Rewind – Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Released in 1995, just a year after the original Warcraft game, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness saw vast improvement. Looking back, it is amazing how fast a sequel to a blockbuster game could be made. The user interface is what got the most substantial improvement. Instead of only being able to control up to 4 units at a time, you can now control up to 9. Simple things like dragging to highlight your units make the experience so much better. In addition, this is the game that so the advent of the “smart” right click. If you have a unit selected, you can just right click on what you want that person to do and the game can figure out what your intention is.
It is hard to understate how big of a difference this makes. This is difference has likely exaggerated over time because every other RTS game that has come out in the past 20 years uses these features. Playing the original Warcraft game now (which lacks these features), is honestly somewhat painful to play. This made playing Warcraft II much more enjoyable.
The additional big change is related to the game’s title: water usage. There are buildings you build on water, naval units, and even a new water-based resource you need to harvest. I can imagine from a design standpoint, it probably seemed like a great idea. It seems like an easy thing to add into a base game which already works well. I think unfortunately, all of this naval warfare is more hassle than its worth. It’s likely also related to the fact that most RTS games in the past 20 years have veered away from the naval units, so this is something that I am no longer used to. However, replaying the game now, everything related to naval units/buildings just seems like an unnecessary bottleneck. No matter what play style you are attempting with whatever units you are making and strategy you are planning, you have to always build the same naval units to transport your regular land units. It gets kind of tiring after a while.
The cinematic cutscenes, while still crude by today’s standards, have improved quite a bit since the prior year’s release. As far as legacy locations/people, there still isn’t really a whole lot there. There are some more locations that have been referenced, and a few specific characters. There still isn’t a really flushed out backstory for the Orcs though and they are still referenced as sort of devilish/evil. It won’t be until future games until everyone’s backstory gets more fleshed out.
I still vividly remember purchasing this game as soon as it came out. Unfortunately, our home PC was not up to par and would not run the game so I stayed at my friends house for extended periods of time because he had a system which would play it. It is easy to see why this became such a huge hit.