You’ll meet the great bear guardian first, dire Nalorakk. Be sure to lead many players his way if you dream about riding that wicked looking bear sometime in the near future. Akil'zon is the eagle avatar and master of storms. Unlike his Zul Gurub counterpart, the lynx avatar Halazzi does not have three acolytes that resurrect one another. Jan'alai, dragonhawk avatar puts up a good fight protecting the eggs of the flying hunter. Many will find their doom by the hands of Hex Lord Malacrass but none is as powerful as the master himself, Zul’Jin.

A troll with a dark past

<-250x250 Square - left->Zul'jin's ability as a warrior quickly prompted him leader of his tribe and his need drove him to reunite the wandering troll tribes of Zul’Aman under a single ruler. This extraordinary feat echoed back from the Troll Wars, when the tribes reunited last in the face of mortal danger. Such were the times when Zul’Jin took charge, as Humans joined the High Elves in a crusade to drive the forest trolls back into the wilderness and claim their lands. His raiding parties laid waste to the surrounding areas of Quel'thalas in a time when trolls were weak and defensive. In the conjuration of the Second War, Zul’jin’s plans to unite all trolls under one nation came to a halt however, as he has been captured and tortured, losing his right eye. When his wardens were attacked by a small troll war-party, Zul’Jin cut off his own arm with a fallen spear and escaped to Zul’Aman.

In his rage he searched for new ways to vanquish his foes and found the tools of his revenge in Hexlord Malacrass VooDoo. The totemic spirits revered by the forest trolls in their ancestral shamanistic practices were bound to the greatest and most powerful troll fighters, inside Zul’Aman. Thus the bear, eagle, lynx and dragonhawk avatars were born. As the high elves turned blood elves when Quel’Thalas was destroyed by the scourge and now fight alongside the horde. Forest trolls were always notorious for their war habits, feared by enemies and allies alike, so these events did nothing to smother Zul’Jin’s heart. In his rage, Zul’Jin now turns against the horde and everyone entering Zul’Aman hereby is a foe.

The Zul speaks

“Dis was our land. TROLL land. We Amani was here before anyone! Da' elves and dere Alliance came to drive us out. But we never give up. We never forget... Da' elves took my eye. I cut off my own arm to escape 'dem... and now, 'de fight alongside da' HORDE!? I SPIT on da' Horde! I hate you, I hate you all... But I got a surprise for ya' now, so come on in... De' Amani never give up! We never forget. We never die. 'Dis is our land: you wanna stay, you stay here forever! We gonna bury you here.”

Four spirits pour into one

The wooden doors behind Malacrass’ sanctuary lead to an inner garden where the troll chieftain takes residence. You may think the four avatars defeated, but you are wrong. This matter has always been between Zul’Jin and Malacrass, but the totemic avatars are bound to the Zul alone, for he performed the summoning. That is why we can see them hovering atop the terrace in spirit form, inactive as if waiting for a sign.

As you approach Zul’Jin, he rushes along with a dozen troll warriors that die to three AoE blasts. Le the spank and tank begin! Raiders should spread around Zul’Jin evenly to avoid nasty surprises in the later stages of the fight. In the humanoid form he whirls and hits everyone in melee range so keep an eye on the rogue. He also randomly uses grievous throw which impacts for 3k and leaves a debuff like Rokmar the Crackler in Slave Pens does. The bleeding effect ticks for 2.5k every 2s and disappears if the targeted player is at full health. Be warned that Zul’Jin switches phases every 20% and dps needs to give the tank time to establish agro again, due to threat wipes.

At 80% we have Zul’Jin slightly annoyed by our presence as he calls upon the spirit of the Bear spirit for assistance as he turns into a brown hairy beast. Unlike Nalorakk he casts Paralysis on everyone, debuff which stuns for 4s each 5s and deals up to 4.5k damage unless dispelled. The priority lies with the main tank (due to the recent threat reset) and then healers. Again, luck isn’t a factor so play your cards right and down at 60% Zul’Jin call upon the aid of the Eagle spirit as the bear ghost falls to the ground seemingly dead.

From here on casters will have a tough time doing anything so melee DPS will be the main source of damage. He does not attack anyone so melee should go all out. Lightning zaps you for 1250 each time you cast a spell, but this mana feedback can be fooled by using spells with long casting times and then pulling an instant cast spell at the same time. This way you only get zapped every 4 seconds, because WoW interprets your chain as one single spell. The eagle hasn’t yet landed and the storms are getting annoying. Small tornadoes randomly patrol the terrace and deal 1000 damage with an additional pushback effect. Healers have problems here and must avoid getting cornered by tornadoes. DPS casters are advised to deal damage only as long as there is enough healing to pass around.

