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Guild Wars Review for PC
Posted on Monday, July 04, 2005 @ 08:55:32 pm E.S.TMassively multiplayer role playing games (commonly referred to as MMORPG's) have become one of the most popular genres among gamers. However, the need to pay a monthly subscription fee has kept many away. Through these games you're allowed to get sucked into an expansive and persistent world. Guild Wars does away with the subscriptions, but at what cost?
Guild Wars, in all actuality, is not really an MMORPG. While they appear to be and are typically classified as such, it plays much differently. The only time you're surrounded by a large group of living people is in towns and outposts, where you form into groups. Once you leave these areas, you and your group get your own separate 'copy' of the world, where you're free to explore and slaughter countless monsters. If you can't find a group of human players to join up with, you can hire AI henchmen that come along - for a price, of course. Early on in the game you're allowed to pick a secondary profession, which lets you unlock any skills in that class. Speaking of skills, this game is absolutely packed. Hundreds upon hundreds of skills, ranging from simple sword attacks to calling down a storm of fire from the sky are available for you to unlock and use.
The Player vs. Player (or PvP) portion of the game plays a major role in Guild Wars. Throughout the course of the story mode (also known as Player vs. Environment, or PvE) you'll find arenas where you can take part in PvP matches. During your adventures you'll level your character like any other RPG, but only up to the level cap at 20. Many RPG veterans will be appalled by this cap, but it helps to keep the PvP portion of the game very balanced. You don't need to invest an insane amount of time for your characters to be efficient - rather, you need to be clever and understand how to use and combine your skills. Should you not be compelled to play through the story mode, you can make a PvP-only character, which starts you right off at level 20 and allows you to select any skills you've already unlocked with other characters in the PvE portion of the game.
Throughout the story mode you're given primary missions by certain NPC's, while others will provide you with secondary missions and other services. As you travel from town to town you'll run into mission towns, which are the main way of advancing through the story and moving from place to place. While they are extremely fun in the first runs through, they quickly become tedious after you're forced to retry it over and over because your healer couldn't resurrect you fast enough. Each time you leave a town or outpost, you'll take with you 8 skills that you have access to while adventuring. You can customize which 8 you take with you while in town. Due to this limit, you need to talk with your group members and make sure that you compliment each other's skills.
Guilds (basically clans within the game) play a major role in terms of the PvP portion of the game. Don't worry if you don't know anyone who plays the game - you shouldn't have trouble finding a guild willing to accept you with open arms. Once your guild becomes wealthy enough, they can invest in things such as a hall for its members to meet in and capes for them to wear. These guild halls allow you and your guild to participate in (surprise!) guild wars, which are large scale battles and objective-based missions where you compete against rival guilds.
After playing Guild Wars for some time, the game does become rather dull and repetitive. You run through nearly the same course of missions and areas with each character you make. Many of these missions will have you retrying them over and over for as simple a reason as one of your group members leaving. Combat is as simple as pushing one of your number keys or left clicking on the corresponding icon and watching your character attack. More often that not you'll find yourself just watching your character attack rather than feeling like you're actually part of the action. Not only does watching the same attacks occur again and again get boring, but you'll find yourself fighting the same monsters and enemies for long stretches of time. Honestly, if I wanted to slaughter countless spiders, I wouldn't pay $40 to do it. The most major problem with the game is that you're basically stuck on a single path - you can't walk anywhere you want to, like you can in games such as World of Warcraft. This really hinders the overall experience, as you're stuck on a linear path that you'll find yourself traversing over and over again. While you can deviate from it to some extent, you're prevented from walking up and down hills or simply walking in a straight line (you'll hit invisible barriers constantly). While the ability to jump is rather useless, seeing as you are stuck to this path, it would be nice to be able to jump onto platforms and small inclines. Should you find yourself without a group (which will often happen, due to fellow guild members and friends being at different points in the game), you'll be forced to solo with henchmen. In these cases, you'll find yourself truly isolated. For an online role playing game, you'll find yourself playing alone much more often than you should be.
Graphically, Guild Wars truly manages to impress. From the dynamic lighting to the well designed character models, you'll find plenty of things to aesthetically please you. If World of Warcraft scared you away with its cartoony style, you'll probably love the way GW looks. The lighting looks fantastic, especially when you see it cast itself through the top of a forest. However, the game seriously lacks in terms of character customization. Initially you can change the size of your character, but not much else. Throughout the game you'll be able to upgrade your armor and other equipment, although most of the outfits are the same few cycled over again and again for each profession. When put in comparison with City of Heroes, which allows you to customize absolutely ever detail of your character, Guild Wars disappoints.
In the sound department, the game provides soothing music that works well in context, but isn't too special. The dazzling array of sound effects are well done, and each sounds unique. However, you'll grow to dislike the sound of the attacks you consistently use throughout the game. Not too many complaints here, but nothing worth taking note of.
Adding to the overall frustration are collision detection issues. In one case, after two hours of battling through a mission, I was unable to make a run for a lever because my character couldn't run around an enemy (or jump onto the foot-high platform the lever was located on), and I died. As you can imagine, my group and I weren't too happy about that, and trust me - if you run into this problem (which you inevitably will), you won't be too happy either.
While Guild Wars does provide an extremely entertaining experience and allows you to play an online RPG for free, its lack of a free-to-explore environment and repetitive gameplay seriously hinders what could have been a great game. If you don't want to pay to play a true MMORPG, you can't really go wrong with Guild Wars. With free online play and a large community, there's tons of fun to be had. But be warned - it may not be the experience you're looking for. Review By: Chris Pereira - 8371 Reads
Guild Wars Review Scores for PC :
| Gameplay |
| 7.9 |
| Graphics |
| 8.9 |
| Sound |
| 7.7 |
| Replay |
| 7.5 |
| Overall |
| 8.1 |
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