races, and the story develops throughout each one, continuing into the next race. There is one campaign for each race in the original version (Scourge, Sentinel, Orc, etc) and there are even more campaigns in Frozen Throne, along with a "Bonus Campaign" which I highly recommend. It will take many many hours to finish the campaign, so the game is definately not too easy. However, some levels can get frustrating because of their difficulty. If you're having problems, that's what the strategy guides are for. The battle chest comes with guides that have level-specific tips; they tell you where to go to get a secret item, or what sorts of units to create to counter the attacks. The gameplay is very similar to that of Starcraft and similar as well to Age of Empires. The controls are simple; click to select, click-drag to select a group, and right-click to move or attack.I find it very easy to control what I want to do, and make 'control groups' (ctrl+a number) to select my units quicker. The graphics are solid, the music fits the mood, and the game is very, very addicting. The best part, in my opinion, is DotA - get your friends together and download the map, and spend hours developing your strategy with 77 different heroes, each with their own special ablilities. If you want to play the normal version, that's available as well on Bnet. Playing online is completely free, and updates are sent through the bnet portal. I love this game!

Okay I gave this game 5 stars to make you all happy, so be happy and smile. I recently started playing like, let me remember, ahhh yes, 2 days ago! StarCraft I've been playing for years. This is the review that compares what some people acclaim to be that StarCraft BW is better than WarCraft3, even though warcraft has all the graphics, etc. Please note that there will be disagreements between those of you about what I'm going to say, but its simply my opinion and what I think, so stick with me here. Even though WarCraft 3 is new and contains really good graphics and game play. What sets its gameplay slightly below StarCraft, for what I've seen as in experience in playing, is the fact that people like things to be simple. The heros in WC3 are nice but the thing about it is that it complicates game play, where you have to think about not just building and upgrading men, but which moves to give the hero, when to use it, lvl up points going where, and which hero will be more useful in the long run. Where else over at starcraft bw, you just simply have to upgrade men, build them, and use strategy. Ignore defense, etc, as both games need them. Another reason why I believe starcraft is thought to be a better game is because of the numbers of men you can get. Players just like to throw an army at another person, its just the way it is. I mean I'm probably not saying it in the best way possible but I hope you get my point. People like having a huge army to throw at their apponents. Its more.....thrilling? Exciting? Shrug. Oh yeah, okay this is what I think, after playing WarCraft 3: Reign Of Terror, I noticed one thing. Even though I haven't played it long, so I'm not sure if my analysis is wholesomely accurate, but its hard to distinquish one type of men from another. I built a large army once and it took me awhile to find the hero lol. So I'm over here trying to cast a spell found on the hero and I can't find him. Hotkeys I suppose, but having a bad memory, thats not going to work for me. Its just not for the hero but many of the men. I don't know, try it for yourself, bunch up a bunch of your men and I think you'll see what I'm talking about. And again this is probably just my problem. Shrug. Hope this helps.

Each of us in my family (who play this) own a copy of this, and we all play it together as allies against the computer. We have modified our maps to the hilt, which is one great thing about it! It is so customizable. Our main problem is that we can't get it to work over battle.net at all. We can log in, but we can't join each other's games. We wondered if we had swapped keys or something, but after carefully reinstalling every game and keeping our keys separate, it still won't work. But we still think this is the best game of its kind. Since it doesn't REQUIRE battle.net to play, we are able to play it over our home network. It's only four stars instead of five because it's beginning to develop some reliability issues. Sometimes the game will quit for no known reason. We save often to avoid losing our progress, but resuming from a saved game makes it impossible to save a replay. I suspect that this game quitting issue comes from the fact that operating systems, network drivers, and other software is constantly updated, but the game itself hasn't had an update in ages, so there may be some incompatibilities developing. A recent issue I've begun noticing is that custom maps are randomly disappearing from the maps folder. To solve this problem, I have another maps folder in my user directory on my computer, and I copy it to the game's maps folder before playing. It doesn't matter if other players don't have my map because the map is automatically copied to their computers when they join my game. The original StarCraft: Broodwar used to be the best in my opinion, but its compatibility with modern equipment has deteriorated to the point that we can no longer play it together. Prior to that, we played WarCraft II in the days before battle.net and ethernet networking. I dread the day Frozen Throne reaches the point of Broodwar, though perhaps by then, StarCraft II will be affordable (since every player needs a unique key, this can get expensive).

I finally returned to Warcraft III several years after purchasing it (and not finishing it). My problem at the time was that I played too many random maps, which ended up being the same thing over and over (settlement building, army building, attack, rinse, repeat) and I got tired of it. I never even finished the Alliance campaign. In the meantime I played World of Warcraft (which is set four years after the events of Warcraft III) and then I decided to give Warcraft III another try, both to finish a game I never finished and to play through the storylines that led up to WoW. By this time I was familiar with the big characters and events, thanks to playing WoW and reading about the lore, but it was very exciting to actually play through them on my own. Part of the WoW setting is the aftermath of the invasion of the Burning Legion, so to see it all happen in Warcraft III was really quite amazing. While Warcraft I and II seem to be more straightforward (essentially dealing with the humans and the orcs battling each other), Warcraft III really expands the lore of the game world. Arthas falls, the Legion invades, the orcs travel to Kalimdor, the night elves reawaken the druids, etc. There are a lot of big events that you can play through in these four campaigns. My only complaint would be that sometimes it gets a little repetitive with the settlement building aspect. I know this is the heart of a strategy game, but completing a chapter could take as long as two hours simply because you have to build everything up, create an army, attack an enemy outpost (thereby losing many units), and then re-building the army to do it all again. However, there are many other chapters that do not involve a high degree of settlement building, and some chapters are straightforward exploration and questing. So thankfully there is a variety of play styles across the campaigns. Finally, regarding the Battle Chest product specifically: this is simply a fantastic value. It comes with separate discs for Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne, the original game manuals for each, as well as mini Brady game guides for each. Blizzard certainly did not skimp on the included materials for this collection.

