Review: Warcraft Fan
What It Is:
After reviewing Mario Velasquez’s lack luster Mario Kart Fan app I decided to see what other applications he offers and there is quite the list. He seems to have a thing for using other people’s intellectual property, which, I guess is OK if it is an appropriate work of homage. On his extensive app list I found Warcraft Fan that combines two things that I love: Warcraft and Tower Defense games. I know, I know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. But,am I really being fooled this time.
The Way It Works:
When Warcraft III, Blizzard Entertainment’s immensely popular entry into their RTS franchise, was released it shipped with a fully functional map editor that allowed players to modify the way the game was played. One of the most popular modifications was to create a map and make it into a Tower Defense map.
A small note on Tower Defense Games: This is a popular flash game genre in which a stream of monsters enter the playing field and attempt to cross it from the entrance to an exit on the opposite side. Playing fields normally come in two flavors, a wide open field or an already laid out maze like path, though there are other variants. It is your job to place varying types of towers strategically on the playing field to stop any monsters from reaching the exit. Most games will allow nineteen monsters to pass before the twentieth ends your game.
This app is a flash version of the popular Warcraft III modification. The playing field has a single long path with an entrance at the top of the screen that winds around until coming to an exit point next to the entrance. You are given forty gold to purchase your initial towers from which you have a choice of arrow(7g), canon(9g) or anti-air (12g). Each tower has it’s own advantages and disadvantages such as the arrow tower is fast but weak, the cannon tower is slow and can’t hit air targets but does splash damage, and the anti-air tower fires quickly but only hits air targets. Each one can be updated to increase their range and damage so these are all you’ll need for the first waves.
As your towers kill monsters they will reward you with gold which you use to buy new towers or upgrade your current ones. After a certain number of of rounds you will be given one lumber to spend on unlocking one a three new kinds of towers: a water tower that has relatively low damage but a splash and slowing affect, a fire tower that has high splash damage and fires fast, and an earth tower that fires very slowly but does the most amount of damage and splash in the game but only hits ground units. Each of these cost fifty gold after you unlock them. You could also spend your lumber on increasing the amount of gold you get from each wave. You can also spend forty gold at any time to gain a life back.
The warning on the app download page says that this is a tough game but it doesn’t actually present much of a problem until wave 32 when the difficulty suddenly swings up. Eventually you may want to mute the sound because the repeated custom sounds of things dieing will grate on your brain. The towers and monsters loose detail due to the small size of the game, and the towers look the same no matter how you upgrade them making it more difficult to find which ones still need upgrading. Besides the game the app also offers the Youtube and Flickr streams for video and pictures from the Warcraft franchise that his Mario Kart Fan app offered for that franchise. It also offers the forums, high scores, and a section that shows you who else uses the app.
All in all this is a pretty solid reproduction of the popular Warcraft III modification and that makes it seem more of a tribute than an attempt to profit off of some one else’s intellectual property as Mario Kart Fan came across as being. It’s fun and when you finally get past wave 32 it will feel like an accomplishment. Still though, I feel like a focus on the social aspect of the app would be well served. This is a definate improvement over Mario Kart Fan game wise and has the things that made that app neat, notably the streams. This app can be obtained free of charge from Warcraft Fan.
6/10 Warcraft Tribute + Tower Defense = Good Enough
Popularity: 3% [?]
