• Ulduar’s secrets will be revealed after many battles and a great journey.
• The Argent Tournament will begin, and it will decide who is good enough to fight against the Lich King.
• Select classes will get new spells and abilities, players are required to visit class trainers to learn the new spells.
• In the Argent Tournament players will discover new ways of getting reputation using capitol cities; mounted combat and more; new titles, achievements, and daily quests(!); new epic and rare items.
• 40+ level players can pay a fee to learn dual-talent while visiting their special trainer.
• New meta-achievements for the Noblegarden which now includes quests, items, and many others.
• For the PvP area, the improvement consists of a new feature called Enemy Unit Frames which can only be used when you find yourself in the Arenas.
• Many new features, and a hoard of improvements were added to the Battlegrounds, Races in general, Lake Wintergrasp, Alterac Valley, Classes in general, Druid, Death Knight, Frost, Unholy, Blood, Balance, Feral, Arms, Hunter, Restoration, Fire, Beast Masteries, Discipline Pets, Holy, Priest, Fishing, Enhancement, and this list could go on forever!
• New dungeon maps for Wrath of the Lich King.
• Properly delay for Malygos after a Vortex.
• Raid’s thread is no longer restarted by the Chains of KelThuzad.
• Shade of Naxxramas’s Portal of Shadows only stands for a minute.
• Players will have their pets dismissed when using Obedience Crystals.
• Emalon, Archavon, and their allies now banish 10 minutes before the Lake Wintergrasp Battle.
• Quest Tracking comes with some more advanced features. You can activate the feature from the menu.
• The Interface menu features a Color Blind option.
• The Spell Effect Level now features Particle Density and Projected Textures settings.
• Video Mode Ultra for high-end computers.
• Better Shadow Quality can now be set from the Interface.
• Players can now allocate talent points before confirming the spending. You can activate the new feature from the menu.
• New Equipment Manager, that can manage 10 sets of items.
• Confirmation box for buying more than 150 gold.
• Objective tracking window now features the Achievement and Quest tracking.
• Advanced features for the objective tracking window can be turned on from the objective menu.
• When operating a vehicle, the player can now see Health, Fuel, and Ammo on the vehicle interface.
• Better performance for the minimap.
• Vehicles, Class Colors, OffMap pings now show on the minimap.
• V-Key frames features new elite mob frames.
• Stamina took Dodge rating’s place.
• Gift of Arthas is now a curse.
• Hearthstone cooldown is now 30 minutes.
• It takes 3 seconds to create a Darkmoon card of the North.
• The players can now mail the Pack of Endless Pockets.
• Holy Shock healing bonus is now just 10 percent.
• Food Eaten statistics have been improved.
• Giang Darkwater Clam can be found by fishing in Wintergrasp and features 5 times more meat than regular clams.
• Improved loot stacking.
• Succulent Clam Meat is not grudge anymore.
• The Glyph of Heart Strike took Glyph of Blood Boil’s place.
• Dancing Rune Weapon duration is 10 seconds longer due to Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon.
• Bersek’s duration is 5 seconds longer due to the Glyph of Bersek.
• Ulduar’s secrets will be revealed after many battles and a great journey.
• The Argent Tournament will begin, and it will decide who is good enough to fight against the Lich King.
• Select classes will get new spells and abilities, players are required to visit class trainers to learn the new spells.
• In the Argent Tournament players will discover new ways of getting reputation using capitol cities; mounted combat and more; new titles, achievements, and daily quests(!); new epic and rare items.
• 40+ level players can pay a fee to learn dual-talent while visiting their special trainer.
• New meta-achievements for the Noblegarden which now includes quests, items, and many others.
• For the PvP area, the improvement consists of a new feature called Enemy Unit Frames which can only be used when you find yourself in the Arenas.
• Many new features, and a hoard of improvements were added to the Battlegrounds, Races in general, Lake Wintergrasp, Alterac Valley, Classes in general, Druid, Death Knight, Frost, Unholy, Blood, Balance, Feral, Arms, Hunter, Restoration, Fire, Beast Masteries, Discipline Pets, Holy, Priest, Fishing, Enhancement, and this list could go on forever!
• New dungeon maps for Wrath of the Lich King.
• Properly delay for Malygos after a Vortex.
• Raid’s thread is no longer restarted by the Chains of KelThuzad.
• Shade of Naxxramas’s Portal of Shadows only stands for a minute.
• Players will have their pets dismissed when using Obedience Crystals.
• Emalon, Archavon, and their allies now banish 10 minutes before the Lake Wintergrasp Battle.
• Quest Tracking comes with some more advanced features. You can activate the feature from the menu.
• The Interface menu features a Color Blind option.
• The Spell Effect Level now features Particle Density and Projected Textures settings.
• Video Mode Ultra for high-end computers.
• Better Shadow Quality can now be set from the Interface.
• Players can now allocate talent points before confirming the spending. You can activate the new feature from the menu.
• New Equipment Manager, that can manage 10 sets of items.
• Confirmation box for buying more than 150 gold.
• Objective tracking window now features the Achievement and Quest tracking.
• Advanced features for the objective tracking window can be turned on from the objective menu.
• When operating a vehicle, the player can now see Health, Fuel, and Ammo on the vehicle interface.
• Better performance for the minimap.
• Vehicles, Class Colors, OffMap pings now show on the minimap.
• V-Key frames features new elite mob frames.
• Stamina took Dodge rating’s place.
• Gift of Arthas is now a curse.
• Hearthstone cooldown is now 30 minutes.
• It takes 3 seconds to create a Darkmoon card of the North.
• The players can now mail the Pack of Endless Pockets.
• Holy Shock healing bonus is now just 10 percent.
• Food Eaten statistics have been improved.
• Giang Darkwater Clam can be found by fishing in Wintergrasp and features 5 times more meat than regular clams.
• Improved loot stacking.
• Succulent Clam Meat is not grudge anymore.
• The Glyph of Heart Strike took Glyph of Blood Boil’s place.
• Dancing Rune Weapon duration is 10 seconds longer due to Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon.
• Bersek’s duration is 5 seconds longer due to the Glyph of Bersek.