dear ppl who gonna buy this game, //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// i brought this game out of boredom and unlimitless freetime, it is a very fun game. its kinda a mixture of c&c and aoa, blending that with the old age that inhabited by dwarlves and dragons. at first i liked it. got kinda addicted. but then i realized some of the flaw of this game. here the flawz,,,,,:( uno) the #$%#ing mission sometime take 30 to 1 hr to complete. that too darn long......and beside that the darn multiplayer also take around 1 hr to beat. there's no way to speed up thing! the darn game is tooooo darn life consuming. dos) there not enough stragedy involving around this game. u build structure, build unit and then take to the enemy and attack and that's about it! command and conquer have 10 time the stragedy then this game. like defense and unit garrison and air raids. this game doesn't have crap and its toooo darn long to play!!!!! thres) toooooooo :O darn long to play!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my conClusIon......its a great game but if u don't have 5 or more hr a day staring at the computer screen then i suggest u not to buy this game. its a great game.....but its only for hardcore gamer....like myself. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// *game not fitted for people with a life ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Nostalgia is powerful. Playing Starcraft II stirred my desire to replay this game, and that desire was powerful enough to make me go buy a new copy of this since I couldn't find my old product keys. Really, there isn't anything new that I can say about the game that hundreds of other reviews haven't already said. It's a great game and I have a lot of fun with the single player campaign. There is really on one issue I have with the game. Macs running the newest versions of Mac OS can not install this game. At this moment (Feb 23, 2012) Blizzard does not have a patch for this issue. If you are a Mac user, check Blizzard's compatibility information on their website. This is not an issue if you are Windows user or if you are a Mac user running Windows via Bootcamp. Installation on my Windows 7 partition was quick and painless.

This item started my decade long addiction to this game. It included everything I needed to start playing one of the best games in history. I had no issues with the discs and the quality of the item was great.

I had a lot of fun with this game, much more than I thought I would. Warcraft 3 is a good old-fashion real-time strategy (RTS) game, with a somewhat outdated resource collection model and base-building formula. It also aspires to be a roleplaying game (RPG), thought it is only partially successful. Overall, if you like RTS games, this one is worth a try. However, I found it not to be as good as some of the more recent games, like Rise of Nations and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Gameplay: Warcraft 3 is remarkably like Warcraft 2 in a lot of ways, which is both good and bad. On the good side, it's fairly easy to learn and quite fun for a while. You choose one of four races to play (which are all distinct); gather gold, lumber, and food; build structures and units; explore the map; and conquer your enemies. It's a very typical 1990s-style RTS game. However, Warcraft 3 adds hero units to the mix, which greatly impact gameplay. These units can gain levels as in a RPG-style game and have special abilities. You really cannot win a game without them. Each race has a choice of 4 heroes to choose from (with The Frozen Throne expansion loaded) and there are neutral heroes that can be recruited. The hero model works quite well with the single-player campaign, since it weaves them into a broad story. However, it makes skirmish games a little awkward, since you are required to both build bases and find creeps (random monsters) for your hero to fight in order to gain levels. The single-player campaign is both quite long and well done. Actually, it seemed a little too long once I played through the original campaign and the Frozen Throne expansion. The story is the typical good vs. evil theme, which gets really hard to follow by the mid-point. However, the missions are generally well done, with a good mix of RPG-style adventuring and a heavy-dose of base-building and conquest. The missions are designed to allow you the chance to play all four races, and I didn't get the sense that they were just practice for multiplayer online games. That is, for solo gamers like myself, Warcraft 3 has a substantial amount of single-player content. Warcraft 3 is good, but does have some issues. Some of the single-player missions are quite hard and will require much reloading of saved games in order to complete. Still, the AI can be a little lame. There were countless times that my base would be invaded, and my units would not automatically move to fight the enemy. However, AI enemies do fight smart, often first attacking your units that can do the most damage to them. Rather surprisingly, the game does not have a pause feature so that you can look around the battlefield and give orders while pausing. And unlike recent RTS games, Warcraft 3 limits you to very small armies. You'll be lucky to have 20 fighting units at any given time. Additionally, the game just seems behind the times in other ways. The camera doesn't really zoom, graphics are cartoonish, and the micromanagement can be burdensome at times. As with every other Blizzard product I've played, the game was perfectly stable and well polished, and I came across no bugs or typos. In addition to a single-player campaign that will last around 70+ hours for the average player, there are a large number of skirmish maps included, multiplayer capacity, and a map editor. The Battle Chest itself includes a lot of reading materials, such as instruction manuals and hints/tips guides. As usual, Blizzard has supported the game well with patches and new official maps that are downloadable at their website. Graphics: The typical Warcraft visuals. A bit cartoonish, but with a lot of vivid colors and diverse environments. Spell effects look convincing, and there are day & night cycles that give the world a living feel. The game is actually cute in many ways and is probably supposed to be that way. The graphics will not win any awards, but they do serve their purpose. As with Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 has some of the best cutscenes I have ever seen in a video game. Sound: There is a lot of great voice acting in the game. Some of it is very funny. The music is also well done and appropriate to the mood of the game. Overall, I recommend Warcraft 3 (plus the expansion) to anyone interested in RTS or fantasy games. It's a well-made strategy game with lots of challenges, a epic (though rambling) story, and an RPG element in the form of heroes (which, again, can be a plus or a minus). If you can get past all of the micromanagement that the game requires and some other outdated elements, Warcraft 3 should provide many hours of entertainment.