Reviews

Guild Wars 2

(ArenaNet)

Guild Wars 2 You may be familiar with massively multiplayer online role-playing games (or MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic. If you are, you might be familiar with the concept of having to pay a monthly fee so that you can kill monsters to get specific items and bring them back to complete a quest (half the time not even knowing why you’re doing the quest in the first place or even where you fit in the world the developers have created).

Enter Guild Wars 2, a free-to-play MMORPG that brings a few fresh ideas to the table.

The biggest idea comes in the way you create your character. There are five races to choose from, with eight professions available to each race, including things like warriors, rangers or necromancers.

Then comes the actual customisation, which is the biggest selling point. You can choose everything about your character, from their history to their appearance.

For example, when I created my human ranger I was able to choose which God he worshipped, whether he was a nobleman, a peasant or middle class, and even his motivation (choices available range from being an orphan through to regretting missing the opportunity of joining the circus). And that’s all before you get down to customising your appearance, from body type and facial features right through to what colour your armour is.

Your choices have an impact on gameplay, with each character having their own personal story to complete along with other side objectives along the way.

The game is fully voice acted, which really makes you pay attention to what’s going on. As for your other quests, they run on an area-based system.

Instead of talking to someone to receive your quest, as soon as you enter a certain area an objective will appear in the corner of the screen. You’ll be given a list of things you can do to fill your quest bar, like killing enemies, checking suspicious bushes for bandits, disarming traps or even helping fix fences.

Once you’ve done enough, the quest bar will fill up and you’ll be rewarded with money and experience and the option of talking to a person in that area to buy special equipment and items for your character.

It’s a welcome change from tedious quests, having to hunt down quest-givers and running around trying to figure out where everything is. The most interesting form of questing in the game comes from the dynamic quest system. Dynamic quests are like special events you might find in happening a certain area.

For example, you might escort a pack bull from one town to another, defend a village from a centaur attack, or defeat a giant enemy who’s gone on a rampage. The best part is that dynamic quests give rewards whether you succeed or fail, and the quest can even change.

For example, say you failed to protect the village from the centaurs. Your new objective might be to help rebuild that village. There’s something special about entering an area, stumbling into an event and joining about fifteen other people you’ve never met before trying their hardest to take down an enemy three times your size.

Even your weapons make sure gameplay never gets boring. Each profession is able to wield a number of different weapons. Guns, swords, bows and staffs all have their own different playing style and strategy.

The only real flaw to this game is that, because it’s new, the servers tend to be a little unstable and you might find a lot of your time will be spent downloading patches to actually play it.

That said, I recommend that you gind a few friends, pick a server and create your own story. You’ll have hours of fun.

4 and a half out of 5.

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