The fires continue to burn

The main selling point for Warcraft3: Reign of Chaos is the fantastic story. It's not the easiest game ever created and when you lose a campaign battle for the fifth time, it's the fabulous story that compels you to keep playing. The story is also the reason you get to play as all four races - the Night Elves, the Orcs, the Undead, and our kinsmen, the human race.

It begins with a short tutorial that has you playing as the young Orc warchief, Thrall. It effectively teaches you the basics of controlling a small army and your hero, without being mind numbingly boring.

Resources are easy to collect and if all you want to do is fight enemies you can ignore the upgrading, although I wouldn't recommend it. The maximum army size is ninety units, although since most units take two pieces of food, it's probably closer to forty-five units. Although this does mean the battles aren't as epic as The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II, it makes them much more strategic and you try to heal as many units as you can, instead of just letting them die and building more.

There are other modes apart from the campaign, which include skirmish. Although the AI opponents are not as smart as humans you play against online, they are still a viable option if you have no internet connection or want to practice your skills without your overall win percentage going down. There are multiple maps, the largest of which can hold eight players, and along with the three different difficulty levels this mode should keep you entertained for hundreds of hours.

So the single player is incredible. But as soon as you connect to Battle.net, all of your free time will vanish, along with your social life.

There are just so many features to play with online. They include Anonymous Matchmaking, Arranged Teams, Friends List, Observer Mode, the ability to join a clan and battles with up to six people fighting it out on any one map. If you get really good at it, you may be able to get on the official Battle.net ladders but you would have to waste thousands of hours playing to get high up on it. Despite the fact that the game was realised a few years ago, the community is still thriving and you should never have to wait for more than a minute to find an opponent.

The graphics still look nice nowadays, and the cut scenes are simply incredible, with beautifully rendered hair that moves with the wind, and lovely looking buildings.

The sounds are pleasant until your play time reaches triple figures, when the repetition finally starts to annoy.

This game will last for many an hour in single player, but with LAN and online play expect the game to last for at least a year or two. I bought it near launch and am still playing it, which shows its longetivity is simply magnificent.

Now that it's cheap, I seriously recommend you buy it, I promise you want regret it. The only problem I can think of is that the armies might be a bit too small for some peoples tastes, although it can also be beneficial.