World of Warcraft

System: PC
Release Date: 2004
Published By: Blizzard Entertainment
Reviewed by: Darien
Rating:

Hell is other players.

World of Warcraft, for those who are entirely unaware of what's going on around them, is Blizzard's Massively Multiplayer Online RPG. It virtually redefines the "massive," in fact; as I write this, the game has near on four million subscribers, which is, if I am not very much mistaken, more than all other commercial MMORPGs combined. Can four million paying customers be wrong?

Yes. Four million paying customers can be very badly wrong. In this case, however, they've somehow managed to be right. World of Warcraft is very good. I played the original EverQuest back in '98, and found it to be rather tedious, lacking in content, and saddled with a cumbersome interface. World of Warcraft is none of those things; for most of the life of your character, you will have plenty of things to do, and it's designed for even "casual" players to get to the endgame eventually and with a minimum of struggling.

One of the most controversial things about World of Warcraft is death. Unlike most MMORPGs, death in World of Warcraft does not carry an experience penalty. Personally, I think that's fantastic; other people find that it leaves the game without a sense of loss. So that, I suppose, comes down largely to your personal taste on the matter, but it is obviously another aspect designed to make the game accessible to casual players.

The game looks great and sounds good. I can speak from experience about the genuine sense of wonder that comes with looking around the areas as a new player, and there will be fun things to explore and discover throughout your career, since, as with most games of this type, new zones and dungeons are periodically added. On the sound front, the game suffers from having too few different background musics, some of which are oddly used. For example, you'll always know when ogres are around, since, regardless of what music the area you're in normally uses, it changes to a very loud tribal drum beat if you get near ogres. I do not know why this is. The voice acting ranges from good to very good, with the females, as always, being of lower quality than the males. Again, I do not know why this is, but it seems to be the case in most games.

But the game's biggest strength is, inescapably, also its biggest weakness: all those other players. Some of them will, of course, be good, and some of them will be bad. If you can find yourself a group of good people to play with, you'll have a lot of fun with this game. Just don't take it too hard when you get shat upon by the assholes. And you will.

So, in conclusion, nerf rogues. Thank you and goodnight.

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