World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Review, 7.3 out of 10 based on 11 ratings

Last October I was present at BlizzCon for the announcement of Mists of Pandaria, and to have heard the cheering fans and screams of nerd-joy, one would have thought the titanic juggernaut of World of Warcraft had itself a sure-fire winner. But no more than a handful of hours later I watched a man try to explain the expansion and its purpose in the World of Warcraft timeline to us as if we’d all been rioting in hatred and panic since the announcement. Mists of Pandaria appeared to be a polarizing game, and with no shortage of outspoken and vocal commentary on its content, I sat down to give the game the traditional Big Evil Review treatment.

While the game’s release window is a bit close to another recent MMO hit, and comparisons are near unavoidable at this point, I’ll be doing my best to refrain from those comparisons until the last page. So let’s delve right into the 4th expansion in the World of Warcraft MMO: Mists of Pandaria.

The long awaited expansion to World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria is set to hit North America in just under 12 hours. Around the world launch events are being held in convention halls, retail boxed stores, and just about everything in between. Proud players are lining up for midnight releases or making last minute convenience store runs to stock up on energy drinks for the ensuing madness that is to come, everyone hoping that the experience that awaits them can fill the empty void left by nearly a year of stale content and lack of significant updates to the game.

Whatever their fancy and whatever their opinions, in the next day some estimated 3.5 million players will turn on their computers and fire up the latest in Blizzard’s line of expansions to its industry-defining MMO, with another estimated 4 million players purchasing the game within the next 2-3 months. While precise figures are yet to be released, it stands to reason that barring some unforeseen circumstances, Mists of Pandaria is likely to put another entry in the history of Day 1 PC sales records. But is the hype worth the time?

When Chris Metzen walked out wearing an Alliance hoodie and carrying doomhammer, people got confused.

Unlike previous expansions, a vocal collection of the player-base quickly mobilized to critique and call out this expansion as being “Childish,” “Copying Kung Fu Panda,” and striking similarities in some of the expansion’s new features to popular portable game juggernaut Pokemon. Meeting them were “Fact Checkers” and a growing population that accepted the changes and in fact seemed to embrace them, even pointing out that the Pandaren race predated the Kung Fu Panda movies by years. So quickly did the vocal opposition to the expansion spread that by the end of the first day of the convention Chris Metzen, Blizzards Senior VP of Creative, answered critics at a panel discussion that evening. He assured fans that World of Warcraft wasn’t changing directions and that Mists of Pandariawas the “Calm before a great storm,” but it did little good to stop the arguments raging across message boards and even between guildmates within the game.

The primary point of contention is the expansion’s primary focus: the new player race called the Pandaren, a race of bipedal pandas with flare and flavor from a variety of Asian sources. As a race, the Pandaren have a focus on spiritual enlightenment, inner-strength, and drinking. Possessing a calm and accepting demeanor, the Pandaren are a light-hearted people, a fact that is soon revealed to be a necessity of where they live, but we’ll touch base on that later. Drinking is such a heavy focus for the Pandaren people that many of the “Brews” that they produce contain mystical properties. These brews are created across the continent of Pandaria at countless breweries that claim an important part of many a Pandaren’s day.

The male and female Pandaren Model.

An ancient race that predates even the ancient Night Elf empire, the Pandaren have lived isolated from the world, having departed from their Night Elf allies in the wake of their practicing of arcane magic. To defend themselves, however, they have another piece of contention of the game’s vocal opposition, the martial arts. Using a martial art that appears 1 half Drunken-style and 1 part Animal-style, Pandaren seek to master the self and live a life of harmony, purity, and self-betterment. They are difficult to anger, and even harder to provoke into combat, however within the game’s lore, the fighting ability of the Pandaren monks are legendary.

With large martial-arts using panda men running around with lighthearted attitudes, it can be easy to see the parallels between the Pandaren and Po, the Dragon Warrior of Kung Fu Panda fame. Finally putting the issue to rest seems impossible, but, for the record, the Pandaren have existed since before Blizzard was founded, existing as drawings and stories belonging to Blizzard’s Art Director (and confirmed Brother of Metal) Sam Didier. The first in-game sighting of a Pandaren was in 2002/2003 with the release of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. Development of Kung Fu Panda first began in late 2004 (well over a year after the game’s release) and was released to world wide box office acclaim in 2008 by DreamWorks. However, as the movie franchise is more ingrained into the pop culture consciousness, there is little chance that this fact will actually catch on, so let us just move on to the review.