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GoTh · #1 05-15-2005, 01:11 AM

I know this review is long, but try to read it all, it's good, Promise! :P

Guild Wars has been one of the highest anticiapted games for the last couple years or so, and now its finally here! This game is alot different from your average MMORPG in a few ways. You won't really see any real level grind in this game, and you can do PvP whenever you want.

When you first start, your in the beautiful looking city of Ascalon, which doubles as an extremely cleverly designed tutorial. The game eases you in to every main thing that you will need to know. There are hints all over, and no just random, but popping up whenever your doing something wrong, or something that could be done in a different way. You could spend hours on the wonderfully designed map of Ascalon just doing the infinite quests that seem to be spread all over the game.

Now that I look back on my first day of playing Guild Wars and all the time I've spent in Ascalon, I'm noticing even more things that the game easily taught me without me knowing. Why didn't I realize that the whole thing was a tutorial in the beginning? Simple, it wasn't "Now go here and do this". It had ton's of quests, but extremely easy ones, with the hints popping up whenever you did something wrong. At the time, I was focusing on the awards, XP, and drops I got from mobs.

Ok, I don't think anyone has ever finished every quest in Ascalon, much less explored the entire area, but you will eventually want to move on. In order to move on, you join the Ascalon army, and it launches you in to your first team mission. This first mission is kind of a tutorial mission, where you go to repel invading army forces, lead by "Prince Rurik", the prince of Ascalon.

After you complete that mission, it leads you in to one of Guild Wars many beautifully done cut scenes. The invading "Charr" army break through the walls of Ascalon and destroy the entire area. The scene cuts to two years later, where you and your party stand in a rocky, baron wastland that was once the nation of Ascalon. You enter whats left of the city, and this is where you find the merchanting area for all low levels, and the level 1-10 arena.

The attack that destroyed Ascalon is known as the Searing, and theres no going back to Old Ascalon/Pre-Searing Ascalon. So just like that, a huge map with so many quests that it could've been a game in itself, is gone. And that's when you realize that the entire thing was just a tutorial.

Well that's all I'll say about the story line, but it's extremely intresting, heavily populated by cut scenes, etc. The rest of the game goes much like the tutorial, but it's a challenge.

There are so many other things that make up the game that I couldn't even list them all. So many little things that you would be completely surprised by. No matter how many times you travel in the expansive game, you will always come across an NPC, a quest, or something of that type. There arent just mobs laid around everywhere, but instead everything fits in with the story line. For example, if you come across a group of four Charr that appear to be just walking around, they are most likely patroling, and if you kill them and continue traveling in that direction, you might come across a large Charr temple, or something of that type. There are many other mobs besides the Charr, and those mobs will attack when you get near, like any others, but they will also attack if the Charr or another type of mob get near. I've witnessed a large battle between Gargoyles and Grawls. Gargoyles use Mesmer type spells, and Grawls use a series of different profession skills and spells.

Now for an example of the little things that make up this game. I must've entered and exited Post-Searing Ascalon tons of times while I was doing quests, and sometimes things wouldn't be the same. One time while I was coming out of Ascalon, I spotted the King with his gaurd of six elite-looking gaurds. The king was approaching Prince Rurik, and I followed and watched as the two had an argument about an ambassador from a nation that want's to help, but was an enemy of Ascalon in the old days. The prince wants to accept the help, the king wants to kill the ambassador. In the end, Rurik convinced the King to leave it to him. This was just a scene that I randomely spotted, but it wasn't until later that I found that the many arguemnts that Rurik has with his father play a large part in the plot.

The biggest part of the game is PvP. PvP is based mostly on talent, chosen skills, and easily changed build of your character. If you don't like RPG, you can create a PvP character at the max level (20) straight away and get fighting. Your PvP character will have top level weapons and armor, so don't worry about that, just play. You CANT use these PvP characters in RPG, and the more advanced skills you can use in PvP must be previously unlocked in RPG.

Ok, well that's enough of me blabbing about how totally leet this game is, so here are my ratings.

Technical: GW has a unique system that streams new content to you while your playing, so no waiting to update at all. If you just dl the small client instead of the one packed with the game, you probably will have some inicial updates to stream you the actual game. That client off of the site is 50kb or so, it just streams you enough of the game so you can get in, then streams the rest while your playing.

Customize: EVERYTHING in GW is adjustable. Change the GUI, the sound settings, the visual settings, all in game.

Sound: The sound in this game is totally awesome. The sound effects are expansive in that you could have tons of different sounds for an arrow hitting something, depending on what that arrow hit.

Graphics: You've seen the screenies, you know the graphics rock. You may not know that the requirments are extremely low, and that if your a little shacky, you can just hit the in game options button at any time and lower your quality a bit, which you most likely wont notice a difference with. Once again, the graphic effects are expansive. When you battle in an arena in a snowy type region, you can see your breath in the air. That's how sepecific it gets.

Overall: Ok, well you read everything above. All of this, plus the crafting system, etc. is pretty much begging for a 10 rating. The other thing that rocks about this game, updates, ALOT of updates. Check out the change list on Guildwars.com. Since release, they've made tons of changes, and I'm not talking just bug fixes, but adding stuff to make people like the game better. Add the fact that there's no monthly fee, and anyone is hooked.

Alright, good job, you read it all. It took me like fifteen minutes to do this, so if you skipped alot, go back to the * TOP AND READ THE ENTIRE DAMN * THING THIS TIME.

snack · #2 05-25-2005, 11:41 PM

i dont think it said it in there is there a monthly fee?

admin · #3 05-26-2005, 12:26 AM

No monthly fees.

snack · #4 05-27-2005, 12:14 PM

cool i think im gona buy it and play

BuNnEh-sTyLe · #5 05-28-2005, 10:54 PM

omg i stopped reading ur story after 3 lines y u gotta make it so long lol

mala · #6 01-06-2006, 10:26 PM

i got bored on it everyone in hoh shouting iway r3 in america sever. go to europe sever they hav better groups and alwasy hav favor of the gods.

Unseen · #7 06-30-2006, 08:33 AM

No monthly fees, buy the game from shop for like $30 and you get life membership.

Its one of the best MMORPGs Ive ever played, and played 100 hours in just over a week.

I will be going back to it after I get further on gunz.

I like playin a variety of games you see.