Is Arthas gunna have to choke a bitch?

Yeah, I know, such profanity in a title, but, whatever, it is a contextually useful phrase. Besides, it's funny.

Those who recognize the name in the title will know I am about to wax philosophical on World of Warcraft and probably the new expansion as well. These people are quite correct. Despite the fact that I recently purchased a PS3 and despite my stance on it, the only thing I find myself constantly interested in lately is, still, WoW. (The most likely reason for this is because the summer time is always boring for video games, and the two best games for my new PS3 are called "Jack" and "Squat", respectively, with "Bupkiss" due out later this month).

I am not the first to find themselves in the throes of Azeroth addiction nor am I the first to write it up on a blog, but, I can't help myself. This game is truly amazing. Look, even the most jaded cynic would likely admit Blizzard makes great games (whether or not they particularly like them) but WoW is something else entirely. It's more like a cultural turning point. Much like how Nirvana wasn't the first grunge band, but they became a defining point in music in the 90's, World of Warcraft (or WoW to you) has become a sort of cultural focal point for the video game world. Everyone knows about it, pretty much everyone who has ever played PC game has at least played it to some degree, there have been TV Episodes about it, and also a movie in production, but these things alone don't really do enough to explain its transcendence. I mean, other games have had similiar treatment, but WoW has really ecplised so many of them. I may even go so far as to say that it is surpassed only by the Mario series in terms of notability when it comes to name recognition. The question is, does this equate to it being a good/great game?

The answer is, of course, no. Notability and greatness of product do not translate into making a great game, what makes a great game is a great game. And make no mistake, WoW is great. It plays remarkably easily yet contains a bevy of features that allows for a lot of depth and complex gameplay for an adavanced user. Basically, it is like every Blizzard game that has come before it. Which is probably why I love it so much.

And make no mistake, I love this game. Sure, I wanted to write a BioShock review today, but that didn't happen because, though I just finished and loved that game, I am more interested in talking about WoW since I picked it up again this past week after finishing BioShock (but there WILL be a BioShock review coming soon).

The weirdest thing about writing about WoW is finding something in particular to talk about. I mean, speaking about it in general is virtually impossible, it is too large a game (like most MMO's) to speak about in a general sense and have it make sense. It's just not possible. So really, I won't try to speak about the game here like that, instead, I will save posts for it for specific concepts. In one case, which will hopefully be done this weekend, I plan on live blogging my wife playing the game (this should be a comedic gold mine....or a haphazard and stupid thing, we'll soon find out).

But, best of all, I can talk about WoW and have it be fairly timely, since the announcement of it's long rumored second expansion took place earlier this month at BlizzCon. So, if I start writing WoW posts, and you, the reader, are getting annoyed, just remember to send those angry emails to Blizzard, it's their fault.