Genre: Real-time Strategy
Developer: Blizzard
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Warcraft II's completely hand-drawn tile art is purposefully cartoonish, but also nuanced, detailed, and well animated as well. Unfortunately, the sprites were shrunk in size slightly for this console port, probably so that more could be fit onscreen with the typical CRT television. The ample stage theme variety, and plethora of unit designs more than make up for the sacrifice however. On top of it. all of the nicely done PC FMV sequences have made it over to the Saturn intact, and there is even a new intro.

Glenn Stafford's sterling PC soundtrack is featured in this console port, completely intact and untouched-- the heroic yet uncertain orchestral work of the alliance tracks, and the haunting, harpsicord-filled horde songs are just as effective here as they are in the PC version. Ditto for the sound effects, which all appear to be present. If there is a fly in the ointment, it's that the game loops through the entire soundtrack during gameplay, regardless of which side you choose-- including the seconds-long "between mission" tracks! This programming oversight hardly nettles though when the quality of the compositions are so high.

At the time it was released, Warcraft II was one of the standards-bearers for the genre, and its spectacular stage and unit designs, dark sense of humor, and control scheme were considered to be top drawer. While the genre has not progressed a tremendous deal since then, some aspects of the title-- such as the unit behavior when the player isn't manually directing every single action-- could be better. Still, the game's overall design has aged well, and the Saturn version's control scheme, while considerably more clunky than using mouse and keyboard, is as about as well designed as is possible.

This title is a bit like the 3DO port of Wolfenstein 3d-- it's not quite as good as the original, but it's eminently playable nonetheless, and it has an absolute profusion of content; in this case, every single mission from the the original title, as well as from the expansion pack, "Beyond the Dark Portal", along with a smattering of custom missions. For those that own a Saturn and a storage memory cartridge-- to store the title's massive save game files of course-- this port represents a very viable, and perhaps even preferable, alternative to the PC version.