Arthas ate my hamster. (World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Add-On) (PC/MAC))

Member Name: Goatfoam

Product:	World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Add-On) (PC/MAC)
Date:	14/01/09 (170 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More levels, more zones, more instances.

Disadvantages: More of the same.

First up, this is probably going to turn into quite a long review so I'll quickly sum it up here for the people who just want the gist of it:

If you play World of Warcraft already, then Wrath of the Lich King is pretty much compulsory. If you're thinking of joining the legion of players already online, then Wrath of the Lich King makes the game much more accessible to new players due to the continued dumbing down, but with World of Warcraft 2 in the pipeline and many other, similar games out there that are just starting out, you may be better off shopping around elsewhere for your MMORPG cravings. If you don't have said cravings, then steer clear of Wrath of the Lich King because that's all it's going to satisfy.

Okay, the actual review. World of Warcraft is everywhere, so for those of you who have never heard of it then welcome to Earth, and I hope your stay on Posytron VII was comfortable. What we have here is a game played online amongst literally millions of other players. So on one hand you have the game itself, on the other you have the opportunity to delve into the social sides, making friends, the occasional enemy, and basically being privy to a social network of like-minded geeks. You take your character and go a-questin', killing things and levelling up. Eventually you'll reach the maximum level (which in Wrath has been raised to 80) and it's at this point that I believe the game really starts.

Once again for the unaware, Wrath of the Lich King picks up the story of Arthas, a former Paladin and prince of Lordaeron. In Warcraft 3, we witnessed Arthas begin his journey on the slippery path of corruption when he had every single citizen of Stratholme butchered, in order to prevent them becoming members of the Scourge (a kind of zombie army). Infected or not, the peasants were rounded up and ended. Shortly after this massacre, Arthas came across the Runeblade Frostmourne in the frozen continent of Northrend, and this signalled his transformation from Paladin of the light, to Death Knight of the Lich King.

A lot has happened since then. The Frozen Throne expansion to Warcraft 3 showed us how Arthas became trapped in an icy tomb (called the Frozen Throne, oddly enough) and introduced characters like Illidan the Betrayer and Prince Kael'thas of the Blood Elves. In The Burning Crusade expansion to WoW, we raided their citadels and took them down for phat lewts (that's equipment). Now, however, in the icy reaches of Northrend, Arthas is free and is back in command of the Scourge horde. Something must be done!

The first major thing you'll notice about this expansion (other than the fact that your level cap has been increased to 80) is the whole new continent of Northrend. It's an interesting place, and a lot of effort has gone into the quest chains and stories taking place in the frozen lands. And yeah, they mostly consist of ice and snow - though there's a curiosity in the bizarrely tropical zone of Scholazar Basin, but this anomaly is explained through questing (I won't give it away).

So, most of the landscape in Northrend looks very cold. Not that it's samey though, because Blizzard have done quite a lot with the concept of "snow". Unfortunately, while the quests have decent narrative and tell many smaller stories in the overhanging battle for Northrend, they're still just the same old quests. Kill X amount of Y. Talk to Z. Collect this many of that. They're the same quests you were doing at level 10, but every so often you'll be hit with something awesome. You may be given command of a bomber aircraft, and tasked with decimating the Scourge army amassed below while fending off attacks from airborne Gargoyles and Frost Drakes. Or you may befriend a huge giant, who invites you sit on his shoulders and direct him to stomp around the landscape killing anything that moves. These awesome quests are well woven in - often you'll find yourself tiring of the slog up to 80, despite the driven storyline, and the appearance of these sequences gives you the drive you need to continue.

There is one amazing sequence in Wrath, which is a first for WoW, having no precedent. The Wrath Gate is a huge fortress that connects Dragonblight with Arthas's new command centre in Ice Crown. After performing a series of quests you're treated to a cinematic sequence showing Arthas emerging from this gate, while the Horde and Alliance armies assault it. What happens next is something that rumours were being circulated about two years ago, but for it to finally happen had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. And that isn't something I'd ever have expected World of Warcraft to be capable of.

