Warcraft Adventures: Destined to Fail?

hey everyone pushing up roses here and today we're going to be taking a look at the cancelled adventure game Warcraft adventurers Lord of the clans and reflect on why this project that was worked on for over a year and nearly completed was abandoned it had been tucked away from the community for the last 18 years with the exception of just a couple playthroughs on YouTube then on September 9th the game was leaked and let loose into the wild I'll be giving my own insight as to whether or not this game could have been a success with the adventure game community based on what I've played and what I know about adventure games in general this game was advertised as a dark comedy point-and-click adventure game based on the real-time strategy Warcraft series originally animation magic was contracted to work on the 2d animation they're known for developing I am mean and edutainment game for das and the notorious Zelda games for the Philips CDI they were also one of four companies that worked on the animations for King's Quest 7 now I know that the animation in Zelda was something to be desired but after the mid-90s animation magic had greatly improved Warcraft Adventures was scheduled to be released in 1997 but due to development issues it was pushed back to the end of 1998 you know the golden year for adventure games if you cannot tell by the tone of my voice I am being facetious what makes this project so interesting to me is the fact that it was basically finished when it was cancelled the voice acting animation and story which was written by Blizzard were set in place when they announced its cancellation in 1998 right before e3 which to fans is probably the equivalent of breaking up with someone on Valentine's Day mere hours after this announcement fans created a petition for the project to be restored Blizzard did address the petitions by saying the cancellation was the right decision and felt it integral that they do not release a game that was below their standards there have also been some statements saying Blizzard was not involved in the initial development and that they had outsourced to a third party to work on the game the game design was deemed insufficient and in need of a rehaul with stronger puzzles Steve maretskiy who had designed interactive fiction games for infocomm was brought in to help redesign the game and a different company was brought in to rework the animated cutscenes but despite that the project was not completed now I obviously wasn't the so I can't say with conviction what exactly happened during development there were obviously issues but no matter what the specifics and reasoning were Blizzard felt the game did not meet their standards and thus the game was quashed so was this the right decision or would this game have been a success let's dive into the game play you play thrall and ork who is raised by humans seemingly to be trained and conditioned to kill his brethren after thrall refuses to kill an orc the Alliance was holding prisoner he is accused of being a traitor and thrown in prison you must help thrall escape by completing a series of inventory object puzzles and traversing the Warcraft universe in attempt to figure out his destiny the game doesn't look too deplorable not quite as subpar as the Zelda CDI games but there's also something off about it not because it looks incomplete or anything like that but because I've always found 2d animated characters put against somewhat realistic static backgrounds doesn't look right it reminds me of the design for Space Quest 6 which also looked slightly off especially when the cartoon is so blatant like this contraption set against this non cartoony background it's not the most aesthetically pleasing Blizzard stated that they were inspired by the LucasArts adventure games of the 1990s and you can definitely see its influence this reminds me the most a full-throttle which was one of its inspirations everything down to the character designed the mechanics of the point-and-click and even some of the comedy which is meant to be a little more adult but and more often than not fall short it's taking all my willpower not to choke the chicken Oh a masturbation joke how funny for a boy in junior high for all very much reminds me of been without the biker aesthetic and mentality but it definitely needed to be pushed a lot further for example there's this guillotine here that I really wanted to use there's nothing quite like a good beheading to get your endorphins pumping I ended up not using it for anything instead I completed a relatively simple not exciting puzzle where I caused somebody to slip and pass out by the way since this game is not fully completed some of the sound is missing including when thrall slaps this incapacitated guard so I added my own sound effect what Blizzard should have hired me I have an ear for appropriate sound effects the puzzle design starts out relatively simple and kind of ramps up as you go along but I find most of them to be really unimaginative or carbon copies of adventure game puzzles past how many times have we seen a variation of this puzzle where thrall is using a reflective surface to deflect electricity or lasers the answer is a lot just to name a few Space Quest one uses a shard of glass to redirect lasers King's Quest 5 uses a crystal to divert this electrical discharge even a game as early as beyond Zork has one that involves redirecting a ray of light with a mirror here's a list of more games that use this puzzle we still use it in modern titles - even though I personally think it's one of the most banal puzzle designs to date and the other puzzles seem to be lifted from other sources and if not directly lifted absolutely inspired there's a puzzle where you slide down a snowy slope which reminds me so heavily of King's Quest 5 in fact the only reason I figured out the solution to this is because I immediately thought of King Graham sledding down a similar snow slope here's an instance where I get swallowed by a dragon and I have to figure out how to escape that brings me back to the whale scene in King's Quest 4 there's a disguised puzzle because of course there is there's a diverts somebody's attention and swap out an item puzzle etc etc etc it's just all very familiar in a boring way I did go into this game thinking it would be extremely bad after all it was cancelled after quite a bit of effort was put into it so I was expecting the worst but I have to be honest with you what I played was relatively