Are any of you guys currently reviewing Warcraft III: Frozen Bone? I’m about two thirds of the way through the game, and I am extremely impressed with the singleplayer portion of this expansion.
This expansion is far more unconventional than I expected.
Example. The “bonus” Orc campaign more or less recreates Diablo in the WC3 engine. That is, you run around a massive overworld map with two heroes, killing respawning groups of enemies, gaining money/exp/levels, and performing quests. You even have a “stash” and can hire helpers. It is totally unlike any standard RTS level.
Beyond that, even the regular campaigns are strange. There are very few levels where you do the standard “build a base, progressively conquer the map.”
- you will encounter respawning enemy AI heroes who cast spells and ultimates sort of like real online players would.
- lots of oddball scenarios, such as controlling two different forces on two different sides of the map at the same time, or protecting a convoy moving through a map.
- you’ll take control of two unique new races with their own buildings, units, heroes, and even unique peons: the Naga (sea creatures) and the Blood Elves.
- you will get to control multiple high level (9-10) heroes in small groups and take on much larger forces. Get used to casting ultimates every 2 minutes, which is fun!
- much more hero-centric than build-centric, though there is plenty of building to be had-- you’ll find tons of multiplayer-style creep camps, shops, and plenty of cool unique items to equip your hero with across each campaign.
Anyway, it’s not at all what I was expecting. I guess I thought it would be more of the standard campaign stuff we saw in WC3.
It’s clear to me that Blizzard based this entire expansion on what was popular online. And I don’t mean just standard 1vs1 or 2vs2, but the many crazy user mods that people play such as Hero Arena. At no point is this more obvious than the bonus level*, where Blizzard recreated lock stock and barrel the uber-popular online tower attack mod. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
In tower attack, all you do is build endless towers (of various types) along the outside of a maze. While you’re doing this, progressively tougher and tougher enemies trawl through the maze, ignoring everything but the end of the maze, some object they’re trying to blow up. Blizzard did add one twist, you can still use your heroes. Most tower mods are build-only.
I’m not even covering the many significant changes to multiplayer. It is fair to say that the expansion plays like a totally rebalanced game, with a lot of new amenities that should have been there in the first place (eg, creeps show up as resource dots on the map, all build commands can be consistently queued, units set to follow will attack when the lead unit attacks, etc).
So, if you’ve written off WC3 for whatever reason, you might want to revisit the expansion. And if you liked WC3 at all, this is one of the best expansions I’ve ever played. It takes the game in really interesting new directions.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve played Warcraft III more than any human being should ever be allowed to. Like MMORPG type numbers. Which is scary.
- it’s easy to unlock, just look for the sheep on the blood elf “break out of prison” level. I don’t want to say anything else to give it away, because it’s funny.