Other than the heightened sense of story, the slog from levels 70 to 80 is really just the same as it was from 1 to 70. Where I've always believed the true game really is, is in the raids and instanced dungeons designed for groups of players, and in player verus player action.

The instances are okay. 5-man dungeons become steadily available as you level up, and range from Nerubian infested Ajzol'Nerub to yet MORE trolls in Gundrak. None of these instances are truly inspired, but they are all interesting and present different challenges. Heroic modes are available for all once you're level 80, and they do breathe some extra life back into the instances, especially since Blizzard's implementation of the achievements tab in the 3.0 patch. One stand-out instance is The Culling of Stratholme, which is located of course in the Caverns of Time area of the game. This gives you the opportunity to go back in time to actually stand by Arthas's side as he faces Mal'ganis, and ensure that history isn't changed by the Time Lords. Sweet!

Raids, my preferred way of spending time in WoW, are slightly disappointing. First off, Blizzard have resurrected Naxxramas, a raid originally released just a few months before The Burning Crusade was released. Naxxramas is basically a huge floating citadel filled with various minions of the Scourge, with the final boss being Kelthuzad himself (you'll remember him from Warcraft 3). The first time around, Naxxramas was quite interesting, and was praised by the entire community. After the horrors of the Burning Crusade raid game's steep difficulty curve, however, Naxx is really showing its age. The new raids aren't amazing either, and all of the content is very, very easy - even on heroic mode. The achievements do go some way to instilling more life into these raids, but after struggling to kill Kael and Vashj in Tier 5 content for weeks, the fact that Tier 7 is so underwhelming is a small let down for the hardcore. For casual players however, I can appreciate that it may be something of a godsend, as a very small percentage of players raided past Karazhan in TBC, and much less than 1% saw Sunwell Plateau which is possibly the best, most finely tuned raid instance in the game.

There isn't a whole lot to say about the PvP aspects. It's still just WoW PvP, they promised great things but you quickly realise that they're just novelties, and they all quickly wear off.

So, new zones, new instances, new accessibility. Not bad, but there's more. The new Inscription profession allows players to create, sell, and purchase Glyphs, which basically enhance existing abilities available to you. It's another nice way of customising your character in addition to the talent trees but, like the talent trees themselves, there is still always the "best way". Blizzard have made extensive use of their phasing technology in Wrath of the Lich King, which in laymans terms means that once you've completed something that changes the way an area might look, it will look that way to you from now on. In more technical terms, it basically slips you into a semi-instance that is seamless with the real game world and so it allows different people, at different points in the stories, different views of the world.

I bet some of you thought I'd forgotten. This is the part where I'll talk about Death Knights. These are the first Hero Class that Blizzard have offered us, and are available to create once you have another character at level 55. They can fulfill the roles of tank or damage dealer, but in my experience the vast majority of Death Knight players aren't very good at either role. And I know, because I was levelling a new character up through Outland when the Death Knight became available, and they were EVERYWHERE. In many cases, I'd go to an instance and there'd be 4 Death Knights and me, muggins here, healing them. The class itself is probably right up there with the Shaman and Druid in terms of feel and self-contained atmosphere, and Blizzard have done a very good job of balancing it against other classes in both PvE and PvP environments. Once the initial novelty wears off and the numbers thin out a little bit more, leaving dedicated players to the class will be valuable additions to any raidforce. On the flip side, the class itself is a lot of fun to play, saturated with lore, and can summon ghouls! Ghouls!

All in all, this is typical Blizzard expansion pack fare. I'll give it 3 out of 5, because it's the same old same old... only easier. It boils down to this: If you play WoW already, you will want this. If you don't play, but it interests you, then you should check out the free trial available from their website before you consider buying the game itself, much less the two expansions, because it could be weeks - even months - before you see any real content from either expansion pack once starting to play. If this all sounds like it's crap, then it's probably best you don't buy it.

Summary: It's an MMORPG expansion pack.