fun I wouldn't call this a bad game by any stretch but I also wouldn't call it a standout game now personally when I think of Warcraft I don't really think of an adventure game where I'm solving inventory object puzzles as opposed to battling and raiding full of excitement and vigor when playing through Lord of the clans I feel this very blatant disconnect from the Warcraft lore now the references are there the character some of the orcish language but for some reason it feels weird every time I see a Warcraft reference I feel a small tinge of excitement ah he said hugs ugh or oh there's ooh gin and a ballista and the Griffin aviary and that's it the excitement just kind of fizzles those references are simply they're existing in the game without being expanded on it feels like an adventure game with completely different characters that were never involved with Warcraft that could be because the characters in the original RTS games weren't that developed they had some personality but again the object of those games was to battle bill or cur Alliance camps and defeat your enemy although it should be noted that Chris Metzen one of the designers told PC gamer that this format was a good way to further develop the orcs and show a side of them that players hadn't seen before another thing that was unusual to me is the fact that the game was described as a black comedy even though there is some adult content it also has what I would call very silly parts that don't mesh well with those so-called black comedy elements we go from cute interactions with the characters these who capture you in a snaggle bag cutest name for a trap ever is I can't really i won't let snuggle bag myself here using only the most durable strands of elven yarn - observing this dead bleeding wolf so I feel like the shift in tones are a little too jarring to be cohesive some people wonder if the game could have been a success by its name alone but I'm thinking probably not it's impossible to go back in time and see how many people would have played this game but how much overlap was there between Warcraft fans and adventure game fans I can't imagine it was that big I could be wrong of course but the genres were extremely different at the time and the most important factor to consider is that by 1998 adventure games were near dead in popularity in 1997 the curse of Monkey Island was released a gorgeous adventure title from LucasArts and after that Grim Fandango was announced which would be using a 3d engine I imagine it was quite intimidating to compete with those titles in 1998 Warcraft adventures would have looked dated but even if it did have better puzzle design and compelling graphics I still don't think it would have done well Grim Fandango was released in 1998 and though it was critically acclaimed commercially it didn't do as well it was somewhat profitable but it was not huge smash at that time that's not because the game wasn't great because grim fandago is one of the most beautiful well written adventure games out there but rather that people seem to be excited for different types of games following the late 90s Grim Fandango had received many accolades when it came out and won several awards but people still did not want to buy it to me that's proof that these genre was dying out as technology advanced new genres popped up in the industry saw the decline of adventure game sales so if Grim Fandango a game that was technically sound with a gripping storyline could suffer from poor sales how could Warcraft adventurers possibly do better I will say that the hours I did put into this game were pretty fun I didn't really want it to end so it was interesting enough for me to want to keep playing it and I do like the overall plot and the voice acting there are a few familiar voices including Tony J Peter Cullen and Clancy Brown three great wars between the Human Alliance and the orcish invaders have laid waste to the once-proud realms of Azeroth go now thrall we will send out scouts to gather information while you are gone loyal to the end you'd better get going things are gonna get a little hot around here pretty soon I like that you can follow a map to travel to new locations a mechanic LucasArts loved to use it's not buggy or broken and I did develop a genuine interest in the lead character and wanted to move forward to find resolution for him I also liked using this goblin Zeppelin to get to faraway locations and I liked the fact that you could use magic Scrolls to cast spells that aid you with the puzzles even the story gets pretty deep I found myself engaged especially by the ending it could have been a good game but it may have fared better had the release date not been pushed back so far bill Roper one of the designers of the game admitted in an interview that he felt Warcraft adventures could not compete with LucasArts once he saw the announcement for grim fandago it was obvious that adventure games were not doing well in the late 90s and considering there were development and design issues for over a year I'm not surprised it was cancelled and I think cancelling it was the smart choice but don't go crying for blizzard they went on to create one of the best-selling and most popular computer games of all time World of Warcraft who knows maybe someday we will see another warcraft adventure game adventure games have had a resurgence and there is even a Warcraft movie now so you never know it could happen hey everyone thanks for watching my short analysis on Warcraft adventures Lord of the clans based on what I said and showed here do you think this game could have been successful is it a game you think you would have played let me know your thoughts if you want to see another review check out my video on Warcraft 2 follow me in my social networks and give me money you know the rest and as always see you guys in the next one you

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Views: 80,506

Rating: 4.8815632 out of 5

Keywords: pushinguproses, pushinguproses review, pushinguproses let's play, DOS, gameplay, walkthrough, game footage, video game review, review, commentary, warcraft adventures, lord of the clans, canceled, warcraft adventures lord of the clans, blizzard, critique, lord of the clans review, story, point and click, project, pushinguproses warcraft, pur, animation magic, failed, canceled games, let's play, cutscenes, footage, deleted footage, Gamer girl, female game reviewer, female gamer

Id: NVmgpBClf7M

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 13 2016