Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

The second installment in the popular real-time strategy game series which takes the players to the fantasy land of Azeroth. It has been six long years since the war between orcs and humans, but the “green plague” still perfectly remembers its utter defeat. Using a heavily-armed armada, the orcs yet again get to the human borders with the intent of visiting vengeance upon humanity.

WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness, as far as gameplay is concerned, does not deviate from the original in any significant way. The differences are minimal, apart from the graphics, of course, which undergone a true revolution – high resolution, perfectly drawn and animated units and background that are pleasant to look at are some eye candy to even a demanding player. The visuals are complemented by a great soundtrack.

There are two campaigns to choose from, both offering 14 missions. Blizzard Entertainment completely resigned from dungeon scenarios, but introduced three types of terrain (glacier, forest, desert) in their stead. Apart from the races known from the original WarCraft (orcs and humans), some new ones made an appearance, namely elves, dwarves, goblins, ogres and trolls. Moreover, orcs have dragons at their disposal, while humans use gryphons. Alas, Blizzard Entertainment did not make an effort to make any actual differences between the two sides but the spells that may be cast by their spell casters. There are more spells in WarCraft II, but it is no advantage since some of them are of no practical use.

Although WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness seems to be nice enough, it is an average product. Poor unit variation, fast-paced gameplay that doesn’t allow for effective use of magic, and just few types of missions makes it give way to other games of its period, such as Command & Conquer. Nonetheless, WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness is likeable due to its great audiovisual layer and multiplayer mode that guarantees lots of excitement.

Last updated on August 14, 2015