World of Warcraft Beta Impressions

GameSpot has put together some very positive first impressions of the newly launched beta for World of Warcraft. Here’s a little something to get yo ustarted:

Is World of Warcraft a revolutionary game? We have no idea, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Certainly, it’s not drastically different by design than what we’ve seen before from this genre. It’s heavily combat-oriented, and there’s also a heavy emphasis on finding loot and questing. In fact, the game in some ways is reminiscent of Blizzard’s own Diablo II (and Warcraft III of course), more so than other online RPGs. Our night elf character gained himself some pretty decent equipment after only about an hour’s worth of play. Plus, as we gained experience levels, we were able to level up our characters the way we wanted to. A variety of different “talents” were available, allowing us to boost our core stats, specialize in certain weapons or against certain types of enemies, and more.

In addition, you’ll also find a large batch of new screenshots to go along with the preview.