World of Warcraft is a game in which your mileage may vary. To some, it is the greatest accomplishment of mankind, worthy of Hephaestus’ recognition as a creation of the gods. To others, it is the biggest disaster since Chernobyl. Now, I may be ruffling some feathers here, but I agree with the former. Not quite as voraciously, but it’s a game that I play, and that I enjoy. The latest expansion pack to the (in)famous game is World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Wrath takes players to the north pole of the world of Azeroth, the realm in which the Warcraft universe is set, to fight the scheming Lich King and his undead minions, who had, for some reason or another, disappeared from the last expansion pack. If you don’t mind me giving you some background fluff, the Lich King is the former prince of the humans, who, in an attempt to stave off the threat of undeath upon Azeroth, decided to find and wield a skull-adorned sword and defeat a demon that was controlling them. The bad news is that the sword was cursed. After a Darth Vader-like transformation, the prince turned into an evil warrior of darkness. He returned to his homeland with the very army of undead that he had sought to destroy and wrecked havoc upon his own kingdom. Afterward, he ascended to near godhood and became the Lich King that the players now fight. Now it’s their turn to take the fight to him.

Now, World of Warcraft has recieved a few key criticisms. One is gameplay, which I will be covering now. WoW’s gameplay is based upon abilities bound to certain keys on the keyboard, i.e. a player presses 3 and his character throws a fireball at his enemy. Many critics have found this type of gameplay to be repetitive and unintuitive, to the point of WoW being an overcomplicated equation, rather than a game. Though I am a supporter of the game, I would tend to agree. Wrath does not do much to fix this problem other than adding a few new abilities for players to play around with, almost implying that the good people at Blizzard Entertainment have mistaken their suggestion box for the Kleenexes. And then there’s WoW syndrome. Allow me to explain. WoW syndrome is a phenomenon known in games where one has multiple pieces of gear (boots, armor, weapons, etc.) that are equippable in a mix-and-match style. The problem is that the result of said mix-and-match is often extremely ascetically displeasing. I can attest to this. From levels 30 to 40 (there are 80), I looked like a walking version of the American Flag. Any minute, I was waiting for my motorcycle to arrive so I could jump over fifteen school buses in front of a crowd of rabid fans eager to see some good old fashioned publicity. But I’m rambling. Wrath does try, with moderate success, to fix this problem, in the form of handing out gear that does not clash too much with other pieces of one’s hard-earned armor, but this is a problem that is hard, and some say impossible, to resolve. A previous MMORPG (short for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) tried to make pieces of gear automatically color code, which seemed like a good idea, but the theme of that game, Hellgate: London, if you must know, was much darker and less cartooney than that of WoW and Wrath. What I’ve garnered is that bright-colored, impractical-looking gear is meant to add to the theme, and it does so quite successfully. WoW syndrome does persist, but becomes much less of a bother at high levels, it seems.

The environment of WoW has always been diverse, from expansive savannahs to rain-soaked basins. In Wrath, the new continent of Northrend has been added, and the general theme seems to have shifted towards ice and snow, using the rule that ice caps are an, for lack of a better word, epic place to set an adventure. One would think that the environments would blend with each other, but, surprisingly, repetition is entirely avoided. A slew of different cold environments are represented in WoW, from towering mountains to a forest reminiscent of New Brunswick. Environment seems to be one of WoW’s, and now Wrath’s, strong points. Often times the graphics of WoW have been accused of being primitive when they could be amazing, but this is only to emphasize to the cartooney nature of the game. A few things, actually, have been added to the graphics engine, such as a better shader and new fire effects. This has been done quite expertly, I must say.

The story of Wrath is a follow up to the previous expansion pack (the Burning Crusade) and all of the three Warcraft single-player strategy games before that. The lore of the Warcraft universe has received praise from fans and critics alike. Approximately one hundred years of history have been covered by the games, and Wrath just continues the tale. I paraphrased the story earlier, but now I need to go a little bit more in-depth. The Lich King, the titular villain, has begun a new wave of aggression on the mortal denizens of Azeroth, unleashing new horrors upon them, the likes which they had never seen. His former followers, the Death Knights, have come to see the evil of their ways and have repented by joining the mortals in the fight against the Lich King. Meanwhile, a near-omnipotent dragon has decided that he is displeased with Azeroth and has begun a cleansing of all those who abuse magic, justifying his genocidal tendencies by accusing the mortals of weakening the fabric of the universe with their reckless misuse of the powers they wield. On top of all that, the Lich King’s dominion over the frozen land of Northrend has angered the Old Gods, Lovecraftian horrors that were imprisoned thousands upon thousands of years ago. Now one has managed to loosen its bindings, and wishes to destroy Northrend and the rest of Azeroth. It makes one wonder what, exactly, the silent player character thinks of the situation. He/she never seems to talk on his/her own accord. The story is the strongest part, bar none, of Wrath. Some games like their innovative gameplay and base stories upon that. Others make an incredibly pretty game and let the rest of the pieces fall into place. World of Warcraft and Wrath of the Lich King are built upon the lore. The formula for success.