"Can this game really live up to the hype?"

After all of the god only knows how much hype that people gave this game, you are probably wondering if it really lives up the hype. Well, it more than lives up to the hype, it actually stands up and kicks the crap out of the hype. Ok, enough senseless rambling, and on the review!

Gameplay: Gameplay is incredible. Blizzard has outdone themselves, just as they always do. To people who have followed Blizzard for as long as they can remember, there is certainly nothing groundbreaking about the gameplay, but I will sum it up a bit for those who haven't played any of Blizzard's games before (while I wonder who the hell wouldn't be playing any of Blizzard's other games). Most of the play is simple. You start a game with a town hall, and a few peons. Your town hall is where all money you collect is sent to, and the peons do all of your work such as harvesting gold/lumber, and building your structures. After you gather enough money with your peons, you order them to start construction of buildings like a barracks, and farms, or defensive towers (in the end you need all of these). As the game proceeds you can upgrade the town hall structure to a more durable form, which also enables you to build more structures and allows you to train spell casters. The game's in game time also shifts regularly from night to day, which can have various effects on your units such as decreasing sight radius, or in the case of some units, it even allows them to stay cloaked.

The game also uses hero units. Heroes are stronger than your other soldiers, and as it fights it can even gain levels. When your hero gains a level, his stats are boosted, and he also gets a point to put into one of his 4 different spells or abilities. Once your hero reaches level 6, you can put a point into his ultimate spell. All spells except the ultimate can take up to 3 points, but the ultimate can only take 1 (all it really needs). The only problem being that you cant go past level 10. And as always, every command in the game has a keyboard hot key, just to make things more convenient for you.

So for Gameplay, I give a 10/10.

Story: The story is awesome. Anybody who decides not to go through the campaign of this game is missing out big time. It picks up about 13 years from where WC2 left off (at least I think it was 13 years). Basically, demons are taking over the world, the dead are rising from their graves, and lots of people are getting their asses kicked. Ok, so it's nothing special, but its written out well enough to make it seem ten times better.

Story, I give 10/10

Sound/Music: The music is nothing special, more often than not you probably wont even realize that there is any music. The sound affects on the other hand are brilliant. Every sound is incredibly real. From the crunching of bones beneath a paladin's hammer, to the slicing of flesh, to the screeching howl of an infernal's death, all the sounds are beautiful. To top that off, all of the units (or at least all of the ones that can actually speak) say all kinds of funny stuff when you click on them. But wait! There's more! If you have a higher end computer, you can mess with some of the sound options to improve sound quality, and even through in environmental effects such as echoes and other such fun stuff.

Sound despite the barely noticeable music, gets a 10/10

Graphics: Graphics are beautiful. The terrain and landscapes are incredibly well made. Units and Structures could use a tiny bit of work, but they are still great. Smoke rising from a work shop looks like smoke, the little clock on the human's town hall actually keeps track of the in game time. Just like sound, you can also improve the graphics quality by changing different settings and features in the options.

Graphics, another 10/10

Replayability: The replayability is what makes a Blizzard game. ''After you finish the campaigns what else is there?'' you ask. Well, Blizzard has their free online gaming service, Battle.net. This allows you to play the game with millions of other people all around the world. There are also patches released which alter aspects of the game, stuff like balancing attack/armor values, this keeps the game a bit fresh regularly. Blizzard is also nice enough to include the World Edit program. This allows you to make your own maps to play the game on, and you can use the unit editor to design your own units. The possibilities are certainly endless when it comes to this game.

Replayability, 10/10

To buy or rent?: Well, I don't think you really can rent PC games, so it's either buy or go without, and trust me, you do not want to go without this game. Buy it now! If you can't shell out the $60, then knock out the clerk at your favorite place to get PC games and run out with a copy(if you are actually crazy enough to do this, don't blame me when you get caught)!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/02, Updated 07/24/02