Guild Wars Game of the Year Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Guild Wars is a very solid MMORPG that strongly encourages team play.The graphics are top-notch (if not up to the cartoon levels of World of Warcraft), the play addicting, and it's well-balanced.With no monthly fee, it's one of the best bargains in the MMORPG world.I take off a star and a half for the forced team aspect as well as the focus on pure fighting versus creating a world, but add 1 back for the value proposition so give this 4 and half stars, or a 4/5 fun/overall split.

This is a tough game to master with no outright 'uber' classes.Players choose 2 of 6 fairly standard basic professions (1 tank, 1 mezzer, 1 healer/defender, 2 nukers, 1 mezzer/nuker) with the second profession lacking one of the strongest attributes of the primary (including which armor you can wear and runes you can use).As you level, besides gaining hit points you do two things - specialize in the various basic class attributes and gain access to the real key: skills. You're limited to a certain number of active skills while in combat, so strategy and careful character building take precedence over getting to level 20.Experience to buy skills can be gained through basic PvE, missions, or PvP.Using a small set of skills wisely along with picking and choosing your attribute development is far more important than getting all the 75 skills available to each profession.This is definitely not a game that is easy to blindly powerlevel.

Cleverly designed, this sidesteps a lot of the problems surrounding the genre.Rather than deal with constant kill stealing, maps and missions are instanced, and you don't have to spend a whole slug of time traveling between regions.(Once you've been to a locale, boom, it's yours.)Recovery time is minimal as is non-combat time.You don't need to spend time harvesting mats and begging a friend to make your next weapon.Instead, kill things, complete missions, and you can bring mats straight to the NPC crafter to make a custom weapon (that can only be equipped by you, likely eliminating much of the secondary market for gear in this game.)

My reservations are four fold but minor.First, the way to truly advance in this game is through missions - and the only way to accomplish many missions is in a balanced team.Thus, you're basically forced to group despite the nominal ability to solo.This really means you have to figure out proper character development early - rather tough with your first few characters until you find a good guild, and frankly, sometimes many of us feel like playing solo. Second, the lack of any real crafting system here means you fight...and fight...and fight.CoH has done well with a similar model (without the PvP aspect) and it's worked well - not to mention the biggest headaches in most MMORPGs are the messes created with a bad item creation system - but if you enjoy socializing more than fighting (the typical harvester/crafter) this isn't the game for you.Third, the game really revolves around PvP much more than PvE for the above reasons - so if you're looking for a game without conflict, this isn't it.Finally, while the focus on instanced events does prevent many of the problems found in most other MMORPGs, it also reduces the multiplayer aspect except in non-instanced locales like towns.The net effect of all of these is to slightly dilute the 'world' aspect, and for those looking for total immersion this may not be a perfect match.

Still, this is a great game and deserves 4 1/2 stars, and if you're looking for an alternative to the hordes of WoW that strongly encourages teaming this should be at the top of your list.One final note: this actually runs quite well even on my soon-to-be discarded Athlon 1100 and is geared towards doing well on slightly older systems - and even 56k modems! - unlike most new games.Big plus.

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Product Description:
Presenting Guild Wars a Competitive Online Role Playing Game with an emphasis on tactical combat.In single player multiplayer and guild-based missions players will explore a fantasy world while pursuing professions and gaining skills that help them develop and advance their unique character.Guild Wars is the first title from Seattle-based ArenaNet which was founded by key members of the creative teams behind the hit games Warcraft StarCraft and Diablo as well as Battle.net the most-successful gaming network in the world.Guild Wars offers cooperative group combat single player missions and large head-to-head guild battles.While each combat experience will be different achievements will be permanent so that the character grows and progresses over time.Unique items special abilities and a wide variety of skills add meaningful value for the player and for his comrades.Missions are not scripted adventures but are tactical battlegrounds where victory or loss is determined by skill and teamwork.Free Online Play (Internet Connection Required)System Requirements:Minimum: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP 800 MHz Pentium 3 or equivalent 256 MB RAM GeForce 2 class video card with 32 MB RAM 250 MB hard drive space Internet connectionRecommended: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP 800 MHz Pentium 3 or equivalent 256 MB RAM GeForce 3 class video card with 64 MB RAM 250 MB hard drive space Internet ConnectionFormat: WIN XPVISTA Genre:ENTERTAINMENT UPC:892566000507 Manufacturer No:FGXP000501

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