"Somehow Blizzard does it YET AGAIN"
World of Warcraft Review
By Tyrael Odium

For use on the GameFaqs Web Page

I don't have a lot of experience with Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGS for short). In fact I have only ever played 1 seriously (tibia, see my review), and I thought that it was a good experience. I always wanted to play Everquest but my mom wouldn't allow me because she didn't want to use her credit card to pay a monthly subscription fee, (yet she uses that card to get my yearly subscriptions to “Tips N' Tricks, and Electronic Gaming Monthly� but this is about World of Warcraft, not my family problems). One of my friends bought the game on its release day, and he went on and on about how good the game is and how I should give it a shot, I then tried to explain to him that I only have a dialup connection, and that I wouldn't be allowed to use a credit card to play the game. That is when he made his winning arguments, that it ran just fine on a dialup connection (it really does), and that you can buy prepaid game cards (in cash) at your local video game stores. So he managed to drag me out to the closest Futureshop so that I can buy the game, and I have been on it nonstop.

Graphics �9/10

Though the graphics of the game may not be revolutionary like the graphics on Half-Life 2 or Halo 2 are, these graphics are really incredible (and they eat up my laptops processor and graphics card like you wouldn't believe). The environments in this game are just spectacular (unless you have the view distance to the minimum, in which case you don't get to see much), when you are flying on a gryphon sometime, just take a look at your surroundings and you will know what I mean. You are able to finally see all of the different units to scale (finally), and it is a great experience, you get to stand beside a catapult or siege tank and see that 1 grunt isn't as tall as it, those things are monstrous. You can walk around inside of town halls or barracks, and climb up scout towers (which are actually HUGE unlike their strategy counterparts). All of the characters have been done nearly flawlessly (this game still has the occasional glitch, but hey they all do), the colors are all accurate and all of the features on the characters are done great. One part where normal RPGS tend to fail is with the NPCS (non playable characters). In a normal RPG, the developers spend all of this time working on the main characters and they make all of the other minor characters (bob walking down the street or whatnot) look not even half as good, but this game doesn't do that here. All of the characters that you don't get to play as look just as good as you, in fact, when I was still a noobies I sometimes mistook a NPC from a real character. Even all of the enemies have been done with that amount of detail (but remember this is Blizzard, they specialize in making all of their games great, for proof just go out and play them).

Sound �8/10

The sound on the game is just vivid; it focuses more on the sound effects than it does on music for you to listen to. There are sounds for just about everything, you have great footstep sounds, and your footsteps make different sounds depending on what you are walking on, you have jokes to tell and the opposite sex to try to attract, and the voice overs are beautiful for both (and generally quite funny). A good majority of the monsters have their own distinct set of sounds, and depending on what they are doing they make different sounds, such as when they are dying, attacking, fleeing, or just walking by. Your weapons also sound really good, if you swing your sword, you will hear it miss your opponent, and if it hits them, you will hear it cut flesh. One thing that I was quite impressed with was how all of the spells sounded, one reason is because there are so many different spells in the game, and most of them were given their own unique sound (that sounds terrific).

Controls �10/10

The controls are very easy to use, I was just able to pick up and go without having even read the manual (which I do recommend you read). One thing that I found out early on is that communication between lots of people is done through a lot of commands, and those can be a little bit hard to remember at times (epically if you are in enemy territory and you forget which particular command you should use to be able to show respect to somebody who is about to kill you because you didn't). Quite personally I think that most of those commands are quite clever and humorous, you can have a lot of fun with some of them (the best to play around with are �silly� �dance� and �flirt�. Although most of the communication is done with those commands, most of the actual gameplay is done with very basic controls. You can use your directional pad to move, you mouse to change the angle (with the left click), and the mouse to attack your opponent (right click). The attacking is nothing special, you don't have to continue keep clicking the button (unless you are a mage), because your character will keep pounding on the enemy until either one of you is dead (and if you are not careful, it could quite well be you).

Gameplay/Plot �10/10

This is the aspect of the game where its true colors come into play (if you are already sold with this review then don't hesitate, go out and buy the game already. Are you still reading this??? GO), anyway, this game is basically what life has turned into now that the burning legion has been defeated. 4 years after the legions defeat, all of the old fires have been rekindled, and now the horde is back at war with the alliance, keep this in mind because you don't want to be caught in the wrong area. If you are horde, you should probably try your best to stay out of alliance territory because they will hunt you down and kill you, no matter what your level is (funny story, I was walking to the Orc capital city “Orgrimmar�and I saw a level 60 dwarf hunter get ambushed by 13 level 60 Orcs of random levels, long story short, he didn't make it too far). The burning legions influence is still felt in the world, because some people still hold the legions beliefs (the burning blade, etc) and that is what a majority of your quests consist of (although I didn't really pay attention to the plot of a lot of the quests because I was just trying to get experience points). There are countless quests in this game, and you have to do lots of them otherwise it makes leveling up a real pain, simply because it would take far too long. The characters in this game consist of several parts, 2 alliances, “The Horde�and “The Alliance� The Horde consists of Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, and the Undead; wile The Alliance consists of Gnomes, Humans, Night Elves and Dwarves. There are 9 character classes to choose from; Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rouge, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior. There are countless ways to build a character, so don't let somebody try to pressure you into a character that you don't want to make, because regardless of what everybody says, nearly every character that is made (if played well enough) can be a real trump card.

Total 9/10

Somehow blizzard has managed to pull it off again; they made yet another incredible game. It has it all, great visuals, sound, controls and gameplay, and a plot that just won't quit. Although it may be a little expensive to play, it is very worth it, and you will find yourself addicted to the game almost immediately, you will be putting off your duties left right and center. You tell yourself that you will go on for just a little bit, maybe till you get your next level, and when you look at the clock next, its 3AM the next day and you have your final exam to write that morning (that actually happened to my friend). I would really recommend this game to anybody who wants to play a new MMORPG.