Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
Posted: February 1st, 2011, 7:59 am
Feel free to rate and discuss this game.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans introduced quite a few new concepts that contributed to the development of the RTS genre. Apart from the medieval theme in general and, as a consequence, a lot of close range attack units, these are as follows:
Different terrain tilesets
While in Dune II, there's only one desert terrain, Warcraft has forest, swamp and dungeon terrain types.
Different resource types
In Warcraft, gold is the "primary" resource required to build anything, and lumber is a "secondary" one, needed for some units and all structures.
Variety of mission types
Basically, most missions in Dune II amount to "build up your base from scratch, then wipe out all enemies". Warcraft introduced missions with varying objectives, such as the destruction of a specific enemy unit or structure, or escorting a friendly unit from point A to point B. Starting conditions for each mission could also differ: in one mission, the player has to swiftly move combat units to a defenceless base that is under attack; in another, peasants must be first rescued from imprisonment before the player can start production. Thee are also missions where the player does not have a base and thus cannot produce new units at all (these include dungeon levels, where no construction is possible).
Heroes and NPCs
Warcraft introduced "hero" characters that are important to the storyline and must be kept alive and sometimes rescued; conversely, enemy heroes may become targets for assassination. There are also non-playable characters, i.e. units that cannot be produced by either playable side, that appear only in dungeon levels.
Unit upgrades
In Dune II, upgrading only applies to production facilities, where it means gaining access to new construction options. In Warcraft, the player can upgrade unit stats such as attack strength, armour rating and movements speed, which means that the player whose units have been upgraded has a strategic advantage in combat.
Spells and summoned creatures
Dune II already has "sort of" spells, like the Deviator's ability to temporarily convert enemy units, or the House Palace special abilities, but Warcraft introduced spell-caster units that use mana to cast spells or summon magical creatures. Summoned creatures are not permanent and will "dissipate" after a period of time, but are arguably some of the most powerful ones in the game.
What I really did not like about the demo is how lazy they got with the music. The demo contains exactly two tunes, one of which plays at the menu screen, briefing screens for both sides, victory and defeat screen, and Human levels. The other only plays in the Orc levels. I understand that this was done to keep the demo package small, but still it's a bit annoying. Otherwise, the game has a very nice soundtrack.