Mass Effect (Xbox 360)

Mass Effect is the sci-fi action RPG epic from Canadian developer Bioware who has produced games such as Star War: KOTOR, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights amongst others in the past.

Mass Effect pits you as an elite human soldier named Commander Shepard. You, along with a squad of other specialists, some human and some alien, seek out a rebel soldier who has discovered the key to a powerful ancient technology capable of destroying civilizations. The story starts out as a simple cat and mouse story, but as you continue on your journey, it evolves into something much larger – a political ballad filled treason and corruption.

What makes this game so engaging is the captivating storyline, but more importantly, your interaction within the story. There are several points during the game where you will have to make life or death decisions in regards to some of the game’s supporting characters and even your own band of infantry. Some of your decisions also affect your character’s morality; if you make “good” decisions, you get points towards your paragon status, while conversely, if you make “evil” decisions or if you’re trying to be a dick, then you get points towards your renegade status. I opted to be more of a dick in my campaign, and so my renegade points were pretty high. Just another fun aspect of the game.

The gameplay itself for the most part takes on the form of a standard shooter. Depending on what character archetype you choose, your character would specialize in either weaponry, techs (or electronics), and/or biotics (ie. spells). For my campaign, I chose the infiltrator class, moreso known as the sniper in leyman’s terms. Whichever class you end up choosing, you’re armed with 4 weapons (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle) and an array of biotic and/or tech abilities. In addition, two characters from your squad join by your side as you go through the missions.

Alongside all the shoot’em up action are RPG elements. Basically you gain experience points as you complete quests and kill baddies which helps you gain levels. After each level you’re given skill points to assign and customize what your character’s more specific specialities are.

The mission system I’d say is akin somewhat to Grand Theft Auto’s system where you can continue with the main plot in the story or pick up optional missions to get a fuller feel of the storyline and the atmosphere while reaping up bonuses in cash and loot. My only peeve with the optional missions is that they are not exactly creative. When taking on such a mission, the goal will variate between an assassination, delivery, or exploration… not a wide variation. However, the story involved amongst them is still interesting and adds much to the Mass Effect mythos.

The game took me about 20 hours to play through and I can’t wait to go through it again. It is definitely fun traversing across the universe, visiting different galaxies, and exploring new planets. Some of the cities are so large that it is quite easy to miss optional quests, which in the end demands another play through just to pick these up.

The voice work is pretty amazing which garnered much attention and rave reviews when the game first came out. Some of the special geek guest celebrities that were involved had me excited ie. Seth Green, Keith David, Lance Henriksen, etc.

Anyhow, if you’re a sci-fi nerd, definitely check out this game, I’m sure you can find it in a bargain bin for $25, and it’s well worth the money. Later geeks!