With proper control, Zul’Jin reaches 40% and starts off the gamble phase. The lynx that enforces his look upon the master troll can fixate and attack a random person in the raid, therefore ignoring all other attempts to gain agro. It’s hard to describe the kind of attacks this lynx can pull off. Suffice it to say that evasion will not help, nor parry or dodge. Just use blessing of protection, vanish, ice block or whatever life savers available. As a mage I died in two hits which landed in exactly one second, so not even a warrior’s intervene is enough on cloth wearers. When the lynx isn’t fixating anyone, it does a blade dance like Kargath in Shattered Halls, leaving a stacking bleeding debuff on people hit. This phase is hands down the hardest in the battle, so expect to lose up to three people.

Only 20% hit points to go and Zul’Jin falls, only to rise again as a dragonhawk. The spirit casts a smite type spell randomly into the raid, but it’s an area effect so you need to move out immediately when you get hit for the first time. The holy fire ranges somewhere into 3500 damage and ticks every second, so three of these will most likely see you dead. After fighting the lynx, melees get punished in return when the dragonhawk twists high into the air, for pushback and damage inflicted on everyone within melee range. It’s a race against time by now as you may have one healer dead and the rest with moderate mana issues. Raiders must be spread out to avoid his flame breath ability, pretty much the way Jan’alai hit. Just burn him down as fast as possible and don’t get smited in the process.

As the last few percents of his life are removed, Zul’jin’s power wanes and the four spirits forever leave his body in a final release. The warlord of Zul’Aman is defeated and you can now loot his blood to complete the end quest. I’m positive you’ll be back for another round once the three day cooldown wears off and the instance resets. It’s a great new area to spark interest in the minds of lore and loot hunters. Sunwell Plateau should come out soon enough, otherwise there will be no incentive for players to complete Hyjal and the Black Temple with such generous items available in Zul’Aman.

Apparently this game has generated a lot of debates and talks on the fan communities when it comes to its requirements and tweaks. Some gaming websites even published some guidelines and even hints as to what type of computers can run and bring the eye-candy in this game, because it definitely knows how to “whip” the video cards.

 

The most "amusing" part is that even very advanced and allegedly very powerful computers (like Alienware) still have problems in rendering the game with the highest graphics settings enabled at high resolutions. And you may wonder why – first of all there a huge wave of games that are about to be released or just have been released and they all share the same problem, namely a premature release, without a proper checking of the optimizations that can be brought to the game-engine, and thus they will need extreme or huge resources from the computers so that they would be able to cope with the “heavy load” of amount of information which needs to be processed in order to display a smooth and accurate rendering. That is why Crysis comes with a very lovely “readme” text file on the DVD, where you can find very good tips on how to improve your system in order to get the best you can out of the game experience.

Nevertheless, even if you try setting up or buying a computer with an Intel Quad Core (at top frequency), a 8800GTX Ultra card and 4 GB of RAM – it’s still not enough, not even in SLI mode or CrossFire with two ATI 3870 cards apparently. Yes, it will look great and also perform wonderfully with the specs I just mentioned, but not really with all the highest graphics settings, especially in DirectX 10 mode. And that makes you wonder – what is it with these game designers? What gaming systems do they use? Did they create games for the computers that would be available after a few years?

The Bioware team made a name for itself in the computer gaming business as one of the best RPG developers, albeit on the fantasy line, but what we see today furthers from the beginnings. To the delight of role playing and sci-fi fans everywhere, Mass Effect finally hit the shops today as an Xbox only release. In the later years Bioware was synonymous with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, but should you ask the question again in one year, the answer might as well point out at Mass Effect. The action RPG title is the kind of game where a stuffy story line meets tactical combat as you get immersed deeper into the plot thinking about an interactive sci-fi movie experience.

Bioware turned Mass Effect to high definition, along with signing some pretty impressive names in the voice talent department. Seth Green, Marina Sirtis and Lance Henriksen get the job done, so don’t feel ashamed if it feels like Alien 5 somewhere along the way. Starting off into the game you take up the role elite human Spectre agent, Commander Shepard, upholding the law until you turn rogue to uncover a mystery beyond the boundaries of conventional thought. The role playing factor turns up in a non linear story where you are faced with the consequences of your own moral actions. In the end these too will influence the outcome of the scenario, where you are tasked with stopping a threat so great it could destroy all life in the galaxy.

>Mass Effect managed to get the attention of the SCI FI Channel and will have a featurette tonight, November 20^th 11 p.m. EST. The special it’s called “Sci vs. Fi: Mass Effect” and will explore the ways that technology and human ingenuity came about to create the premises encountered in the Mass Effect storyline. Somewhat like a look behind the scenes, with more information available on the official site.

Mass Effect has been rated M for Mature by the ESRB. There is a limited collector’s edition available and includes pretty trinkets like the “Galactic Codex: Essentials” fiction book, the “A Future Imagined” artwork book, four documentaries about the creation of the game on a DVD and 10 songs from the game’s soundtrack.