Another aspect that makes the whole Hero unit idea worthwhile is that they do a great job tying all the missions together. In general, you will have one main Hero unit in each campaign, which plays a major part in the story. For the Human campaign, you are Prince Arthas, heir to the throne and paladin bad-ass. Not only does each mission revolve around this Hero's actions, as previous decisions will affect future missions. All the levels, abilities and items your Hero gains continue on to the following missions, so by the end of the campaign you have your very own creation, be it a powerful healer or a devastating mage. This continuation and control over the growth of the Hero really helped me get more involved in the characters. While they can be resurrected when they die, it's still upsetting to lose a Hero in the field. This kind of connection to the characters in an RTS is unprecedented.

For a major developer like Blizzard, some might be surprised to find that this is their first 3D game ever. In the past, games like Diablo and the previous Warcrafts, have used sprites (2D animated images) or pre-rendered 3D characters, such as the player characters in Diablo 2, but never has Blizzard gone so far as to create a real-time 3D world... (dramatic thunder crash) until now! To be honest, their lack of experience in the 3D department really doesn't show in their work. The stale, tiled maps of Starcraft are replaced with rolling, tree-lined hills in WC3. Rivers flow naturally through valleys and into lakes, and mountains seem to almost scratch the inside of the monitor. The world in Warcraft 3 feels real, full of life and begging to be blown to smithereens.

Which brings us to the units. There has yet to be an RTS that has more detail when it comes to unit animation. Zooming in on the action (this is 3D after all) really shots how good this game looks. Dwarven riflemen are clearly animated with long, white beards, cloaks, wrinkly faces, and huge bloody rifles. You can watch them line up, brace themselves, and fire in puffs of smoke reminiscent of Revolutionary War battles. The dragon-like Chimera of the Night Elves is equally impressive, with scaly wings and firey breath. The most work, though, was on the Heroes, as their animations are not only varied, but gorgeous to look at. The Undead's Dread Lord has demonic wings and horns, standing out clearly in a crowd as the most imposing unit. It's ability, Inferno, reigns down a fiery demon from the sky in a visual display of fantastic destruction. If I was in touch with my feminine side, I think I would have been brought to tears.

However, it is important to note that you will not find units with polygon counts in the tens of thousands for good reason. In order to have scores of units on the screen at once, each unit had to be reasonably toned done visually. By no means does this mean the game looks ugly or dated, but you aren't going to see intricate details like individual fingers on a warriors hand, or see characters blinking mid battle. For a more up-close and personal look, each unit has a detailed 3D portrait to help your imagination take that extra leap. Blizzard had to make this game realistically playable on a computer that exists today, so while they could have made every unit as high in quality as Solid Snake, I'm happier they didn't.

In order to sell a war game, it has to sound like war. Firing a cannon should not sound like dropping those little explosive paper balls, and clashing shields shouldn't make the player think they have loose change in their pocket. Frankly it scares me how well Blizzard knows what war sounds like, because every sound-effect was spot on. I wouldn't be surprised if someone from the development team actually went to one of those castles in England with a tape recorder, smacked it with a long sword a few times, and used that in the game, because when my footmen attack an enemy castle, it sounds exactly how I would expect it to. Trees fall with satisfying crashes, Elves scream in pain as they are removed from their mortal coil, and even though I have no idea what sound a Hippogriff makes, I would guess it sounds very much like it does in Warcraft 3. The voice actors are also extremely solid, yelling stuff like, "For the horde!" in throaty perfection. And of course the hilarious sound clips from previous Blizzard games are back, with the Riflemen yelling, "This is my Boomstick!" or the ghostly wisp singing, "Iiiii aint got no boooodddy." All this cacophony is backed by a powerful score created especially for this game, and it all comes together to create a convincing wartime experience.

But lets be honest, sixty bucks is a lot to throw down for a game that you might not be playing in a month. Well if that is true, make sure you send me your copy, because I could always use another when friends come over. The length of Warcraft 3 rivals most other RTS games out there. Each of the four campaigns takes around ten hours to complete, and forty hours is just the single-player game. The reason people still play Starcraft is because of its immense replayability in multiplayer. Battlenet, Blizzard's in game multiplayer service, offers custom game matching, ladders and tournaments. If the Beta is any indication, there will always be someone online to square off against. With their previous experience, the net code in Warcraft 3 seems very steady, with very little lag when playing online. Also, along with the dozen or so multiplayer maps included in the box, Blizzard has released an unparalleled editor for games of this type, which will ensure there will always be new worlds to explore and decimate and a slew of new user-created campaigns on the way.

Blizzard has taken its time for a reason. The bugs that plague rushed games these days seem to be ironed out, as I never ran into a single crash or corrupted file. It's true that millions have waited to play this game for some time now, but I appreciate Blizzard taking its sweet time to ensure Warcraft 3 was everything they wanted it to be. Warcraft 3 is a perfect specimen of the melding of RPG and RTS genres with the addition of hero units. Also its graphics, sound and storyline are spot-on, and everything we've come to expect from Blizzard. Warcraft 3 is the evolution of RTS, bringing depth into a seemingly perfected genre.

Graphics are great, sound and storyline are better than any other RTS game before it, as well as better than most games of any genre out today. I haven't been this emotionally moved by a game since Grim Fandango. Gameplay is fantastic, it might be derivative of previous games, but I have never enjoyed playing an RTS as much as I did with Warcraft 3. The new Hero elements and races only sweeten the deal.