Warcraft - Orcs and Humans

Title: Warcraft - Orcs and Humans
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: November 1994
Date Played: 1999, 2005, 2007
Time Played: 20 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5





Opinion:
Winter 1994, I was 9 years old and a pro at Doom and Prince of Persia. Meanwhile in the unknown to me Southern California, an unknown to rest of the world company Blizzard Entertainment was forging a franchise that would go on to change the world of gaming forever.

Although Warcraft - Orcs and Humans was the game that birthed this legendary franchise (Warcraft) it was not the first Warcraft game I played. I was introduced to Warcraft 2 in the computer lab during lunch in High School. It was years later that I wanted to explore the roots of the series and therefore played this game... Orcs and Humans.

Going backwards from Warcraft 2 was a pretty big jump, as a lot of the improvements that I was accustomed to were no longer there. The controls were a bit weird, the speed and unit variety was lacking; however I understood that Warcraft was one of the pioneers of the genre, and that it was made before there were standards that I was so used to in the RTS genre. In fact it helped create these standards, and so none of these things bothered me much. The pixel art had its own charm and looked great when put in perspective.

The story is sparse, basically humans lived happily then the orcs invaded. The series did not flatter itself with a lot of back story prior to Warcraft 3, Blizzard put in just enough story to give you a reason for why the humans and orcs were fighting. 99% of the story is told through scrolling text in between missions which is actually pretty well written, and most importantly voiced over. Yup you heard me right. This may not be surprising to someone that didnt get into gaming until late 90's or early 2000's, but to have a game with more than 10 seconds of combined dialogue was unheard of in the early 90's. And so it by itself made the game amazing! Not only that, but units when clicked on multiple times in a row would shout random funny phrases, which made Warcraft a freaking cool game.

To be honest Warcraft - Orcs and Humans was a tad too slow for my taste, everything was slow, units, battles, missions. There was not nearly as much variety as in the sequel. (Yes I know thats an unfair comparison, but I have to look at it that way since that is how I experienced it.) But I still played through it and did enjoy the history that shaped the battleground for the sequels and later World of Warcraft.

Every gamer has heard of the Warcraft franchise, and it is interesting to go back and see where it started. By today's standards Orcs and Humans is a slow, and limited RTS, so unless playing for legacy (story) reasons, I would not really recommend it. It is however a great piece of gaming history.