Guild Wars Review (no fat)

Game Description

Guild Wars combines many attractive sides of RPGs and cooperative multiplayer games into an MMORPG to give a compelling gaming experience.

Guild Wars Storyline

The background storyline is guided on an epic course. Tyria is the beautiful, peaceful world of Guild Wars. You, the hero, belong to the province of Ascalon. It is the land where you run around helping people with small chores and fun little quests. All this is lost just as the tutorial fades away.

The tutorial of Guild Wars takes you through the initial part of the story narration, a style of tutorial new to MMORPGs. In a matter of two years, the land has been plagued by fearsome beasts called Charr. The beauty of Ascalon and Tyria has been ravaged. You, and other brave adventurers come forward to rid these lands of the Charr.

Guild Wars Gameplay

Guild Wars character building process is quite unique; the first thing you choose is the mode of play i.e. PvP or role play. After that you can mold your character to your liking, within the parameters allowed by the options.

You can choose between male and female characters, and you can choose a first and last name, which adds a real life touch to the game. The player avatars are good looking and you can have fun with the detailed configuration to make the character look unique.

During the tutorial, you get to communicate with other players, exchange items with them or NPCs, take on and solve quests. Also, You get to familiarize yourself with the controls, interface and the environment while completing simple tasks and gaining experience. After finishing the tutorial, you’ll find yourself warped two years later in time to find a totally different Tyria. This is where you’ll find the really challenging quests, PvP confrontations and much more.

Guild Wars Gold

Guild wars gold is the building block of the GW economy and you'll need it to purchase your ingame needs such as weapons, equipment, etc. Like other MMORPGs there is a thriving secondary marketing where you'll find sites allowing you to buy Guild Wars Gold.

Guild Wars Professions

Professions in Guild Wars are different from most other MMORPGs. There are Primary and Secondary professions that mean plenty of combo varieties to choose from, very much like FFXI. But, you also get the chance to try professions out before make a final choice.

Guild Wars Quests

There is no waiting around for quests in Guild Wars; each team/player gets his own unique quest; solve it and return to the hub to finish off.

Once you get out of a town you are on your own with your team mates, if you have any. The game gives you a unique world with only you and your team in it so there is no chance of coming across another party or solo players in your adventures. This can be a real pain sometimes because you can only form parties in a town.

While unique quests cut down on a time wasting factor of MMOs, its tougher to pick up teammates as you have to manually check your pending quests, and your contact’s pending quests, before you decide on your teammates.

The game has limited and linear paths between points; so if you want to get from point A to point B you’ll have to find the exact path to that destination through trial and error.. not much fun in that. However, this is only a hitch when you are out questing, otherwise you can teleport between all the cities for travel.

Guild Wars - A way out

For an MMORPG, the loading and logging off takes very little time. Also, players are under no obligation to see their quests to a worthy end; they can log out any time if they wish. You will also not be penalized for dying in the game through massive experience points cut or loss of items.

Instead, dying costs surprisingly little. You start over from a nearby town and the penalty is only health points that are quickly restored over time. This helps in keeping the player’s spirits up, and not many get discouraged.

However, this also means that you can never be sure that your team members won’t turn tail if your team is taking a beating form the opposition.

Guild Wars PvP and Role Play

Guild Wars has two distinct sections of gameplay. If you choose the role playing aspect of the game, you’ll play through a 100 plus hours of gameplay to unravel the storyline.

Otherwise, you can opt for the PvP mode if you can't be bothered about role-play at all. PvP players face like minded players and teams, so you can fight all you want. But this mode limits gameplay as there are weapons and options that are locked for PvP gamers and you have to play the role playing aspect to unlock those.

Guild Wars- Graphics

The graphics are top bracket on the whole. The game has environments with mountains, valleys, forests, scary dungeons and other attractions that make wandering around or getting to a certain location a pleasure. Shadows are detailed as well and a blurring of the edges renders great reality to them.

Even with quality graphics, this package doesn’t require the gamer to have a state-of-the-art graphic cards to play, which is a blessing for regular gamers.

Guild Wars - Sound

The pretty package of Guild Wars is completed by a good soundtrack. It can get a tad monotonous after hours of play but that’s almost normal with most MMOs.

Though the game could do with more voiceovers, the sound effects are good. The different sounds for weapons, and the sound of landing punches add reality during battles.

Guild Wars – Cost

The game costs $39.99 at the time of writing, with no monthly payments for playing online. So effectively, its like playing any other RPG, except for the fact that you need an internet connection to play.

Guild Wars - Verdict

Small details can make good games stand our from the crowd, and Guild Wars has raised the bar for other MMORPGs through its player friendly features.

All in all, it’s a high quality affair, and with no monthly fees, the gamers don’t have too much to lose. A word of caution though.. it’s known to be addictive!