World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Review

By Ned Jordan

You've got to hand it to Blizzard; when they make an expansion they go all out. Wrath of the Lich King is simply packed with content that goes beyond the introduction of a new area crammed with quests and things to do. There's the introduction of the hero class, a new profession, and a host of other additions such as achievements, barbershops, an in-game calendar and more. While some of these additions have been patched into the main game just prior to Lich King's release, the opportunity to explore Northrend and to try your hand as a Death Knight together more than justify purchasing this expansion – as long as you have at least one existing World of Warcraft character at level 55 or above that is. Lich King has a few barriers of entry to keep in mind, and these barriers will completely leave you on the outside looking in if you're a new player to World of Warcraft. The first requirement is that you already own the previous expansion, The Burning Crusade, which makes sense considering that Lich King raises the level cap to 80 and you need Burning Crusade to get your characters beyond level 60. The other requirements are character-based, as you need to own at least one character at level 55 or higher before you can create a Death Knight and you need to be at level 68 or higher before you can receive quests in Northrend.

I won't go into detail on the secondary enhancements that come with Lich King that were patched into the game. Since more than likely you're already playing World of Warcraft if you're reading this review then you already know that the achievement system is a great addition to the game and that the new inscription profession allows players to create magical scrolls. Also, it goes without saying that the expansion raises the level cap to 80, as well as raises the professions skill caps and introduces all new recipes for each profession. All that aside, let's take a look at the Death Knight.

The Death Knight is a completely unique class to World of Warcraft, and is the first class in the game to be given the moniker of 'hero class'. Death Knights enter the game at level 55 and begin play in a unique multiplayer instance that's reserved exclusively for Death Knights. At the beginning there is no distinction between Alliance and Horde Death Knights, but your chosen race will determine your eventual affiliation. Death Knights begin the game in the service of the Lich King, and your initial quests will be a series of commissions of evil acts in his name and at his bidding. I don't want to give away the storyline, but I will tell you that it culminates in a historic battle in the Warcraft mythos and involves a shared multiplayer instanced quest that is the first true clash of armies seen in World of Warcraft.

The initial Death Knight quests are unique in that they award talent points in addition to experience and gold. Since you're starting out at 55, you've got a lot of catching up to do in terms of talent points and character spec. The Death Knight is primarily a melee-based character, but the talents allow you to customize your character as DPS, tank, or a battle mage of sorts with an assortment of damage over time spells. It's not the same with professions, though. You're on your own in that regard and will start out at level one in your chosen professions just like everyone else. This is probably the biggest downside to the Death Knight character as you'll have a lot of catching up to do in this area. If you chose a crafting profession you'll spend a lot of time at the auction house, buying new recipes and ingredients until you can craft enough items to get your skill levels up to par with your character level. Gatherers will need to spend a lot of time in low-level areas trying to gather enough items to reach the point where things can be gathered from the high level areas.

While your Death Knight might be no better than any other noob in the professions, he or she will be a very powerful adversary in a fight. Death Knights are very powerful characters and will cut through quests designed for other classes of the same level with little effort. It's also easy to cut through orange level enemies without much trouble, and a number of talents that leach health from enemies with successful strikes helps keep the health bar fuller for longer than with other classes. As a result you can level a Death Knight a lot faster than other classes, and can get your Death Knight to Northerend faster than with any other level 55 character. You can argue that Death Knights are overpowered, but then again they are a 'hero' class and by virtue of that should be a stronger class than the others. It's also a good thing that they are somewhat overpowered anyway because once you get through the great Death Knight starting area that's the end of the specialized content. You'll be just like any other character in the upper 50s and if you've leveled one or more characters beyond this level you're going to have to take your Death Knight through some of the same areas you've visited before and will repeat a lot of the same quests yet again. It would probably have been better to start Death Knights off at 65 and have them just about ready for Northrend when they complete the Death Knight starting area.

This brings us to Northrend, an area inhabited by a walrus-like people, barbaric warriors, and tundra versions of some familiar faces such as murlocs. The architecture and landscape are certainly influenced by Norse legends and architecture, but this large northern continent has a variety of styles and landscapes that go beyond fields of snow and frozen tundra. It's a large landmass with plenty to explore. In fact, there are two entry points for both the Horde and the Alliance, so you can easily experience Northrend with two different characters (four if you play both sides of the fence) and feel like you're playing two different expansions. Each zone is packed with quests to the point where it will take you a really long time before you'll feel that you've "finished" the zone. There are still plenty of fetch this and kill X number of that quests, but there are also plenty of quests that put you in control of siege weapons, flying mounts, mechs, and more. These quests all make use of a control panel that appears on the bottom part of the screen that has the necessary controls to complete the quest. The controls vary from quest to quest, but the one thing that they all share in common is that they're intuitive and easy to use. These quests certainly add some variety to the repetition that is inherent in MMORPG questing. Also new to the game in Lich King is phased quests. These are quests that have a physical effect on the world around you and will alter its appearance. The phasing allows the world to look one way to players who've completed a quest and a different way to those who haven't, and is a good way to make you feel that your questing is having an actual impact on the world around you.

PvP quests can be found throughout Northrend, but the heart of the battle between the Horde and Alliance on this new continent lies in Wintergrasp. Wintergrasp is a special region that can be fought over by hundreds of players at a time in a siege/defend style battle. The attacking side has forty minutes to siege a fortress (with the help of siege engines), breach its walls, and activate a special orb that resides within the fortress. The defending team 's job is to prevent the attackers from succeeding. The large-scale battles in Wintergrasp are a blast and are the closest the game has ever come to making you feel like you're a part of the war that raged between the Alliance and Horde in the real-time strategy games that inspired World of Warcraft.

If you have a character at level 68, or one at 55 and are willing to start a new one as a Death Knight, then there are plenty of reasons for you to purchase Lich King. Even if you found yourself growing a little tired of the game, the wealth of new content will rekindle the interest you once had for the game, and will have you happily questing your way to level 80 and then hit the new raids and dungeons in search of higher-level elite gear. Lich King is an impressive addition to an already compelling game.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 95%.