Product: World of Warcraft Battle Chest for Windows XP and Mac OS X
Company: Blizzard Software
Contact: Default Contact
Price: $39.99 (Retail) OR Online ranging from $36.00 to $10.00
Pros: Major bang for the buck, includes not 1 game, but 2 additional expansions which increases gameplay content ten-fold, replay almost infinite.
Cons: Games are played online only; many reported as becoming highly addicted and so engrossed they lose touch socially and mentally with the real world.
Satisfactory
by Kurt Strodtbeck, AAUG Member
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: Vendor provided a free copy of this item to me for the purposes of the review.
In trying to find a baseline approach to this review I have a number of hurdles to leap in order to bring people up to speed a both a computer game and what I have found out is quite literally an entire virtual universe. Before getting into the game there are a couple of terms that should be noted to any player who wants to speak the lingo. In gaming there are a variety of types of games, some include FPS or First Person Shooters; Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog are called Platformers; but all these games involve playing in a set environment and story. I will refer to World of Warcraft as WoW and know that it is what has been coined MMO or Massive Multiplayer Online game. This term is very well used in describing WoW. For the first time in my life, I am playing a game that does not have a true ending, yes there is a background story which sets the tone, describes various characters, but the world is in fact ever changing. WoW: Battle Chest includes a variety of items to get you started in its universe. Items include not only the World of Warcraft the complete game, but also The Burning Crusade expansion pack, and the Brady Games Strategy Guides for both of these games. Unlike other entertainment where once you pay the retail price you are able to play at your leisure, WoW has two additional requirements to experience. The first is a high-speed internet connection and there is an additional monthly fee or subscription to remain in the game. This fee varies from $15 a month to $13 a month with a 6-month commitment. Where you might consider some companies charging a monthly cost to keep the green rolling in, Blizzard has taken it upon themselves to honestly show that a portion of these funds are to maintain the array of servers constantly in use and so as not slack in the WoW experience, it turns out that the WoW universe is refreshed or updated weekly on Tuesday nights with new content. Personally I did not want to pay the monthly subscription, but instead as is the advantage with the Battle Chest Product, I was granted a free 14-day trial subscription. The game opens with a rather neat cinematic, but it quickly becomes evident that these movie-events are far and few between. Also worth noting game furnishes such a expansive amount of content in terms of characters, monsters, backgrounds, and settings, its strange that things still show have a polygonal foundation. This may be due having to serve an array of players with varying graphics cards or for sake of network speeds and refresh rates. WoW in its core nature is an RPG (Role Playing Game) and like any RPG, there are certain characteristics that will never change. The largest element to RPGs is customization. You are creating who you want to be in this universe from race of being, colors of skin and hair, down the skills and talents you possess. My hope was to install the game and get playing immediately, but alas, I spent the next 2 hours pouring through the strategy guides understanding what made each set of skills better than the next and whether it was better to have healing abilities or perhaps control fireballs. Making these first decisions about your character can have a profound impact on what your time is spent doing within the game. Please note you can create multiple characters to your liking, but only one is selectable to play as at a time. As you are in an online world, the goals of WoW are to improve the strength of your character by raising your stats. This can be accomplished by going on various quests or battling any number of monsters or minions. It is annoying to have to start out with low stats and spend hours building your level only to then have your character be killed while on a quest. To survive the WoW World, characters team up with one another to create hunting parties, these team ups are in fact with other real human beings playing from their own computer and this serves to show you are not alone. The social element is interesting, but some players are so hard-core into WoW that before accepting a quest, they have to spend hours in preparation; I personally don’t have that kind of patience. My overall gaming experience is best illustrated with a rather popular Youtube Video in which a gaming screen showing WoW is shown with a number of players preparing to enter a dungeon and in the midst of all these preparations, one sole character runs headfirst towards the enemy and yells ‘LEROY JENKINS!’ What ensues next is just downright funny. I enjoy games that are simple in their approach and delivery, hack-and-slash type games. Also, please give me a game that has beginning, middle, and end. If you are looking to escape your mundane reality by venturing to a whole new plain of existence where you can customize every minute detail and know that every time you venture forth, the experience will be something new, World of Warcraft may be what you need. Just don’t forget your monthly dues!
