WarCraft: Orcs & Humans (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Blizzard Entertainment

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Release Date:

1994

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Systems:

MS-DOS, Mac OS

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm finally playing Blizzard's hit Warhammer-flavoured real-time strategy WarCraft: Orcs & Humans! 

I'm sorry, I know I promised this at the end of April and now it's October, but I suddenly had a new season of Doctor Who to review for my other site and I got sidetracked. Don't worry, I don't think I'll be having that problem next year... or the year after that. (Edit: hours after I published this the BBC announced they're making more Doctor Who, presumably just to troll me).

Blizzard apparently tried to make a deal with Games Workshop to make this an actual Warhammer licenced product for the brand recognition, though it didn't work out. I always assumed that Games Workshop went around to developers and forced the licence into their hands, considering how many Warhammer games there are, but I guess not! Going with a new IP worked out pretty well for Blizzard in the end, considering that the game got a franchise, a legendary MMO and a slightly less legendary movie adaption.

The game also got a shiny new Remastered version in 2024 with high resolution graphics... and Blizzard decided to take the original version off GOG so it wasn't competing with it! I wasn't about to miss out on DRM-free WarCraft, so I grabbed it right before it was delisted and now I want to get my money's worth out of it. So I'll be sticking with the GOG version of the game, which is the MS-DOS CD release v1.22h... not that there's many other versions to check out. The game was heavily inspired by Dune II (which makes sense as it's the foundation of the entire genre), but they decided not to follow its lead and make ports for the Amiga and Mega Drive/Genesis. In fact the RTS genre basically just took off and left those systems behind here.

Okay, this is going to be the same deal as always. I'll play the game for a couple of hours, quit while I'm ahead, and then write a bit about it afterwards.

Diablo IV (PC) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing a little bit more about Diablo IV.

I'm using the game's original red logo colour for part 2 as the updated green logo makes it look the official video game of Monster energy drink. Though I miss the old logo from the first two games, with its beautiful animated flames. This one's not terrible, but it doesn't have any fire at all and it looks like something heavy landed on top of the letters and did some damage.

It was probably due for a redesign to be fair, seeing as Diablo 4 came out 11 years after Diablo 3, which came out 12 years after Diablo 2. Oh, plus there was also the free-to-play MMO Diablo Immortal in 2022, for fans who had phones and $200,000 lying around to afford to max out their character. I don't have any immediate plans to play that one.

Alright, there are three things you should know before you read any further:

1. This is part two, and you can find part one HERE.
2. There will be SPOILERS for stuff that happens in the first few hours.
3. I actually played this in January so a lot of things could've changed in updates since then.

Diablo IV (PC) - Part 1

Developer:

Blizzard

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Release Date:

2023

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Systems:

Win, Xbone, Series X|S, PS4, PS5

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm taking a look at a game I said I would never buy due to its unnecessary always-online DRM: it's Blizzard's action RPG sequel Diablo IV!

So what made me change my mind in the end? Nothing, I didn't buy it, it was included with Xbox Game Pass so I thought I'd give it a try. Oh, I should mention that I played it way back in January, so this is going to be hilariously out of date. These regularly updated modern games are a bad match for my 'Eh, I'll finish the final draft later' work ethic. They're not a great fit for my 'Hey, here are some screenshots of retro games!' site ethic either, but I've found procrastination can actually solve that problem as long as I keep my articles on the back burner for a decade or so.

I had somehow managed to avoid learning anything about Diablo 4 before playing it, so if I seem entirely clueless, that's because I was. I'm still clueless actually. I'm assuming that there's something people don't like about it, some kind of controversy (because: Blizzard), but I haven't looked into what it is. Plus I did my best to ignore all the multiplayer stuff, all the microtransactions, and all the... whatever else it has. I don't even know what it has, I ignored it.

Though I did pay attention to the story, so there'll be SPOILERS for the first few hours of the game. Or at least what the game was like a few months ago.

Diablo (PC)

This is probably a terrible choice of game for the site, seeing as I'm pretty familiar with how it plays already, and all you do in it is click on enemies to make them dead. But for some reason I suddenly feel in the mood for some Diablo.