Guild Wars - Simple But Brilliant (Guild Wars (PC))

Member Name: AndyCreighton

Product:	Guild Wars (PC)
Date:	24/05/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks Good, Sounds Great, Easy To Learn, Challenging

Disadvantages: Not Much, Graphics May Look Dated Now, Voice Acting Could Be Better

As the MMORPG craze swept the nation, Guild Wars stood out to gamers not as the best game but as the cheapest. At the time it was one of the only MMORPGs that didn't charge on a monthly basis. You bought it, signed up and that was you, ready to delve into a world of heros, dragons and fantasy.

Before you even begin to play the game you must first create your character. You must first select a profession, there are 6 to chose from each with a unique skills list and their own traits and attributes. Guild Wars does a great job of making each profession and entirely different gaming experience, for example the Warrior is your basic melee fighter he gets in the middle of the action, can take a lot of damage and can deal a lot out. On the other hand we have the Ranger, who uses his bow to stay out of the fight and disrupt the enemy by interrupting their skills.

Once you've decided on your profession you must then choose your characters appearance and sex. You can choose from a pre-set list of facial styles, hair style, hair colour and skin colour. You can also adjust your height. While there is quite a bit of variation and plenty of combinations, it would be nice to have more options when creating your character. Maybe the ability to change each feature of the face, such as nose size or eye colour, rather than just picking off a pre-set list. Once your done name your character and your ready to go.

You start in the city of Ascalon, here you learn to play the game, learn a few skills and decide on a secondary profession. Guild Wars allows you to combine professions, allowing you to use another skill list, the only catch is you wont inherit the bonuses of that profession or be able to invest in the primary attribute. For example, the Elementalist can invest points in its primary attribute Energy Storage, giving it a large pool of energy to cast their expensive spells, if you choose Elementalist as a secondary profession you will still have to pay for those expensive spells but wont have the large energy pool to do so, so some thought needs to go into deciding your secondary profession. Although the decision is not final, you can change it later in the game.

Once you've gained a bit of experience the story takes a turn and Ascalon is invaded by an army known as the Charr. These Wookie like warriors hate humans and launch a large attack reducing the city to rubble. This is where the world of Guild Wars opens up to you. You now have access to the majority of the game, however at such a low level travelling too far may result in death. To move from mission to mission you follow quests, the game generally does a good job of pointing you in the right direction as to which quest is next.

The combat system is extremely simple but effective. You can choose up to 8 skills at one time, out of these skills one can be elite. To activate these skills all you have to do is click on the target and then click on the skill you wish to activate, its that simple. When you use a skill it uses up energy, represented by a blue bar above your skills, your energy recharges over time. Some skills cost more energy than others and some have longer recharges and cast times.

Money plays a large part in Guild Wars. You need it for new skills, new armour and also to buy new weapons. However its not that easy to come by. When you kill an enemy he has a chance of dropping a small amount of gold, while this helps its not enough to fund your game. An enemy may also drop an item, the best way to make money early in the game is to trade with other players. The ingame trading system is very effective, you can trade gold for an item, an item for an item or a combination of the two.

Guild Wars is quiet forgiving when your character dies. You get to keep you loot, there's no reduction in your gold. However you will receive a death penalty, this is a 15% reduction in your health and energy. It can be removed by killing enemies or even quicker by killing a boss. If the whole team died it is returned to the last resurrection point.

Guild Wars is a great game, however to get the best out of it you have to join a guild. A guild what you want to call it, a clan, tribe, whatever its called its basically a collection of people under a Guild name, there is a leader and may even be officers depending on the level of organisation. Playing in a guild is encouraged as it increases the interaction you have with other players and greatly improves the gaming experience.

The game also offers what's known as PvP. While what's been mentioned above is mostly in relation to the RPG side of things (PvE), PvP is more competitive and has you pitted against other players. There are several different modes of play including Random Arenas, where your thrown into a team of 4 and face another team of 4. Team Arenas, where unlike Random you form your own team allowing for greater levels of organisation. Heros Ascent, with teams of 8 you play on different maps with different goals. And finally Guild vs Guild, an 8v8 battle at your guild hall which requires a high level of organisation.

A few things I would like to touch on before closing the review up are the visuals and audio. The graphics of the game, while not the most up to date, are charming. The character models aren't the best, but in some cases the terrain is spectacular. The animations each have their own individual styles, you can actually identify which skill is being used by its animation. May not sound hard but when each profession hosts over 100 skill, its a mean feat. The music within Guild Wars is very fitting, with plinky melodies and medieval sounding music (if there's such a thing) playing a big part in adding to the fantasy. The voice acting in some cases is quite poor, although its bearable.

To sum things up, Guild Wars is a great game and a great introduction for anyone who interested in trying a MMORPG. The story is quite strong, it looks and sounds good and its easy to pick up and learn, but at the same time the game mechanics will take years to master. But don't worry there's enough material here to keep you interested for years.

Andy Creighton

Summary: A Charming MMORPG That Will Keep You Glued To Your Monitor