Warcraft: Orcs & Humans

The story in WarCraft: Orcs & Humans is a very good story. It is about the war when The Orcish Hordes came through a dimensional rift and started ravaging the land of Azeroth.

In the game you can choose if you want to play orcs or humans in their fight against each other. The story is well told through mission briefings and by reading the manual where there is a lot of background story.

The graphics are quite bad compared to today's standards, but that doesn't really harm game play. There are some things that could've been better (like 2-button support), but you get used to it. My only real complaint is that the game is too easy/not adequately balanced. You can beat the game by building loads of one single unit, that gets a bit boring after a while and not especially challenging.

Personally, I think that the best Blizzard Entertainment has ever had to offer was Blackthorne. However, Warcraft is the definitive game for players who enjoy the involvement of great stratagems in their games. One of the most hilarious moments is when you keep bothering your men and they say things like "yes my lord", "my liege" and finally they say "why do you keep touching me!?"

Warcraft 2 is where I began my Warcraft RTS journey and I had always wondered what the original game was like.

Now that GOG.com have kindly provided a version that works on modern PCs I've been able to experience the classic for myself.

At first the game is surprisingly clunky. Each action must be instructed by hotkey or clicking the panel in the bottom left. Even scrolling around the map requires a left click when the scrolling arrow appears. The graphics are extremely pixelated on a modern screen and take some getting used to. I thought I would be in for a tough ride. However, you do become used to the controls and visuals.

The micro is maddening sometimes, although it is possible to have some exciting battles with the AI.

The path building system was thankfully dropped in later entries to the series but there is fun to be had planning building placement so as not to cause traffic jams for peasants.

The missions have some interesting variations; basic build a base and conquer the enemy, army assault of an enemy base with no reinforcement and even dungeon crawler levels.

The map designs are interesting enough and invite the player to hold certain positions of the map as gold mines run out. Or in dungeon maps their maze like structure is designed to sap resources but the background artwork tells you a story along the way.

Maybe I'm biased because of my love for warcraft 2 & 3 but I thoroughly enjoyed Orcs & Humans. A little too easy maybe but both factions are well designed and it was a joy to be transported back in time and experience the world of warcraft at its inception.