Guild Wars (PC)

The PVP character starts at max level and is extremely powerful, you can choose from a template or create a totally custom character by picking two professions and assigning skills, there’s a lot more choice here but I’ll leave it to the PVP players to figure this one out as it doesn’t really interest me, in the purpose of this review I’ll be focussing on the RPG aspect of Guild Wars, want a deathmatch there’s PVP in Guild Wars, Quake or whatever other game is flavour of the month.

Once you are in the city there are numerous things you can do, there are NPCs (Non Player Characters) to interact with and many of them offer quests/sub-quests and these are an easy way to get up in levels and earn money/items.

Pick an NPC and a quest and your quest log will update, this is a staple of all good RPG games and Guild Wars has been designed like a solo RPG in this respect. They have even added the arrow-compass pointing to your goal that appears in games like Sacred and it’s extremely useful.

Guild Wars is extremely easy to get into and with a streamlined, helpful GUI replete with a well-designed and functional mini-map it’s not an onerous task to play. There’s a lot of thought gone into the game and I can see its appeal to new players right away.

Guild Wars eliminates long queues and spawn-camping by creating the map for you or your party the moment you venture forth from Ascalon or any other PVE (Players Vs Environment) area. Once you are in the wilds the game makes a map just for your adventuring pleasure, it’s your own copy of the gameworld and you’ll only see NPCs and any other person that you invite along.

Combat in Guild Wars is as simple as picking a target, with a weapon equipped and beating it to a bloody pulp (there is very little blood, 12+ rated in Europe) to gain loot and experience, the other staples of a rise to power.

Guild Wars features skills that can aid you in battle and depending on your profession(s) you can employ up to 8 of these skills (chosen before you head out into the wilds) which range from: sever artery (warrior skill that causes bleeding in enemies) to bane signet (monk ability that knocks down an attacking foe and causes hefty damage).

Trivia fact: Guild Wars has 150 skills per profession.

To use a skill it’s a matter of clicking on it, or pressing the correct numbered key that corresponds to the skill in question. The manual for the game is probably one of the best manuals I have seen and leaves nothing to chance, telling you everything you need to know, along with a quick-start quick-reference guide it really is a complete package.

You have several professions to choose from in Guild Wars and you can have up to two of these professions, it’s a good idea to multi-class and a warrior/monk combination is an excellent way to survive your first foray into the world.

The six professions in Ascalon are:

Warrior: strong in battle, a master of the sword.
Monk: flying feet and fists of fury combined with a healing spirit.
Ranger: sharp eyed and quick with a bow.
Mesmer: masters of illusion, weavers of the impossible.
Elementalist: wielders of the powers of earth, air, fire and water.
Necromancer: masters of the dead, they have fearsome magics that draw away life.

I was able to get to 7th level in a few days using this combination and it’s highly recommended.

When you gain a level you are given a number of attribute points to spend on upping the list of attributes, like strength or swordsmanship, these are paid for with a 1-1 for your first raise and then they rise as you increase the attribute even further. So you can be paying 2 or 3 points to up an attribute by one point.

So the gameplay in Guild Wars is simple. The quests are varied and they have a good degree of reward for completion, some give you prized items and a good chunk of experience – some require you to protect an ally or escort an NPC.

Combat is a mouse click or spacebar away, there’s nothing that requires immense brainpower to do and you can concentrate on questing/battling to your hearts content while you explore the world and learn more of the main story – of which there is quite a lot, but as I said before, I am not going to reveal any of it.

The first hour or so of play you are actually immersed in a cleverly constructed tutorial, this sets you up to learn about all aspects of the game and allows you to undertake many side-quests and adventures that will unlock new skills and give you a second profession, you will need to make friends to complete a couple of these quests as most quests later on in the game can only be completed by a party of 2-8 adventurers.

There are numerous commands that have been implemented that function with more than one player, the ability to call targets and draw using the mouse on the mini-map to indicate where you are going to proceed next or even a massive group of foes ripe for the hacking.

Even fun emotes (another staple of MMORPGS) are implemented in Guild Wars, since I have been playing it I have seen at least three dance parties, and been involved in at least two games of rock, paper, scissors. I feel this will help to bring in younger players and give the bored something to do with their time.

If you die in mission you’re either resurrected at a shrine or can be brought back to life by a good-natured comrade. This incurs a small penalty to your max health and energy, each time – do not fear however, once you leave and return to the mission, that’s all reset. So you’re not permanently hampered.

To finalise this part of the gameplay section we’ll talk a little about how the game assigns drops to monsters, when you slay a creature the loot isn’t automatically yours, depending who is in the party the game tries to assign the drop to the fairest member so no one is left out – it seems to work on the basis of a lion’s share of the kill at times, but since it also has a trade system where you can swap items – it’s not too hard to get that +5 vs Charr bow the monk just picked up, if you ask nicely enough.

Gold is split between party members and everyone gets an equal share.