Guild Wars Review

Players learn very early on that to be successful, you must coordinate with your teammates while you are in the hub areas. Choosing the right combination of skills and the ever-important communication with each other will ensure that each member of the team is fulfilling their specific role and can support each other when things get rough. It's not all about damage dealing either. You had better think about being able to counter what the other team will throw at you or your team will end up on the short end of the stick very quickly. All these factors combine into a not-so-complicated, yet flashy, game of Paper, Rock, and Scissors.

It's magical when you don't have to deal with player characters all the time.

Human intelligence is highly overrated.

Guild Wars character development and combat is fast-paced enough to appeal to players who usually would not like MOGs, yet the huge number of skills and spells to mix and match like some cards in a Magic The Gathering game provides hardcore players the perfect outlet by allowing them to tweak builds until they find just the right combo to maximize their effectiveness. PvP addicts will enjoy the team-based combat in variety of different scenarios while 'Care Bears' who would prefer slaying computer-controlled monsters while running quests will be happy as well. Players who are short on time can jump in for 15 minutes to run a quick quest or just kill some beasties to gather items for equipment upgrades.

No game is ever perfect, however, and Guild Wars does have a few annoyances. First, you have to have a first and last name when creating a character. As silly as it sounds, I was actually stumped for about 5 minutes trying to come up with not so stupid last name when I created my first character. Second, targeting can be a bit tricky when combat gets thick. There are keyboard shortcuts to target next hostile or target closest, but creatures and players tend to bunch up. If you are trying to target a specific bad guy by tapping the target next key over and over again, you can easily overshoot the intended target. I would prefer a system like City of Heroes uses where you can target another player and automatically share his current target.

Finally, since it is an online-only game, even if you grab a couple of bots and want to crack some heads by yourself, you must have an active internet connection to play. When the Guild Wars first launched, my Comcast connection was going up and down like a yo-yo (this happens every time it rains here. Thanks Comcast!) and it was torture to not be able to play. Part of the reason for the required connection is due to the content that is downloaded to your machine for new areas, quests and creatures. While this is nice because it allows the development team to stream new content, it also implies that if your connection is down, you get squat.

Aside from those fairly minor issues, Guild Wars is a great game. Everyone can enjoy the easily accessible combat, the deep-as-you-want-to-go strategy elements of the skill and spell system and amazing visuals. The game appeals to so many different kinds of gamers for so many different reasons, it's no surprise that it's selling so many copies all across the world. If you have been sitting on the fence trying to decide if you should pick up a copy of Guild Wars, stop waiting; go buy it. And take my advice and give yourself an extra ten minutes of game time by skipping the shower. A can of Lysol and a couple of those little pine tree air freshener trees around your neck and you'll be good to go.