Guild Wars - Game Review

This review is going to be on the MMORPG Guild Wars. Its usually compared to the other "big" MMORPG World of Warcraft but seeing as I've never played the latter I can't compare it to the game at all. That might be a big plus or negative, I'm not sure yet, and its up to you to judge.

Guild Wars

• Published by: NCsoft
• Developed by: ArenaNet
• Genre: Persistent Online RPG
• Number of Players: Unlimited (8 Max in a party)
• Release Date:
  US: April 26, 2005
  Japan: January 20, 2006 
• T for Teen: Use of Alcohol, Violence
• My Rating: 9/10 (9 out of 10)

Lets start with the game options. You can either create a PvE (player versus environment) character or a PvP only character. The main different is that the PvE character starts at level 1 and goes up to level 20 (max) and can play in both PvE and later on PvP as well. A PvP only character (can't be used in PvE) starts at level 20 and has all skills, equipment, heroes (more on this later), and anything else you have unlocked with your PvE character, Anet store buys, or PvP rewards. 

The game controls are very simple, using either a mouse and keyboard combination or just a keyboard if you want. (Best results would be Keyboard + Mouse). The graphics are good if you computer can handle it but if not you can always turn the settings down, you will miss the prettiness that is offered but not much of anything else. I actually prefer to play on the lowest settings (my computer can only handle moderate settings without too much lag at best anyway) as it lowers my lag during online play by a lot. (This actually makes a big difference).

Now to focus on the PvE aspect. The land is actually quite huge and with the 3 expansion packs the world becomes pretty massive. There are several professions that you can choose from, races are limited to humans for now, including an Elementalist, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer, Necromancer, etc. There are many quests to complete and towns/outposts, explorable areas..to well explore, and more than enough missions to finish. Arena Net has also added a bunch of titles for you to finish (more on this later as well). You are allowed to party up with up to 8 players or henchmen (or heroes if you have the Nightfall or Eye of the North expansions). Even so with the recent introduction of heroes and now mercenaries the ability to form groups with other players is now almost down to zero unless you are farming some where. This is mainly because players don't want to fail a mission due to "noobiness".

The PvP aspect on the other hand is still full of players (mainly because its PvP and you have to) but it has slowly begun to die over the recent months but it is sure to rise again before GW2 is released. There are still GvG (Guild versus Guild) tournaments held with a cash payout for winners (maybe those are still around). Arena Net still works to balance the skills ever few weeks but there are still some complaints about it which is reasonable. 

If you finish all the PvE missions and quests and get bored of PvP and GvG what else is there? Well you can go title hunting. There are titles for both PvE and PvP that if you finish you can add them to your Hall of Monuments (A town/outpost in Eye of the North expansion) that unlocks special items for your new character in GW2 when it releases. 

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Buy, Rent, or Leave on Shelf?

Its a buy for me. If you like MMORPGs, making some onlines friends along the way, and some title grinding then its perfect for you. Not to mention its free! Free!? Yes FREE!?. It has some skill balance and when you know what to do everything in PvE become insanely easy. These little things are a bit easier to overlook when its a free to play game.

-Amazon.com offers the Guild Wars trilogy box set (All 3 of the core campaigns - no Eye of the North) for around $30.

-Amazon.com offers Eye of the North for around $10

There are also always local game stores such as Gamestop, Target, and Walmart (mainly U.S. I think). Also you can find cheaper copies on Ebay sometimes. (Especially if you are looking for collectors editions of the game which offers a few bonus items)

If you want to try it out I am sure there are places to find free online trial codes (WoW has them in almost every game you buy)