Guild Wars

Metachronos overall score = 9.0 / 10

Positive
# Well-designed, interesting skill system and action-packed combat
# Tons of content--huge volume of cooperative and competitive activities
# Lavish presentation makes the whole world of the game look alive
# Technically marvelous--runs fast and smooth, loads almost instantly
# Has something for just about everyone

Negative
# It can be difficult to find a good group of willing players for cooperative missions
# The gameworld is beautiful, but lacks cohesion

While it's tempting to compare Guild Wars to any number of other fantasy-themed role-playing games, there's really never been anything quite like it before. It innovatively and successfully combines many of the best, most addictive properties of action RPGs, online RPGs, and competitive multiplayer games in one beautifully produced package, which offers a tremendous lasting value yet none of the monthly fees typically associated with online-only games. The first title from developer ArenaNet, Guild Wars threatens the entire online RPG establishment with its bold design. More importantly, it's a very impressive game that's rewarding on many different levels and can be tremendously appealing for any number of reasons. It sure doesn't hurt that Guild Wars is so easy on the eyes. This is an excellent-looking game, both from a technical and from an artistic standpoint. Character designs are fresh takes on fantasy conventions. Each character gender/class combination has a unique and memorable look, plus many options for customization (as well as some unique and amusing social animations), so you won't be seeing many clones of yourself while running around in Tyria. The various creatures you'll encounter are also imaginative and interesting, varying wildly in shape and size. Though, sadly, none of them bleed. The environments of Guild Wars may be the biggest attraction from a graphical standpoint. This is one beautifully detailed world, offering up larger-than-life versions of pretty much every type of environment you could think of, all rendered in a vivid, soft-focused look that gives the game a dreamlike quality that totally works. In spite of all this, Guild Wars runs great even on relatively modest systems, and even when tons of people are running around or duking it out. The game's few graphical rough edges, such as how characters seem to pop in piece by piece when you enter a new area, wouldn't even be worth mentioning if the superlative graphics didn't make them stick out a little.



The game doesn't sound quite as impressive as it looks, but that's kind of an unfair way of putting it, since Guild Wars sounds great. A symphonic musical score by renowned composer Jeremy Soule helps imbue each of Tyria's distinct regions with its own personality, and while the music is of uniformly high quality, it can start to grow a bit repetitive as you explore within a given type of environment. The sounds of combat pack a good, solid punch, and different types of weapons and skills in turn make distinctive noises, which all tend to fit the action well. Guild Wars also has some nicely done ambient sound effects, but given the nature of the gameplay, you'll end up hearing a lot of the same effects over and over. Interestingly, you can actually hear your otherwise-silent character speaking during some of the cutscenes, which will probably make you wish you could hear his or her voice more often, such as in tandem with the different social animations. It seems like a common observation among longtime game players that games have gotten shorter and smaller over the years. The rigors of game design are such that it's generally just not reasonable to expect games that are both of very high quality and that are also very long, but at the same time, there's something to be said for a tightly paced gaming experience. Still, you can never have too much of a good thing. But Guild Wars comes awfully close. It pulls out all the stops to win you over.




GAME COVER
http://www.tothegame.com/boxshot.asp?picnum=uk&id=2497

a friend of mine plays this game no monthly fees

it's not an MMORPG

still

it's the first in the series was released in 2005