World of Warcraft Review

Eurogamer is the latest website to review World of Warcraft, giving Blizzard’s MMORPG an overall score of 8/10. Why didn’t it receive a 9 or 10? Check out their last few paragraphs:

Reviews are buyer’s guides. To MMOGs a review’s categorical nature – this mark is what this game deserves, forever – is pretty much an anathema. The mark you stick on something stays there forever, sitting on Metacritic and glowering at the world. But look at how much – say – Ultima Online changed over its existence. Is the mark reviewers gave then still valid? How about a year down the line? How about in one week when some inevitable technical problem reduced everyone’s pleasure to zilch?

In a reviewer’s seat, you can’t let these thoughts intrude upon your consciousness too much, because – basically – you’ll go mad if you do. I’m reviewing it as it would be if you went down the shops and bought a copy this second. In a couple of months, it’ll have improved considerably, if only due to the mass dynamics of players altering across the maps and servers a little better.

This is the greatest fantasy MMO in existence, the absolute state of the art in orc-bashing. But the nagging feeling I can’t shake is that, for me, that’s not quite enough anymore.