World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Expansion Pack (PC/Mac DVD)

Its kind of hard to review Cataclysm as a product because the vast majority of it content is actually free in the form of the Shattering patch which everyone got regardless of whether they own just the original game and/or any of the expansions.

This free patch changed the majority of Azeroth for the better. Entire zones have been changed in appearance, some zones have been broken up into two, low level questing has been improved from 1-60 and so on! Basically bringing older content into a more modern era. Improvements to guilds and so forth! These are all awesome and amazing changes which make older content great and replayablity far better!

The problem arises because this means that by purchasing Cataclysm you are only buying access to the lvl80-85 content (i.e new higher level quests, dungeons, raids, gear and zones), the ability to fly in Azeroth, the new Archeology skill and some re-vamped older dungeons having a new hard setting added. This could be argued as being a small amount of content to actually buy!!

So the question is whether or not that paid content is worth it?

If you are a long running wow player, who has a lvl80 character or two and you have done everything else, then YES it is. You will no doubt love the new areas, quests, dungeons and raids etc etc. You will love the ability to fly in Azeroth (and it is cool to do it) and perhaps pass some time digging things up in Archeology.

There is no denying that the lvl80-85 content is fun to play through and worth doing so. But if you are a long runnin WoW player then you already know this, and you know what to expect as you will have bought BC and LK already!

And to those who have said the leveling is too fast in cataclysm from lvl80-85, I would say its fine. If you play casually, maybe an hour a night (while having a healthy social life away from the PC) then you are looking at a good week or two to reach lvl85 and THEN you have tones of other content to do anyway.

But you have to realise its ONLY 5 levels! That would never take long regardless of what Blizzard did.

Personally, I play casually and after about a week of playing the game, I have gone through two zones now, exploring every inch and doing EVERY quest as I find (for the achievements) I am still on lvl83 and only just entering Uldam. That is about 1-2 hours play a night and maybe 3 times a week. I'm not someone who plays WoW EVERYday for endless hours.

I've found the leveling up to be spot on!

Back to my other point.... if you are new to WoW then the bottom line is buy the Battlechest with the original game and BC in FIRST! give it a try, see if you like it. If you do, then buy LK and if you like that, then get Cataclysm.

A warning to new players though... you are looking at 85 levels now to play through, dozens of dungeons and a lot of raids! Having that much content before you WILL be dawnting and it will feel overwhelming and you may become discouraged. But as most people will say... the best content is at the end of the game! If you stick at it, and eventually play Cataclysm, it will be worth it!

If you are new to the game you will find lvl 1-60 a much more fun experienced then even we had when we first startted due to massive improvements. But those aare free anyway.

If you are an existing player of WoW you know what to expect, and you no doubt already made the choice to buy it anyway.

I have been looking forward to this game for some months as I hoped it would rekindle some interest in the whole WoW package. I must admit therefore to being somewhat disappointed about what I have seen up to now. I will however caveat this review because I have only played it for a few nights and have only been into three of the early zones, completing the entire quest lines in only one of those.

However that is part of the problem, the zones are graphically slightly better (and that is on a very fast PC with everything switched up to Ultra) but nothing to write home about. I could live with that as it what I have come to expect and the cartoon style is part of the games charm. What I am very disappointed about is that the quests are mostly of the basic "go kill 6 things" or "go deliver/look at/explore this place" type. There is little of the development of plot elements that seemed to be in norm in the 2 preceding expansions. The other major flaw is the hopelessly linear nature of the quests. There are only ever a few quests open within a specific quest hub and you must do them in a largely predetermined order to open up new quests. There is no real opportunity to explore and find new areas.

I am still hoping that as I go further into the game things will look up but it does not look hopeful.

The other major concern I have is levelling longevity. As I mentioned I have only done 1 zone completely, 1/3 of another zone and a handful of quests in a third. With very limited rested bonus I am already at level 83 and will expect to ding 85 by the time I have completed the two zones I am questing in. I started playing on the 8th (delivery from Amazon was that morning which was adequate if not earth shattering performance from them) by that time several people in the guild had already reached the lvl cap. This contrasts very badly against the much slower levelling process previously. This may be a deliberate ploy to focus the game entirely on end game raiding but for me it takes one of the most enjoyable aspects away.

On the plus side the game still has managed to keep me interested to a sufficient degree that I am not going to pack it in. The starter zone for the Goblins is also by far the best starter so far.

I hope to be able to come back and edit/update this with a more positive review at some point but sadly for me the game so far has been somewhat average.

So, as the title says, it's really good but you need to be in an active social guild (or have a few RL friends playing) to get the most out of this game.

The new level cap is very easily reached (I think it took me 20 hours or so) due to the quests being spoon fed to you, so you don't get lost and lose out on xp while you wonder what to do. The minimap shows you were to go, so you can fly there and do whatever, and fly back to the questgiver within a few minutes for 30,000 xp or so. Rinse and repeat and you're level 85.

The new zones are spectacular, as is the new revamped Azeroth. Being able to fly over Azeroth is very exciting.. it's just a shame that the cool ground mounts hardly ever get used now, especially the new camel mount I just got!

The graphics have been revamped. The game will still play well on lower end pc's, but now you can ramp the settings up to high if you have a good machine.

Doing dungeons at level 85 is where it goes downhill very quickly, if you don't have friends or a social guild to help you. PuG's are full of very nasty-minded players who think it's their god given right to hurl abuse for any reason, especially to the tanks and healers.

The regular level 85 instances are pretty easy and drop iLevel 333 loot. This helps you to do heroics (you need an average gearscore of iLevel 329 to be able to access heroics) and perform decent dps, healing and tanking. But expect to fail a lot. Heroics are VERY hard as of now.. just imagine doing WotLK heroics with everybody in iLevel 187-200 gear and you'll appreciate how hard it will be. Especially now that the bosses feel as hard as some WotLK raid bosses used to feel.

The max iLevel ingame (to non raiders) is 359. These are epics, whilst everything below is classed as a blue. A lot of crafted epics and epic BoE raid drops can be found on the AH which will boost your powers considerably. But prices are sky high at the moment.

The new profession of Archeology is very tedious and seems like it's not been fully implemented. Ores seem to be more available though.. maybe they spawn quicker and there's more of them? So lower level ores are now very cheap (mithril used to be very expensive but is always available for a few gold a stack now).

Gold is very easy to come by. I think I earned 3000 gold in the time it took me to level my character from 80-85. A lot of BoE greens drop, which disenchant into very expensive dusts.

Overall, this expansion is very well made and presented overall, but the lack of a social guild or RL friends make this a short-lived experience. Someone else noted that it was good for a month and I agree with them. My character is a tank in 346-359 gear, but the abuse I receive for any little mistake (not even my own sometimes) is too much for me to take. This anti-social behaviour will be the death of WoW in the end I feel. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.