Several years have passed since the Burning Legion's defeat at Mount Hyjal and the races of Azeroth have continued to rebuild their once shattered lives. With renewed strength, the heroes of the Horde and Alliance have begun to explore new lands and broken through the Dark Portal to investigate the realms beyond the known world. Will these heroes find friends or foes? What dangers and rewards lie in wait beyond the Dark Portal? And what will they do when they discover that the demons they thought vanquished have returned to renew their terrible Burning Crusade?

Blizzard have once again returned to the fold of online gaming in their latest epic of the World of Warcraft series titled "The Burning Crusade" that not only gives players a variety of new areas to explore but also allows those high-level characters to fight their way to level 70.

Features

• An increase in the level cap to 70

• Two new playable races, including the magical Blood Elves

• New starting zones in QuelThalas and beyond

• The entire new continent of Outland, reachable through the Dark Portal
  Many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth, Outland, and elsewhere

• New flying mounts in Outland

• Many new and dangerous monsters, including epic world bosses

• Hundreds of new quests

• Hundreds of new items

• A new profession: Jewelcrafting

• Socketed items

• And much, much more..

The new areas of The Burning Crusade include the lands of Outland that is beyond the reach of the Dark Portal where the Burning Legion have returned with their demonic crusade to destroy all magic in the universe. These new locales are definitely aimed at those WOW players who have reached level 60 and in order to succeed through this harsh wasteland, players must unite together to challenge the dark hordes of the Burning Legion. 

With seven new areas that include the home of the Hellfire Citadel, the Hellfire Peninsular, other places of Azeroth include the Netherstorm, Blade's Edge Mountains, Zangarmash, Terokkar Forest, Shadowmoon Valley and Nagrand, the developers have ensured that there is quite a bit of exploring and battling to do However in order to access some of these strange and challenging locations, the player must enlist the aide of flying mounts to access the more difficult territories in the Outlands.

Veteran World of Warcraft players will be comforted to hear that all the elements that made the original so great are still in place. To start, you create a character from eight races, which will put you on either the Horde or Alliance side, and then you choose from a variety of classes. Every race and class has its strengths and weaknesses, and there’s near-limitless ways to play your character. And if you don’t like what you’ve chosen, you can always roll again.

Another new aspect of the WOW series is that the Burning Crusade have reduced the maximum number of players to perform a raid from a whopping forty to a more realistic twenty five that is sure to create cheers from all in the world of Azeroth. Blizzard have also split dungeons into wings in order to assist you complete the dungeons in a single session, rather than an entire day or so.

If you prefer "player killing", well then you've also come to the right place as the Burning Crusade also features a new player versus player arena where teams of 2, 3 or even 5 battle against their opponents for victory among mortals in the real-world. There's also a new battleground called the Eye of Storm that mixes Capture the Flag with domination.

Besides the extended levels and new continent, the biggest addition to the Burning Crusade is the inclusion of two new races called the Draenei and the Blood Elves. The Draenei represent the new addition to the Alliance, while the Blood Elves make camp with the Horde. There’s no love lost between the Draenei and the Blood Elves, especially since it was the Blood Elves who sabotaged the Draenei spaceship, causing it to crash land on Azeroth in the first place.

The Draenei homeland is the island where their spaceship crashed and the first quests you’ll encounter will involve collecting medical supplies to help your injured comrades. As you wander around the Draenei homeland, you’ll notice that the race has a definite affinity to crystals – the crashed spaceship looks to be almost entirely crystalline. The love for crystals ties in with another major new feature in Burning Crusade, Jewelcrafting.

The classes available for Draenei include the warrior, paladin, priest, Shaman and mage that needless to say are a formidable opponent to any enemy that they challenge. Unfortunately for the Draenei, their counterparts the Blood Elves are equally as ferocious and also give the player access to Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Mage and Warlock classes. Don't be fooled though, although the Blood Elves look lithe and beautiful, they are probably the most sinister of races on Azeroth.

Graphically, the Burning Crusade features some great "online" graphics with highly detailed background environments and extremely detailed characters with a  great polygon count and high resolution textures. The developers have done a great job at recreating the mystical world of Warcraft and you really get the feeling that you are in a strange sword and sorcery universe, as with the graphics, the audio and music is also first class. The only problem we saw with the initial testing of the Burning Crusade was the lag on certain servers but I'm sure Blizzard will sort this one out.

With hundreds of new quests and items, a wide of new spells and classes, areas for players of all different levels (even level 1 to 10), World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade is a must have to all lovers of this immensely popular online game. Whether you're new or old and wish to continue your experience in this mythical online world, this is one game that is a must have! Virtually months and months of fun and frustration... great stuff!