If you’re looking for an immersive online experience, then you’ve come to the right place. As I’m sure many will tell you, World of Warcraft is not only very fun, but highly addictive, so be prepared to lose hours of you life to this game.

The graphics aren’t amazing, but that’s understandable considering the age and scope of the game. Having said that, the graphics do their job, and they can still hold up compared to modern most MMOs. Frame-rate is fairly solid as long as you have at least 1 GB of RAM on your computer. I’d also recommend a video card equal to or more powerful than a ATI Radeon 9600 or Nvidia 6200. You could get away with less, but expect raids to be very laggy if you run them with hardware any weaker than what I mentioned. Also, prepare to devote lots of Hard Drive space to this game, its patches and expansions really add up. Now that we’re done talking about the technical aspect, we can talk about visual design. This is what holds the game’s look together and allows it to still hold up to current MMOs. If you’ve played a Warcraft RTS before its exactly like that, but from the perspective of one lowly character. Some may favor a more realistic look, but I enjoy the one Blizzard has created. The original continents, Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms from the original game, have a look of familiarity to them, but at the same time are very diverse and beautiful looking. My favorite zones from the original game are Tanaris, Un’Goro Crater, and Stranglethorn Vale. The areas in The Burning Crusade expansion pack are much more other worldly in their looks, some of my favorites from Outland are Nagrand, Zangarmarsh, and Terokkar Forest.

The sound is perfect for this game. Its the traditional epic soundtrack of Warcraft games past but much more diverse and particular to the cultures of whatever zone you happen to be in. It can be very epic and tense during boss fights during raids, but also relaxing while you’re gazing out at The Great Sea or traveling across the sands of Tanaris, either way it immerses you fully into the world.

Now for the all important game-play. I’ll start with the basics. In past Warcraft games you have been the controller of mighty armies, well, its a bit different now. Now, you are but one of the many players online, fighting to get to the top of the food chain. You play from a third person perspective, and the combat is fairly simple. You target your enemy, and then you merely click on the attack or spell that you would like to use from your action bar. The beginning tutorial missions do a good job of explains how to play, and how the game works in general. Of course to get good at the game you will learn about timing, strafing, which spells and attacks to use, and most importantly cooperation and teamwork. While there is plenty of solo work to do in this game, most of the end content for both the original game and the expansion requires good teamwork. So if you don’t get along well with others, this is probably not the game for you. Something related to this, one of the things that I think makes this game so great, is that the game makes you feel important like a hero or something, but you still are only a small piece of the pie, you must still work with other to accomplish your goals.

Ok, so now that I’ve explained the basics I’ll explain the differences between the original game and the expansion pack, but first I’ll explain what experience I have with both so you know how far into the content I have dealt with. In the original game I cleared MC, ZG, Onyxia’s Lair, up to Buru The Gorger in AQ 20, and up to Broodlord Lashlayer in Blackwing Layer. As for the Burning Crusade I cleared Karazhan, Magtheridon’s Lair, Doom Lord Kazzak, and up to High Astromancer Solarion in Tempest Keep. Now, having said all that, I guess now is a good a time as ever to tell you I stopped raiding in September of 2007, and stopped playing altogether in Febuary of 2008. Even WoW gets boring after a while, and I didn’t like what The Burning Crusade was turning the game into. I loved the original game, everything you did felt important and epics were genuinely special and hard to come by. Now everyone and their mother can have whatever gear they want, and there’s no more attunements or anything, nothing is special or sacred anymore. Lets move beyond my feelings of the expansion, and talk about how it built on the original game. There’s a whole new continent, two new races, several new raids, the horde got Paladins and the alliance got Shamans, and there’s a whole new profession called jewelcrafting along with a socketing system. Lets not forget about my favorite additon, flying mounts. Riding on my Cobalt Netherdrake was really cool, and just about as fast as a flight path. Technically the expansion was a large improvement, but it just felt like it lacked the heart and soul that made the original so special.

I loved this game, but everything gets old at some point. If you’re looking for a solid, never ending online experience I’d highly recommend it, although you may never see the light of day again.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This game is only playable online, and requires a monthly fee, see Blizzard for details. Parents be warned, there’s some people in this game you may not want your children to meet.