WarCraft 2: Tides of Darkness Review
Developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in 1995 on MS DOS and Windows PCs, WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness is the sequel to WarCraft, and competed directly with Command & Conquer by Westwood Studios.
In Warcraft 2, technical proficiency in design, coding and aesthetics hit a highpoint of refinement. Indeed, given the brief interval between the original and the sequel, the advancements in gameplay and presentation made by the sequel are quite astonishing.
In terms of gameplay and presentation during the first half of the 90s, non-SimTex TBS was lagging behind and cRPGs were an absolute laughing stock in comparison to RTS.
The problem with pre-1996 cRPG graphics stems not just from the art assets themselves, but also from how the game engine displays and manipulates art assets in terms gameplay facilitation; that is, not only did cRPG artists lack talent but cRPG programmers lacked the graphics-coding pedigree that Command & Conquer 1 and WarCraft 2 coders exhibited. I'm referring to efficiency: how the engine displays, shifts around and switches between viewport and UI bitmaps; as well as to animation routines and framerates. Make no mistake, Westwood and Blizzard were graphics-coding Kings, and RTS is the King-genre of Advent of the API. -- Computer Role-playing Game History.
Let us now enumerate the advancements Warcraft 2 made over its predecessors, Warcraft 1 and Dune 2 RTS.
Warcraft 1 vs Warcraft 2
Warcraft 2 Increased Graphics Fidelity
Advent of the API states that, as a rule, DirectX and VGA graphics bring higher native resolutions, smoother screen-scrolling, clearer fonts, more responsive UIs, more detailed sprites, more frames per animation cycle and superior overall framerates to PC games.
The native resolution was doubled from Warcraft 1's 320x200 QVGA to square-pixel 640x480 SVGA in Warcraft 2, thereby granting more breathing space for the UI and playing field. As an aside, upping the resolution of 2D games from 320x240 VGA to 640x480 SVGA constitutes a much greater improvement than upping from 640x480 or 800x600 SVGA to 1024x768 XGA and beyond, which is another point made in Advent of the API.
By taking advantage of hardware scrolling support Warcraft 2 approaches the smoothness of arcade, Amiga and 16 and 32 bit console games.
Smooth, avatar-anchorless screen-scrolling makes ALL the difference to gameplay: the ability to seamlessly sweep the viewport over forests, deserts and seas is impressive when we consider the size of the maps and the amount of buildings on and sprites moving over them, replete with fiery AoEs and other spell effects.
With heightened activity does come a dropping of framerates, but the engine handles the scaling of activity well even at the fastest game speed settings (though that is CPU-dependent).
Warcraft 2 Combat Units
Micromanagement of combat units has been reduced in Warcraft 2. As is evident in the above infographic, Warcraft 2 supports nine simultaneously selectable and commandable combat units whereas Warcraft 1 only supported four, and Dune 2 a pathetic one.
Thus, it is much easier to move forces around the battlefield in Warcraft 2.
In addition, WarCraft 2 Units move into position when we simply right-click on the battlefield whereas, in Warcraft 1 and Dune 2, we had to employ hotkeys or icons before commanding units to move and attack.
As well, builder units can be moved immediately into mines and forests with right-clicks (mining for gold and chopping down trees). The same is true for oil rigs when drilling for oil.
Mobile units seamlessly board naval vessels from shorelines and disembark with a single click once they have reached their destination. If targeted as destinations, vessels even automatically move to the shoreline as our army runs towards them.
Group-selection of combat units via bandboxing no longer requires that we hold down the Ctrl key. Note that Dune 2 (1992) didn't even feature bandboxing at all, which is pathetic when we consider that Amiga Workbench had bandboxing as standard in 1985.
Fog of war works as per Warcraft 1 and Dune 2, but enemy combat units and installations are masked when out of line of sight, even after the player has seen them (the terrain can still be seen, but not the enemy).
Scouting therefore becomes more important, as do combat units with extended visual range such as gnomish flying machines and goblin zeppelins.
Another cool feature is that Warcraft 2 adds a fourth layer to battles by means of submersibles such as submarines and giant turtles. Submersibles can only be seen from towers or by aerial or other submersible units.
