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World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft Review by Gareth Von Kallenbach

To the delight of RPG fans everywhere, Blizzards long anticipated World of Warcraft has arrived. In a mostly stable rollout that only had some downtime due to server load, the Not since City of Heroes, has a Massive Online Game so completely gripped my attention and caused my sister to whine about not having a machine that could run the newer games.

Like most games of this type, players must select from a character class, and design a character whom they will control and grow as they embark on solo and group quests.

Players can select from 9 character classes and 8 races for their in game character. On the side of the Alliance are Night Elf, Dwarf, Human and Gnome, while the Horde side is comprised of Troll, Tauren, Undead, and of course, Orcs. Once a race is selected, players must then decide on a character class each with its own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Classes follow hunters, Rogues, Druids, Warlocks, Mages, Hunters, Priests and Warriors to name a few and while characters are weak at the start, your powers and abilities will grow with experience.

Like most online games, players can select to play in groups or venture out alone. Of course there are numerous quests, dungeons, and other tasks to keep players busy as Word of Warcraft never seems to run out of things for a player to do, and keeps the fun level high while taking part in all of the activities.

Players have a very high degree of customizations open to them and thanks to the games point system, the more points earned, the greater the number of options a player will have. What I really liked about the game was the attention paid to keep the continuity between the games intact. The Alliance and Horde do not get along, so players from each side do not mix with one another as language and other issues prevent this. They do have options to trade in neutral areas or to mix it up with one another through mutual approval. If players select a Player vs. Player server then the gloves are off as each side will be in a warlike state with the other.

This is not to say that the game is all hack and slash as quests while well-written and necessary, are only a small part of the larger experience. The need to develop skills ranging from trading, to mining, hunting, and so on offer players skills that help characters grow in strength as well as ability. Graphically the game is solid not spectacular as the emphasis was on gameplay not on eye candy. This is good as I would much rather have something to spend my time on rather than standing around looking at pretty buildings. The sense of scale is good and the detail level of the game is in keeping with the series releases to dates. Where the game really shined was in the sound category as each zone has its own theme which blended very well with the computer controlled NPC characters in game.

A solid entry that will delight fans of the Warcraft series and provide countless hours of fun and adventure for gamers everywhere, Worlds of Warcraft is a must own.

4.5/5

gareth@nwlink.com