Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

Metachronos overall score = 91 / 100

It's Real-TIme Strategy

The sign of a truly great expansion pack is when, having played it, you realize you could never go back to the original game. After all, truly great expansion packs don't just add new content--they add real depth, and fundamentally make the core game better. Blizzard Entertainment knows the drill when it comes to delivering these sorts of products. Its follow-up releases for 1998's Starcraft and 2000's Diablo II were so effective and so good that many, many people are still playing both of those games today, all these years later. Given Blizzard's track record with expansion packs, it's understandable that fans of the company's games would have very high expectations for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Last year's real-time strategy game was a very tough act to follow on any number of levels, and yet Blizzard has delivered a terrific, full-featured expansion for Warcraft III that makes an already outstanding game significantly more so. Not only does it play better, but The Frozen Throne also looks and sounds just as excellent as Warcraft III did a year ago. The new units and map types are colorful, dynamic, and highly detailed. There's new music for all the factions, and the new tracks fit in well with the original themes. New intro and ending cinematics that are on par with the high-quality Warcraft III CG sequences bookend the campaign. The Frozen Throne also features an improved version of the world editor utility that gives scenario designers more and better options for creating complex and original new scenarios, in addition to straightforward skirmish maps.



All things considered, The Frozen Throne is an impressive expansion pack for a remarkably good game, and anyone who enjoyed Warcraft III needs to get it. It's more expensive than the average add-on (and requires the original game to play it), but it offers much, much more. Blizzard Entertainment, due the commercial success of its games, is in the privileged position of being able to spend seemingly as much time as is necessary to create highly polished, long-lasting computer games and then support those games for a number of years. And judging from this latest game, the company seems to be taking full advantage of that position.

damn it looks awsome