I’ve completed the majority of the game - the Nifght Elf through to the Undead campaigns, so I figured I’d make another post and put together something more complete.
This won’t be spoiler ridden, but it does have early plot information. Nothing major.
Warcraft III: Frozen Throne picks up a few months after the final events of ‘Reign of Chaos’. Illidan serves a new master now - Kil’Jaedan, one of the most powerful demons in existence. After consuming the skull of Gul’Dan, Illidan gained tremendous power, and has such gained a tremendous thirst for more. In his search, Illidan calls for the assistence of the Naga; an aquatic serpentine race (that you don’t get to play as, might I add) from ages past.
The Alliance is still in the grips of war with the undead - lead by King Arthas - fighting to retake their homeland, which has been covered with blight. Prince Kael, a Blood Mage, finds himself at the grips of a prejudicial commander, Garidos, who holds a hatred for things not human, including elves. Kael finds himself making an alliance with the Naga in an effort to just perform his duties assigned to him by Garidos.
The Dreadlords are still unaware of the defeat of Archimonde and his Burning Legion - King Arthas has taken the throne of Lordareon, but is slowly loosing his power because the Lich King - Ner’Zhul - is entombed in the Frozen Throne atop the roof of the world, Northerend. Sylvannas Windrunner, still holding a hatred for Arthas for turning her into what she is, seeks vengence.
As far as the actual game goes, it plays well. The new units prove to be quite useful - however I did find that the new orc hero is just as useless as the other orcish heros. The other hero’s all have got a few excellent skills that look to be abused by the multiplayer community. I keep hearing that it’s all pretty unbalanced, but I don’t really know much about that, I haven’t had an opportune chance to play all the races online and use all the units yet. As I stated above, I found a lot of the missions to be excitingly different from the norm. Many of the missions force you to use specific units to do specific things, which is good, because a lot of the units they make you use are the ones you don’t see used too much in the multiplayer universe - which I think is good, because it should liven up the gameplay a bit. However, I also found a number of the missions to be tiresome and pointless, mostly being undead missions. They simply didn’t seem to serve a purpose at all, and seemed to be more intent on being troublesome and overly complicated than being actually difficult. Most require you to keep an eye out on multiple parts of the map at once - most notably the first undead mission, which entails you stopping villagers from escaping into canyons. You have three bases, each with different unit building capabilites and a different hero, who all have to help destroy a series of 9 villages and stop villagers from escaping. There was a time where I had to simultaneously manage 6 different groups of units in opposite parts of the map. Why? I don’t really know. As I said, it seemed to be more intent on being annoying than anything else. But you’ve got to give Blizzard points for trying to be innovative - if not very many at all. There are times when this new formula did not fail, however, and it shone quite well, notably an undead mission where you have 8 minutes until your enemies awaken, so you’ve got to destroy as much as all of their bases as you possibly can.
Blizzard once again pays tribute to the fan base by including a secret mission in the human campaign that is basically tower defense - you build towers on the edges of a winding road and attempt to stop soldiers from reaching a portal.
Now, I’m sure some of you are wondering “what about the orcs”? Well, the Orcs have their own campaign seperate from that of the rest. Thrall has set up the orcish country of Durotar (named after his father). I haven’t gotten very far in this campaign, but it doesn’t play like the rest of the game, or like any other -craft game at all. Following a more RPGish style than anything else, it involves you carrying out certain tasks to accomplish an overall goal. Instead of levels, there is a world, Durotar, and when you reach the edge of the minimap, you can locate a tunnel and go through it to reach another minimap and a completly new area. Surprisingly innovative and quite fun, the campaign has been split into 3 parts, only one of which has been released (with Frozen Throne) and the other two will be available for download once completed.
Overall, the game is just more Warcraft. The new units don’t offer anything new that existing units couldn’t already do. The new Hero’s do throw something new into the mix though, being hero’s and all, however the orcish hero proved to be just as useless as his companions. The story of the game seemed to serve more as a means to an end, and with several of the levels being obnoxious and overall pointless, the game, in comparison to Blizzards previous expansion releases, doesn’t quite hold up to the companies own standard. By no means is this a bad game - quite the contrary. Despite it’s downfalls, the game is fun, and somewhat challenging at times as well.
C+
Ups
Fun
Challenging at times
Innovative level design
Completes the storyline
New campaigns, units and hero’s add spice to the soup
The Secret Level
The Orc Campaign
Downs
Too easy more often than it is difficult
Innovative levels go awry
The Orc Hero Sucks
Lacking Story
New Units Offer Nothing
