World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack Review

Game Title: World of Warcaft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack

Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Genre: Role Playing
ESRB: Teens (13 +)
Platform: PC Games

Overall Rating: 87/100

Graphics/Audio: 25/25
Gameplay: 20/25
Creativity: 20/25
Fun Factor: 22/25

Burning Crusade, the long awaited expansion pack for World of Warcraft was released on January 17, 2007. Many stores opened at midnight for the sole purpose of selling the newly released expansion pack. But, is the expansion pack worth the wait and worth the cost? It all depends on the kind of player you are.

For those players who only have low level characters the expansion pack isn't as great for them as for those who were already level 60 when the expansion pack was released. The reason for this assessment is because two of the most important features of Burning Crusade are the Outlands and the new level cap.

The Outlands is a new area consisting of seven new 'countries' for lack of a better term: Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, Terrokar Forest, Nagrand, Blade's Edge Mountains, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley. However, this entire area is of no use to lower level players because you can not enter the dark portal that leads to the Outlands until you are at least level 58.

Although, it is true that at lower levels you could get either a warlock to summon you or a mage to make you a portal to use to go the outlands, there would be little purpose as you would not be able to receive any of the quests and the monsters or enemies would most certainly kill you if you attempted to fight them.

As for the level cap, it is pretty simple why this would not be very needful for a low level character. Before Burning Crusade the highest level you could reach was 60. With Burning Crusade that number has increased to 70. But if the highest character you have is, for example, level 34, you still have 26 levels to go to get to 60. You aren't going to be worrying about being able to get those extra 10 levels for 70.

That is not to say that Burning Crusade is completely pointless unless you have high level characters. There are some features of the expansion pack that benefit all World of Warcraft Players. For one there are the new races and now you are able to play all the classes on either side, Alliance or Horde, while before only Alliance had access to the paladin class and only Horde had access to the Shaman class.