WarCraft III Expansion: The Frozen Throne

Manufacturer:	Vivendi Universal
Release date:	01 July, 2003

WarCraft III Expansion: The Frozen Throne

Average rating: Stars

wholly addicting

I think Blizzard is overly modest in labeling these programs as Expansion sets. I've been playing WarCraft since WC II and I felt that its expansion set, as that of WC III, are more like whole new editions of the game, so Frozen Throne should actually be WarCraft Five. Frozen Throne doesn't just add maps and characters, there has been a clear tweaking of the game. Everything builds a little faster, or maybe that's because I play mostly Human and have been winning more, so maybe Blizzard corrected some of the Race inequities from WC III. No longer does ever battle with a Night Elf end with my opponent rushing and destroying me in three minutes. But I digress. The main point I want to make is that Blizzard is totally committed to pleasing its fan base. The best example of that is the roster of Neutral Heroes. Owners Manual lists five, the game actually has eight, so they are constantly evolving the game. Just the other day, they released another bonus map online for Frozen Throne. Compare this generosity to what EA Sports does with the John Madden Football franchise, which is to fluff the feathers a little each year and ask you to buy the new edition whether it's new or not. WC III came out, what, almost five years ago and it's still fresh, thanks to the Expansion set and you don't have to ante up $50 each Xmas to keep playing an up-to-date game. PLUS, you play online for free? You just don't get that deal anywhere else.

WarCraft III Expansion: The Frozen Throne - Vivendi Universal

wow.................................

I cant say much about this game.... but i will say that this is absolutely THE BEST GAME I EVER PLAYED i only got about 3 hours of fun out of the missions, but b.net is the bEsT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
u can play ladders with other people in your realm, and u can join clans, and make clans, and make custom games, and play custom games . The fun is endless for b.net (unless they come out with a warcraft 4 then everyone will buy that) YOU WILL NOT REGRET BUYING THE EXPANSHION FOR THIS GAME THERE ARE MORE UPGRADES 1 NEW HERO PER RACE AND 2 NEW UNITS PER RACE!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND MERC HEROES YOU CAN HIRE!!!!! WoW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vivendi Universal - WarCraft III Expansion: The Frozen Throne

Enjoyable game, worth the time and money

Warcraft 3 Expansion: Frozen Throne is a hard, fun filled game that is worth the investment of time and money. The multiple campaign storylines are engaging and as usual from Blizzard the cinematic scenes top notch. Blizzard could make a full length feature movie with their cinematic scenes that would be much more entertaining than many of the Hollywood films recently.

Played the game at hard difficulty and it took a while to advance past many of the levels, it is a hard game. The bonus levels are really neat and again, hard to accomplish. The extra bonus campaign is also very fun and in some aspects, more enjoyable than the game itself.

The game has heroes who gain experience and retain their specialty items as the campaigns advance is unique to the current RTS games. It adds depth to the game with a role-playing element. The one downside is that the game engine "taxes" gold collection for having a high population. This really extends and drags out the game. Having to stop collecting gold to prevent wasting in upkeep taxes is detractor from the main focus of the game, knocking heads.

The game still has the two basic resources gold and wood. Nice and simple, unlike Rise of Nations or Empire Earth which are more Resource gathering games instead of strategy games. The player gets to harvest resources and build multiple units at the same time by building multiple buildings, similar to Age of Empires 2 (AoE2) and Starcraft. In Westwood series of RTS games (C&C, Dune), the harvesting of the single resource can be limited and time consuming as harvesters and refineries are very expensive and very slow.

My favorite RTS game is still Starcraft due to the depth and variations between each of the three races. WC3 has a small population cap of 100 which restricts the size of forces one can build. In Starcraft and AoE2, the pop limits are 200 and the player can build a defensive group and multiple large offensive forces. In WC3, due to the small pop cap, the player will have a small defense group and only one main attack group. Once the attack group is wiped out, the game really begins to drag on when taking the time to build a new attack force.

The small population cap also restricts the ability to have multiple attacks at the same time. With only one attack force, the player's strategy is very restricted and one dimensional. Air units have limited value and are very expensive, unlike Starcraft where they can be the extra surprise to tip the balance of a battle.

Due to the small population cap and upkeep taxes for having a large army, the game takes longer than it should and can become at times tedious.

But overall, given the depth of game play, bonus levels, very cool end credit parade of characters, Zerg included, and musical ending, the game does rock, literally.

WC3 Expansion is a worth while investment and enjoyable game, Blizzard takes a long time to produce a game, but the quality of always top notch and higher caliber than the other companies in the same genre.