World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Review - PC

7

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 5
Audio: 9
Multiplayer: 7
Innovation: 8

Five years ago when a certain editor of a certain site that mysteriously disappeared when Sliced Gaming was formed sent me a copy of Warcraft 3 with the Frozen Throne expansion, I had no idea what I was doing. I had played strategy games before, even Warcraft games, but WC3 and the Frozen Throne expansion was a whole new experience. Doing quests for random NPC's that I found as I explored the maps, and getting new items for my heroes, the game had me interested enough to play through to the end, which says a lot for a strategy game. The story didn't really mean much to me at the time, but it definitely meant something to the developers at Blizzard. Last year I played through WC3 with the Frozen Throne again, and fully understood everything that was going on in the story due to my time spent on World of Warcraft. I played as Illidan, I watched as the Orcs and Humans worked together and divided, I found the lost civilisation of the Night Elves, and even had a brief experience with a Draenei. Frozen Throne showed me just how evil Arthas really was, and as I played through the game knowing the Wrath of the Lich King was on its way, the story drew me even further in. This was what Blizzard wanted World of Warcraft to be about since the beginning. Arthas is, by all means, the Lex Luthor of the Warcraft world.

Now that I had approached the shores of Northrend and conquered the forces that protected the ancient land, I was fully ready for the Lich King expansion, or at least I thought I was. Wrath of the Lich King features nine new zones with over a thousand new quests, dozens of new dungeons and of course a new class, the Death Knight. With all this piled in to an expansion, including the ability to get a new hair cut (Night Elf Mo-Hawk!), Wrath of the Lich King is everything that Burning Crusade wasn't, which is definitely, at this stage, a good thing.

Gameplay

Wrath of the Lich King has its ups and downs. Everyone seemed to be a fan of the levelling quests, getting from 70 to 80 was actually enjoyable unlike 60 to 70, but once you get to 80, what is there to do? We feel Blizzard could have done so much more with this expansion, particularly for their most loyal audience, but unfortunately it’s not the hardcore gamers that are paying their bills, it’s the casuals that rarely take up server slots but still have $15 a month coming off their credit card and into Blizzard’s big fat dirty pockets. The kids that never appreciate a single piece of gear or item on another character, the noobs that don’t invite you to a raid because they’re the same class as you, the Arena thugs that think they’re awesome because they Googled “Best Possible 3v3 Team Combination”. ... (continued next page)