World of Warcraft

Vivendi (72212) World of Warcraft PC

Heck, you can even send items C.O.D. WoW lets players accept a variety of quests--up to 20 at a time without penalty for abandoning any of them before they're complete. An enemy tagging feature--the player who lands the first attack on an enemy claims the loot for himself or his party--prevents onlookers from swooping in and pilfering items from a monster that you brought down. The game's Quest Log keeps track of up to 20 quests at a time. In other online role-playing games, starting players have to invest dozens of hours whacking at small prey and doing other odd jobs one at a time to gradually "level up" to more interesting challenges. That resolves a common complaint of other titles. The map system fills in details on places you've visited, so you always know where you are and where you've been.

Overall, World of Warcraft is a game that's easy to learn, challenging to master, beautiful to watch, and tons of fun to play. Other input devices not supported. World of Warcraft didn't invent the online role-playing genre, but it certainly benefits from the missteps of other titles that have come before. The game's beautifully rendered locations are filled with small details, such as flying birds and flowing water. A History of Conflict WoW takes place just four years after the real-time strategy Warcraft series, which chronicles a 25 year struggle between the Alliance (humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves) and the Horde (orcs, tauren, trolls, and undead). The enemy's artificial intelligence is quite strong too: Monsters will join nearby fights to aid their comrades, switch targets strategically midbattle, and ambush players. Icons and pop-ups help put complex controls easily within reach. Most games severely penalize players when they die in-game, usually by shaving experience points, funds, or both. There's not a lot of variety in the character creation process, but with all the skills and proficiencies to combine in the game, WoW focuses its customization not on the appearance of your character but rather on the character of your character. The game lets you adopt any two trade skills, regardless of character race or class, and combine those skills in useful ways. Even though there's tons of accumulated story to the series, new players should not be daunted. to other players via the game's mail system. The background is there for you to explore, but you don't have to tread a lot of Azeroth history to get into the action. Active broadband Internet connection required to play. --Porter B. Hall

System Requirements Minimum Recommended Operating System PC: Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista (with latest Service Packs) Mac: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer CPU PC: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlong XP 1500+ Mac: PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo processor PC: Dual-core processor, such as Intel Pentium D or AmD Athlong 64 X2 Mac: Intel 1.8 GHz processor or better Graphics Hardware PC: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transfor and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce2 class card or better Mac: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 64 MB VRAM, such as ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 class card or better PC: 3D Graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capabilities with 128 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better Mac: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM, such as ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better. Memory PC: 512 MB (1 GB for Vista) Mac: 1 GB PC: 1 GB (2 GB for Vista) Mac: 2 GB Hard Drive Space 15 GB of free space All Platform Requirements Keyboard and mouse, required for controls. A mind-boggling array of improvements in graphics, gameplay, networking, and interface--really every category--makes this game the crown prince of the genre, a great starting place for newbies, and a challenge to any other MMORPG currently in the works. There's plenty of detail and variety to the landscapes and interiors, and the artwork has a refreshingly playful style. The longer you're logged off (up to a week), the bigger the experience bonus you'll get when you return to battle. The makers boast 2,000 existing quests with more being added, many of them noncombat in nature.

The game looks magnificent. Where some games only grant experience through battle, WoW grants experience for exploring and fulfilling quests too.

A Level Playing Field There's also a built-in handicap for casual players where your character enters a rest state when you log off from the game. Like any role-playing game, WoW has merchants who will buy your cast-off items for fixed prices, but you can also sell to other players at your own price through in-game chat or by leaving it with one of the auction houses located across the map. This virtual free market is a game within the game, like Monopoly somehow inserted into the middle of Chess. If you choose skinning and leatherworking, for example, you can fashion bags from the carcasses of monsters you defeat, which will allow you to carry even more inventory items.

Expanded Commerce You can sell the items you make, find, and loot through a variety of outlets. The makers boast 2,000 existing quests with more being added, many of them noncombat in nature. In WoW, death just relocates your ghost to the nearest graveyard, and the only penalty is the time it takes you to get back to resurrect your character's corpse.

All of this makes for a very complicated game, but the well-designed interface puts all the game's elements into icons either visible framing the action or within a simple keystroke.

As heroes, they explore familiar battlefields, discover new lands, and take on epic quests and challenges in Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game. For the first time, players can experience the lands of WarCraft's Azeroth from a new, in-depth perspective. Blizzard has taken care to make the game accessible and fun both for hard-core 60-hour-a-week players and for more casual adventurers.