Reviewed: May 5, 2004
Reviewed by: Mat Houghton

Publisher
Enlight Software

Developer
Infinite Interactive

Released: May 7, 2004
Genre: RTS
Players: 6
ESRB: Teen

9
8
9
10
9.0

System Requirements

Warlords Battlecry III Features:

• Persistent Heroes - Sixteen different races, twenty-eight different classes.
• Retinues - To accompany your HERO in to battle.
• Full map editor - Random Maps, skirmish Mode.
• Spells and Magic Items - More than one hundred and thirty spells over thirteen different spheres of magic. New Magic Items many of them special & rare, some even able to cast spells.
• Five Races - Plaguelords, Saurians, Swarm. The old Human side will be split into Knights & Empire. This will include new units and new buildings.
• Hero Development System - All of your old favorites plus eight new classes combine together in a new hero system that is easier to learn but harder to master than before. Take heroes beyond level 50. Gain levels while actually playing the game.
• Terrain - Rock & Lava terrain, along with Jungle, Ruins and subterranean caverns.
• Soundtrack - High quality soundtrack featuring thematic music, all at CD-Audio quality.
• Lots of Dragons - Players will be able to produce six different coloured dragons all with unique abilities and breath weapons.
• Buildings - Many different shops will allow players to purchase items & troops to aid them in battle. The variety of different Lairs will produce neutral units that will roam the map seeking out trouble.

You have one of sixteen species to choose from, each of which have their own beginning statistics (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma, and it explains the effects of each so don’t worry). Alright, so you’ve got your species, now look at what kind of character class you’d like to run. There are twenty-eight of these, and they all affect your stats as well. Oh, did I forget to mention that each species and class have specific skills that can be improved?

Sounds confusing, but it is pretty simple in interface, and no problem to learn. For example, I created a Snakeman (Ssrathi in game) Deathknight. This gave me pretty good stats for a beginning fighter type character. Additionally, I got skills allowing me to cast certain kinds of magic (look for ten spells in each of about 12 different schools), do more damage to good characters, run faster, hit more often, and have better armor. Other classes give you the ability to make your buildings stronger, produce resources on your own, and assassinate other characters (one hit has a chance of killing).

Ok, so we’ve got a hero. If you’re heading off to the campaign mode then your character’s race determines your starting race for the campaign. For those of you familiar with the series, you may have noticed some alterations already, but this is where things get very different, because while the hero and leveling interface has been streamlined, it works pretty much the same, but here there are definite changes.

First, there is a plot. It is up to you how fast the plot progresses, despite the time keeping there is no dated sequence of events. Second, the world map is arranged a la Indiana Jones, with significant places marked on the map and specific paths marked between them. You travel from place to place beating the stuffings out of all arrayed against you, but no conquest anymore it’s all about saving the world.

Differences aside though (and there are more, like the ability to sell your excess equipment) the actual game functions much the same. Each “hot spot” has a battle to be fought, sometimes more than one, and victory gets you money, xp, and other bonuses. The individual battle interface is exactly the same as the original sequel. Your hero converts mines so you can collect resources from them, you build a citadel, and troop training buildings, and you destroy your enemies.

They even kept the alternate victory conditions like first one to build a level 5 citadel wins, or he who kills the most or razes the most in 30 minutes wins, etc. For those of you wondering, yes there are still titans, and they still destroy everything in their paths. Dragons are also still here, and they added plenty of new ones, so it’s no longer "everybody gets a fire dragon"; there are storm, swamp, celestial, and ice ones too.

So the basics are easy, and not only can you lead your original species, but as you progress through the game you can gain the ability to lead other species under the same hero. So if you don’t like your first choice you can always change, although this doesn’t change the difficulty as it did in the last game. Everything else is pretty much standard for this type of game with a nice spin on it. Look at retinues, starting army points for every battle, etc.

Overall the graphic design on the characters is fairly simplistic for the most part, but again there is a vast array of units at your disposal in this game. The only troops that overlap are some flying units and some undead and the human builders. Otherwise there are distinctions with everything. Like the elves, dark elves, and wood elves. Most games you would think you would get a difference in color scheme, maybe some buildings that were different. Here, you have three separate races, with the elves relying on archers, healing and dragonslayers; dark elves using assassins, spiders and demons; and the wood elves on archers and ancient treants. The differences are of course more than just cosmetic, but it gives you an idea about how much detail was put into the game.

There is plenty of variety in the terrain you fight on as well. From grassy plains, rocky hills, and desert to caverns, lava fields, wastelands and snow fields. While there is not actually 3D to the game there are different heights build onto the field, which is maybe a bit of forced perspective but adds a degree of… depth to strategy and atmosphere. Also there is more artwork than you can shake a stick at in here. While some of it is, well, bad. I mean really bad. Bad like having to pee ten minutes into a two hour movie. Bad like most dubbing of foreign films. Bad like a Derek Smart game. Bad like… well you get the idea. A lot of the art is very good though, like the daemon that’s tearing open its own chest. Yes, those are what you think they are.

While nothing in the game has quite the same pizzazz as a lot of the more recent games, they did pull out as many stops as they could on special effects. The lightening tossed by spells and dragons nearly sizzles, night and day shifts as does the rain and clear skies. Overall the graphics are limited, but within the limits they push the edges as far out as they can go.

The voices of the heroes and other units are half the reason to keep playing. Few things are more satisfying than to make a dozen doom knights or so and hear that last phrase from them all. Even more fun is the goblin shaman, who insists you bow down and pay homage, when he’s this scrawny little thing among an army of giants (literally if you produced enough of them).

The music and effects are a little less impressive, with there being only one or two discernable tracks and some slightly overused effects. The music is very good though, because even after playing the game for several hours it doesn’t get to you. It has a bit of a generic fantasy feel to it, but the vocals are usually soothing and it can fade into the background quickly.

Effects are another matter, in general they are good, but in some cases (especially with the minotaur) clicking on a building sounds the same as if something is standing there attacking it and that takes a little getting used to. Otherwise there isn’t anything to complain about.

That not being enough for your average gamer there is of course a multiplayer mode for those who like to trash talk anonymously. That not being enough, if this is anything like the last game there will be more skirmish maps released as time goes by, and there is included the nearly required editor mode so you can make your own levels. All this for $39? Yeah I think that’s a good deal.

This is a solid title that deserves a look. Most likely it will be overshadowed by the next big thing, or expansion set, or whatever. It’s not the flashiest car on the block, but the engine under the hood is more than worth the asking price.