Guild Wars

Guild Wars seems to represent a middle ground between RPG’s which can be played online via server lobbies, such as the NeverWinter Nights games, and those of a persistent nature, such as World of Warcraft. While it doesn’t provide a seamless persistent world for people to run free around, it does provide an incredibly immersive and engaging place to join up with friends online and go playing together in small groups. While the “instance” barriers provide load-times and cut off points for particular areas, they also provide the player with the opportunity to not have to pay monthly fees, and in my opinion, this balances out the pro’s and con’s pretty well.

Guild Wars takes place in the land of Tyria, a sprawling continent filled with many creatures, a wide variety of scenery and more importantly, many troubles for you to sort out. It seems the world of Tyria is in turmoil and is in need of a hero, that hero is you (not surprisingly). While the game starts relatively peacefully, in the green, grassy rolling hills of Ascalon, you are soon thrown into the action a few years into the future where the grass is replaced by scorched earth, and the small furry creatures that once roamed the land are now replaced with a barbaric race of creatures known as the Charr. However, the problems don’t stop with those guys. As you explore the you will be presented by as whole number of threats depending on the areas you roam in, and all these enemies tie up nicely into an overall story arc which spans the length of the game.

It isn’t normal for games such as these to have such an involving story, but the nature of the game’s design, with instanced off areas, allows players to essentially explore their own world, or share it with friends. This means lengthy missions can be undergone without the interruption of other players, allowing for a series of main story quests to chain the entire game together. You will find yourself fighting off even greater evils than the Charr, and fighting alongside a number of allies as the story progresses. I must admit, there are even some really good twists along the way which genuinely caught me out and impressed me further. You are sure to be pulled in by the game’s narrative and characters, even more so by the fact that the game also retains all the RPG elements you need too.

There is a fairly standard levelling system in the game, killing monsters and completing quests will award you with experience, which in turn will level you up. There is, however, a very low level cap of 20 which is such a shame because you can sometimes feel a little limited in what you can achieve. As you level up you will get attribute points which can be added to your attributes, these then improve skills of that type and can make you more efficient in particular areas of combat. These attributes will vary on your class, of which there are six, these are the Warrior, Monk, Ranger, Mesmer, Necromancer and Elementalist. Once you have chosen a class you are also given the opportunity to choose a secondary class, which can improve the effectiveness of your character if mixed well. For example, Warrior goes well with the Monk class, as it essentially gives the Warrior the skills to heal himself in combat. This particular feature is a nice addition because you are later given the chance to change your secondary class, so you can tailor you combination to increase your strengths and patch up your weaknesses, however, there are still limitations.

One feature of the game which sometimes annoyed me was the fact that you can only have 8 skills equipped at any one time. This can be both a good and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand it limits your options unnecessarily and stops you from making the most of all the skills you have bought/unlocked, but on the other hand it increases your need to think tactically as you have to perfect the build you use when you leave an outpost. I think it depends on your own opinion of that particular situation, but it can either make or break combat at times. You are also able to bring along AI henchmen with you into battle, and while the AI isn't top notch, and will often get you into fights that you don't want to fight, it means you can play effectively alone if you so wish to do so, and they can provide good cover if your party is short of members.

Aside from the skills and levelling system, there is also a fairly robust economy in the game, although it can be hard to find particular rare items at times from other players. One annoyance with this is the lack of armour variations. While there are some pretty awesome looking weapons, the armour sets can only be bought from a vendor, which means that when you reach a certain level everyone looks exactly the same with only a few variations in class and colour here and there. It’s a shame there is such a small amount of armour on sale, that said if you save up enough you can sometimes get armour which is at least expensive enough to differentiate you from the masses, but the chances are you will most likely run into someone with the same gear eventually, at which point you will feel like a tool as you realise you will never really look unique in the game.

OF course, it’s not all PvE play, as the title suggests, a lot of the end game content will consist of PvP (Player versus player) as you can join or create a guild and compete in battles. You can even create a PvP only character that starts at level 20 and is ready for battle straight away. Of course, by doing this you limit the skills and options this character will have, but if you want to jump straight in it’s a nice feature to have. You can also just jump in to random arenas with a random team of 4 players and have a fight for fun, but the real prizes are for guilds who can win tournaments and championships, for which you can earn trophies that will look nice in your guild hall, alongside all the vendors you can buy for your guild. It’s a nice system as you are able to buy an instanced off island or plot of land for your guild to go and hang out in, and you can customise them with merchants and other extras to make it your own.

What makes this limiting armour situation even more of a shame is that the game does actually look really nice. The graphics still hold up today and the game still looks better than most MMO’s out there. The detail on the environments is fantastic, but what really makes it shine is the sheer variety of scenery. One minute you are in a war-torn city, the next in thick jungle from which you venture to ice tipped mountains and eventually arrive in an arid desert and a volcanic island chain. It’s almost like they took every extreme climate and shoved it all into one game… which may well be what they did, but it has been implemented so well it just works. The combat also looks great with all the skills providing vibrant colours and effects, you will never get bored of the sights in battle as meteors fall from the sky, fire rages and swords meet, even small fights can at times feel epic, but on the larger scales things can get truly hectic.

All of this is backed up by a solid soundtrack and great sound effects which further immerse you in the experience. While the game lacks lip-synching in the cut scenes, there is a good amount of dialogue and some really good narrative, all of which manages to pull everything together.

Baring in mind that I am reviewing this game as a lone title, it has been greatly improved since then as numerous expansions have added extra game play features and a whole tonne of new things to do. If you pick up the game now you will get the best of all the games as they overlap well allowing you to switch between the game maps if/when you buy extra titles in the series. With no monthly fee’s, this game really is a no-brainer for RPG fans because the game has a good amount of depth while restricting certain areas for you to think more tactically instead of the usual button-mash style combat in most MMO’s, and with a fantastic story to boot, you will not be disappointed.

Josh Marriage/Sweedums