WarCraft II: Battle Chest (commonly known as WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition) contains both Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. It’s been updated, with re-sampled sounds, and is playable over Blizzard’s Battle.net. New features, such as improved fog of war and shared vision, have also been added.
Some editions also include Prima’s strategy guide.
WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness is a fantasy themed real-time strategy game and sequel to WarCraft: Orcs & Humans set on the world of Azeroth. With the conquest of the kingdom of Azeroth in the first war, the orcs are now preparing for an invasion of Lordaeron and conquer the remaining human, dwarven and elvisch realms. In an effort to counter this invasion the humans, elves and dwarves formed an alliance in the hope to avert the same fate the kingdom of Azeroth met.
The game comes with many new features such as fighting not only over land but also over sea and air, SVGA 640×480 resolution graphics with many newly-rendered buildings and units, multiplayer-support with up to eight players, as well as a Red Book audio soundtrack, and a scenario editor that allows players to design and create their own scenarios. The editor requires Windows 3.1 or greater, even though WarCraft II is a DOS-based game.
Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal is an expansion pack for Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. After defeating the Orcish Horde and capturing the survivors, the Human Alliance attempts to destroy the Dark Portal. However, whilst they destroy the portal, the rift that joins the Orcs’ world of Draenor to Azeroth remains.
The Alliance forces decide to enter the rift to the Orcs’ home world to attempt to seal it from the other side.
At the same time, Ner’zhul – Warchief of the Shadow Moon clan, who has seized control of the Orcish hordes of Draenor following Orgrim Doomhammer’s departure (and eventual defeat) to Azeroth, plans to send his forces to Azeroth to gather magical artefacts in an attempt to open rifts to other worlds.
Beyond the Dark Portal contains two 12 map campaigns; one for each side, 50 new pud’s (maps) and a new tile set for the Orc home world.
It also contains 5 new hero characters for each side that actively participate in several of the new single player missions. In function, they are simply super powered versions of standard units that have different sounds.
There are no new standard units however, which many saw as a disappointment.
The map editor also isn’t updated to include any of this expansion’s new features, though third party programs exist that can add these features to the editor.
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