World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Time and again, you'll find things simplified and made more coherent, barriers lifted, makework removed. The Burning Crusade's labyrinthine and perplexing system of faction reputations, for example, has been streamlined. The ability to start a Death Knight at level 55 on any server, as long as you have a character of that level or above, grants every player a shortcut to join friends and a chance to try a different class in condensed form.

There is just one feature of Wrath of the Lich King where this isn't true, and it's no surprise that it's related to what's always been WOW's weak spot: organised, open-world player-versus-player fighting. You know, the "war" bit in Warcraft, lately superseded by the strange sporting subculture of Arenas.

Blizzard's attempt to revive this moribund aspect of the game - under intense pressure from its belligerent new rival, Warhammer Online - is Wintergrasp. This dedicated PVP zone sees one side attempt to take a fortress from the other every couple of hours, by fighting first for control of workshops to make siege engines and other vehicles. There are also opportunities for skirmishing in the lulls between battles.

A pitched battle in Wintergrasp is dramatic and fun, and the system of rewarding players for contribution to the battle with access to better and better vehicles is satisfying. But it's involved, initially a bit baffling, and was imbalanced and buggy even in the very final hours of the beta test. Resting the future of world PVP on a single, large-scale and intricate project is a gamble to say the least, especially when large numbers of players are needed for it to be at its best.

It doesn't help that much of what makes Wintergrasp great is available instantly and more straightforwardly in the new Strand of the Ancients battleground. Hopefully the promise of extra dungeon rewards for the winners' entire faction - plus the chance to pilot those tasty vehicles - will motivate players to get involved in Wintergrasp.

Or maybe the pursuit of Achievement points will. Blizzard's implementation of the must-have feature of late-noughties gaming isn't terribly imaginative, being, by and large, a slightly refined version of Xbox 360's. But it's the design of the Achievements themselves that counts, and here Blizzard has done an excellent job, tempting players step-by-step into epic treks into those backwaters of WOW they might not have explored yet - the fishing profession, perhaps, or seasonal events. With these superb Achievements, a grand new meta-game has been added on top of WOW's actual endgame, and you should never feel like you have nothing to do.

That feeling is some way off, though. Between you and it is Northrend, which is, by a comfortable margin, the greatest game environment ever created.

Blizzard's artists and world-builders are the best. They were the best in 2004. They're still the best now. But it's inconceivable how much better at their craft they've got in the last four years. With Burning Crusade's Outland, they ran riot, creating a gasp-inducing, lurid patchwork of science-fantasy that entertained, but was as fragmented as its shattered planes of rock, as removed as the space that surrounded it.

Northrend swaps madness for lyricism, spectacle for heart-wrenching, melancholy beauty. Its vast zones have been sculpted with infinite care around the non-linear flowering of the quest lines. They have tremendous variation and density of detail, stunning vistas everywhere you look, impressive architecture, and an eerie, haunting quality that will be familiar to anyone who's visited our own far North, be it Iceland, Siberia or the Canadian Rockies. Even the skies, lit with shifting veils of aurora, are enough to make your hair stand on end (assisted by the atmospheric musical score). It is classic fantasy.

All of this is delivered to you via a dramatic graphical upgrade. Increased draw-distance has a huge impact, making the pull of exploration even more irresistible. Lighting, shadowing and the quite magical effects have been brought bang up-to-date - visually, WOW has always been carried by its superlative art, but now that art has the frame it deserves. But it's Northrend's people and creatures that leave the strongest impression; they are strikingly imaginative and charismatic, and far more detailed in appearance and animation than anything in WOW before. They bring this perfect world to life.