Combat unit and building statistics are viewable in the UI, complete with their modifiers. As well, status effects are shown on combat units as icons. For example, an icon is attached to an allied combat unit to indicate its invisibility status.
In Warcraft 2, we are not just controlling orcs or humans, but also races with which they are aligned: the orcs have goblin, troll and ogre allies whereas the humans have elves, dwarves and gnomes.
Each additional race has its own combat specialization, and many of them can be upgraded or even become different units: ogres to ogre mages, troll axethrowers to troll berserkers and elven archers to elven rangers.
Overall combat unit movement speed is increased over Warcraft 1, and multiple builders can be assigned to construction, thereby speeding up the base-building process as well. Diagonal movement of combat units is much smoother than it is in Warcraft 1.
All of the above amounts to solid incremental advancements in RTS or general game design, and far exceeds what contemporaries in TBT and cRPG genres managed.
In the mid 90s, only SimTex's games are as impressive as regards technical proficiency (e.g, Master of Magic).
Not being a trailblazing genre during the early and mid 90s (a nice way to say "stuck in the stone age"), it ended up taking a few years for the cRPG genre to start approaching the design mastery and production values exhibited by Blizzard in Warcraft 2.
And we should remember: back then, one year was a lifetime in terms of hardware and software advancements (e.g., Pentium CPU, DirectX API), and it is the forward-thinking developer on the cutting edge that makes those advancements blatantly obvious to even the casual observer.
Blizzard Entertainment were such developers, and that is coming from a gamer who isn't a huge fan of the type of games they developed.
Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal
In conjunction with Cyberlore Studios, Blizzard spoiled their fans by releasing an expansion campaign six months after the release of Warcraft 2. Most notably, the expansion features a welcome increase in difficulty as well as WarCraft 2 Heroes that start off with what amounts to free combat unit upgrades.
However, the Hero unit concept had already been explored in Master of Magic (1994):
Warcraft 2 Maps
As can be seen, map design in Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness features a lot of water. Thus, naval forces dominate.
The Human campaign maps are shown in the first two rows; the orc campaign in the bottom two.
Progression is horizontal, from left to right.
The first 14 maps constitute ToD for humans; the next dozen BotDP for humans, followed by the orc campaigns (red and black minimap border).
cf. Warcraft 1 maps.
Warcraft 2 System Requirements
Warcraft 2 is playable on IBM Compatible PCs installed with MS-DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 operating systems, powered by Pentium 60 processors and 16 megabytes of RAM. DirectX and SVGA graphics are required.
We've gone from Warcraft 1's 80386 requirement to Warcraft 2's Pentium 60 requirement in but one year. RAM requirement is multiplied by 4. Native resolution doubled, with SVGA implementations.
That is a massive difference in raw power and hardware and software architecture that is reflected in the game's presentation and playability.
Warcraft 2: The Dark Saga
About a year later, Warcraft 2 was ported to the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn as Warcraft 2: The Dark Saga. Due to their inferior input devices that necessitate a watering-down of control systems and UIs, the console ports are a laughing stock compared to the PC version.
However, their employment of player-programmable auto-building and auto-upgrading influenced subsequent RTS games.
Even though the Saturn was an unmatchable 2D powerhouse, the port does not even begin to explore its 2D chipset capabilities.
Not that it would have changed anything if it did since in the first place consoles are not suited to mouse-driven games of PC origin (RTS, TBS, TBT).
Warcraft 2 Legacy
The verdict has already been given in the body of the review: due to taking advantage of hardware advancements and its refinement of RTS combat control systems and user interface modes, Warcraft 2 is eminently playable even in 2024. At any rate I thoroughly enjoyed my replay of the base campaign and expansion.
In Warcraft 2 there is nothing much to criticize that isn't based on my subjective preferences. Except maybe, that the base campaign is a bit too easy.
The RTS genre being in full swing at this point, Blizzard would subsequently rewrite the Warcraft 2 engine for their sci-fi RTS, StarCraft 1 (1998).
Next up: StarCraft 1 Review.
Back to: Real-time Strategy Games PC.
| Dune 2 RTS Review | Warcraft 1 RTS Review | X-COM UFO Defense | Command & Conquer 1 RTS |
| Master of Magic Review | X-COM UFOpaedia | X-COM Apocalypse | Diablo 1 Review |
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