WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition (PC)

Developer:

Blizzard Entertainment

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Release Date:

Battle.net Edition 1999 Original 1995

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Systems:

Win, MS-DOS, Mac OS, Saturn, PSX

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm having a go of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness, originally released in late 1995. In fact, if I'd used my head I could've had this written up for its 30th anniversary a couple of months ago. Though I'm specifically playing the Battle.net Edition from 1999, which includes the Beyond the Dark Portal expansion pack from 1996, so really I'm both years early and right on time.

There was also Warcraft II: Remastered, released in late 2024, which has updated graphics and UI improvements... but I don't own that one. I almost didn't own this version either as Blizzard delisted it from GOG when Remastered released. Fortunately I bought it in the nick of time.

The Battle.net update added a few upgrades of its own, as it runs on Windows instead of DOS and has a whole list of tweaks to improve gameplay. Then GOG stuck a DirectDraw wrapper on it to make it play nice on modern systems, which I appreciate. Though I'm also interested in the older systems it was released on, as I had no idea until now that it got a PlayStation and a Saturn port.

I should've guessed though, as its arch-rival Command & Conquer got console ports as well, and the two games came out just months apart. Though there was no polygon-based N64 port for this one so people had to wait until WarCraft III in 2002 to see their little orcs chopping down trees in 3D.

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.