Tuesday, June 28, 2011

When Warcraft was cool

Now I don't mean to upset anyone who is a Wow fan. It certainly seems like a pretty cool game and is obviously very successful. The Warcraft universe was alot cooler though, in my opinion, before it got all cartoony and steampunk and "awesome to the max" if you get my meaning.

Warcraft 1 Orcs and Humans came out in 1994. It was simple, it was in blocky DOS pixel animation, and it was beautiful.  The story was pretty interesting and the missions tied together well, the gameplay was very simple real time strategy stuff. The premise and game world, the whole aesthetic tying the thing together from the art work to the music to the sword clash sound effects is what really made the game in my opinion.

The scope of the game was very limited, its about two armies fighting over a fantasy kingdom, but they were able to do so much to bring that conflict and world to life. It is truly amazing the developers were able to do so much with so little.

The world is dark and gritty, lots of blood and fire. peasants chop wood out of the dark pine forests and green slimes thrive in the deep caves. Orc warlocks bind Daemons and human knights swing morning stars.

Damn I love this game.

Check out the mission briefing screens:















And the coolest looking map ever:

Yeah seriously, this game was pimp. This is definitely the sort of feel I want my B?X setting to have.












Check out the game manual if you still don't believe me:http://www.scribd.com/doc/3914674/Warcraft-Orcs-Humans-Manual 

There's a ton of D&D usable material in there.

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