


This would seem to be a minor annoyance, which it really is, but once I was jolted out of bed because this screen popped up and started blaring some march music out of my poor Yamaha speakers. The only annoying fact I must mention is that if you load into Windows with the CD in your drive, you will get a little window about Warcraft 2, asking you if you would like to install it, even if you already have. Game setup is easy, taking about 10 minutes or so. There are also several video sequences that appear at points of major accomplishment in the story, but while they were a nice break from the action, I didn't really feel that they added to the overall quality of the game. If you have sent troops through an area and they were demolished, you will still be able to view that area's layout and buildings, but not the actual forces of the enemy. Among the nicer touches in Warcraft 2 is the "Fog of War," which allows you to see only those parts of the battlefield where your troops have been sent. But after you've killed ten or twenty helpless "critters" and have witnessed the extremely disturbing yet comical way in which they expire, you tire of that novelty and concentrate on the mission at hand. There is also enough graphic brutality to please most wargame enthusiasts. Still, the game is more realistic in its action than in its graphics-keeping in mind that the graphics were not intended to represent reality. Since Warcraft 2 is set in a fantasy realm where orcs and humans €battle for supremacy, realism only partially applies as a category anyway. But once I delved deeper into the play of the game, what seemed childish soon became endearing. After playing Command and Conquer a great deal, the cartoonish look and feel of Warcraft 2 was hard to take seriously. I must admit that the graphics of Warcraft 2 threw me off a bit at first.
