Guild Wars, is one of the best known online rpg games with a huge community behind it. Some people say it's a MMORPG. You have to buy the game to play it (with all expansions if you want the full game), it has not monthly fees (you don't pay to play). This review is very long because I could write a lot about this game, I played it for many years.
The fullgame is; 3 GW games + a expansion. In the core game (the first) there are 6 jobs included, and the other games have 2 additional jobs, so there are 10 jobs in total. There are tons of skills you will adquire intime while playing. But it's not important to have all skills and jobs.
One of the best things this game has is the soundtrack, made only for this game, let you feel like you are submerged in this world. But when you played a few hours, you want to turn it off...
There are two game mode PvP and PvE
PvE, (player vs enviroment) you do quests fighting versus enemies and monsters (which are abundant and repetitive) all quests follow a hard builded history, not easy to follow because the pauses between conversations with npc and quests. The map is HUGE, this is the cause most new players will be very motivated because they think they will have tons of hours of fun gampeplay
Don't be cheated
The main pve quests are called coops. The coops have a minimum of 30 minutes to complete them (if you are fast enought), so the gameplay feel will be like a pain in the neck. But if you have the luck to be in a party with at least three human players, it will be a more pleasant time. The main theme of the game are guilds, you must enter a guild, if you don't do it, you will be alone. But your fun shouldn't depend on others.
There is a mercenary system. You can invite for free, henchmans and heroes (they are npc) to play with you out of town, but they have a low AI and are weak in general. This system have achieved some players to play alone, with his npcs, all time.
Furthermore, a lot of the jobs of the game are not too valid to pvp or pve. Some are weaker than others. If you choose a mesmer for pve, it will be very hard for you.
Moreover, there are elite quests. They are the most interesting quests of the game, because they are such a challenge and there are more people to play with. There will be where you will get the best materials and stuff. But when we talk in "best" it's not for the stats, we talk about appearance.
The best armors in the game will be equal effective as the cheapest ones. In this game there are 20 levels and every bonus you will take, they will be from runes, inscriptions and such you will get into your equipment as a bonus.
So, there are tons of game content, but what happens if when you play, you don't have such a lot of fun? Why are you playing that amount of hours?
To keep playing the players and repeating some tedious tasks, Arenanet created the titles for PvE and PvP.
The titles are usually a phrase under your character name, it will "show" you achieved X or Y in the game, but this is not everything yet. Like it was explained, armor don't give any stadistic bonus (when they all are for lvl 20), only outfit. And this want-to-show is what some people think of when they farm going to the obsession for getting all the best titles and the most cool/expensive armour. But luckily, this extreme obsession is only in a few gamers, like almost every other game.
PvP. (player vs player) This mode consist on you fighting versus other actually real human players. There are a lot of pvp modes. I will talk about which I played most. Random Arenas. In this mode, two clases excel from others, but it's still passable, all classes are equal too, so you are free to choose which to play and how to play it. You can plan your own battle tactics.
There is another mode, even more famous than random arenas, called GvG (guild vs guild) or Guild tournaments (I think it's the core of the game), where some guilds fight each other (and compete some objectives) to get the top rank and nice looking rewards
PvE and PvP seem so different, like two different games. And from pvp to pve, the skills, the builds, the strategy and everything else change.
The main problem this game has, is in a lot of reviews, webpages, videogames magazines, ... it's categorized like a MMORPG (Multiplayer Massive Online Role Playing). And a lot of players, like me, think this game don't deserves this category of game. Because it's instanced! In the only moment you feel massive gameplay is on towns. And I know a lot of people that buyed the game thinking this is another massive one and end very dissapointed.
Only if you go in party with someone else, this other player will follow you to the out of the city and you will see no other players than you, your mercenaries/heroes and your friend, because this game is all builded about portals, not open world.
So, if you like the massive feature on a game, I wouldn't recommend this game to you.
Graphics
This game has some years in his back, but the graphics are passable and it has some very nice builded landscapes
Sound
A bit repetitive, but very well composed, and it's soundtrack could be from the Lord of the Rings Lenght
It has a lot of content and could keep you busy even years.
Fun
The fact that the game is so repetitive and it could waste even the most excited gamer. And the majority of the content feels boring and tedious, but when you play the game for the first time, you could think it's a impressive game.
Conclusion
I respect the work Arenanet did, but they should have done a better combat gameplay. It would be more dinamic and fun, because the game will consist in fighting, not looking at graphics or hearing at the music. And this is what compromise most the fun factor of this game.
System Requirements
