Warcraft 2

Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness is a real-time strategy game from the US game developer Blizzard Entertainment and the sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans . The computer game was released in 1995 and the expansion Beyond the Dark Portal was released a year later . In 2002 the successor Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos was published.

action

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

Warcraft 2 follows on from the events of the predecessor's orc campaign. The kingdom of Azeroth fell due to the destruction of the capital Stormwind and the people flee across the sea to the kingdom of Lordaeron. But the orcs also cross over and try to get Lordaeron under their control. Depending on the choice of the game faction, the aim of the campaign is to destroy the Lordaeron troops (Orcs) or to repel the invaders and destroy the Dark Portal, which establishes the connection to the orcish homeworld Draenor (humans). The result of the people campaign is considered canonical in the further course of the series .

Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal

Thematically, the expansion set ties in with the end of the Warcraft 2 people campaign . The Dark Portal is destroyed, but there is still a rift between the worlds that allows the passage. Under the leadership of the necromancer Ner'zhul, the orcs try again to establish a permanent portal connection between the worlds. On the human side, a group of heroes leads an expedition to Draenor to close the rift forever, which they finally manage.

Gameplay

The game offers two campaigns (humans and orcs) with 14 missions each in single player mode. The core principle of the game remained the same. Divided into several missions, the task is to collect raw materials and thus build up a base and combat units. Compared to its predecessor, Tides of Darkness offers a higher graphic resolution ( SVGA ) and increased the maximum group size that the player could select at once from four to nine units (PlayStation / Saturn version: 16). Shipbuilding and the important third resource oil were introduced as a major innovation. Much more significant for the entire real-time strategy genre , however, was the introduction of the “ fog of war ”, which conceals areas that have already been cleared up again if no units or buildings are positioned there. Otherwise you can only see the landscape there, but no enemy units.

publication

Warcraft 2 was first released in 1995 for DOS and Mac OS. In 1997 the game was ported under the subtitle The Dark Saga to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn game consoles, with the expansion Beyond the Dark Portal being included in addition to the base game . Not least with the release of the " Battle.net Edition " of the game in 1999, with which one could easily compete against other players in Blizzard's online gaming platform Battle.net , Warcraft 2 became a great commercial success. This newer Battle.net Edition also supports Windows 95, 98 and Windows NT systems, while the older version is only supported on MS-DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

Beyond the Dark Portal (expansion)

Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal

Erstveröffent-
lichung

1996

platform

DOS , Windows , Mac OS , PlayStation , Sega Saturn

genre

Computer strategy game

Game mode

Single player , multiplayer

Mouse keyboard

English German

Current version

1.5, GNI 2.02

Age rating

USK

PEGI

Published in 1996 by Blizzard cyberlore studios developed expansion Beyond the Dark Portal (Engl. F. Beyond the Dark Portal includes), each a new, twelve missions comprehensive campaign for people and the orcs and 50 multiplayer maps. Other innovations include a new type of landscape (swamp) and more elaborated hero units. In contrast to the rather irrelevant heroes in Tides of Darkness , these have their own portraits and voice output and play an elementary role in the campaigns; this idea was taken up again in the successor Warcraft 3 and significantly expanded.

The expansion CD also contains 16 audio tracks, the last audio track, I'm a Medieval Man , being an Easteregg : the title parodies the song I'm a Mechanical Man from Command & Conquer: The Tiberium Conflict . The complete soundtrack was composed by Glenn Stafford.

Web links

Commons : Warcraft - collection of images, videos and audio files

Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness at MobyGames (English)
Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal at MobyGames (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Glenn Stafford in the IMDb

[1] Glenn Stafford in the IMDb