Guild Wars 2

Hello all!

Okay, today, I felt like giving you guys a very honest review of Guild wars 2, I’m gonna go quite deep, so WARNING- Spoilers and wall of text!!!! I will be rating major features with numbers, along with their pros and cons. So rejoice at the pros and try to take something good out of the cons.

Firstly, Character Creation-

Pros- With beautiful music and amazing artwork, I have to say my first 5 minutes into the game were breathtaking. With tons of options, 8 professions, 5 races and a detailed dye system, I’m glad to be giving it a 9/10.
Cons- None for me.

Game-play -

Pros- My first few levels were quite amazing. I was just running around feeding cows and BAM! Giant worm!! Skills flying everywhere!! This sort of stuff I love, and am glad to see are spread throughout all levels and zones. The game plays very smooth, and there’s a lot of attention to detail.. discoverable elements like vistas and skill points help seal the deal as well. The map is amazingly fluid, the game plays like a charm, and the interface is very good as well. 8.5/10

Cons- I have to admit, in a while, things seem to get a bit repetitive. The fact that the same terrain is shared by 2-4 zones aren’t helping either. After you unlock all of your skills, which can be done very early on, there is a bit of a lack of skill progression.

Combat-

Pros- The combat is very fluid and really fun. Many fights actually require player skill, with awesome dodge functions and weapon/attunement/kit swaps. I was afraid of how this would play out in dungeons and PvP, but it works quite well. 8.5/10

Cons- Like I said, once you learn all of your skills, it does get a bit repetitive. This sort of combat system really requires a large variety of weapons, which currently may not be enough for some classes.

Music-

Pros- It’s Jeremey Soule. 9.5/10.
Cons- Come on…. It’s Jeremey soule, strike off cons.

Visual elements-

Pros- The graphics and the art style are AMAZING. I remember once, I got into my town clothes, disabled the UI and ran across a whole map and let me tell you, it was REALLY fun. 9/10.

Cons- Not much, but I do feel way points sort of prevent me from taking in some of the beautiful sceneries.

More in the comments section.

End game-
Pros- I’m not really a hardcore gamer, but most of the dungeons are quite easy and it isn’t too hard to get exotics. Also, there are achievements and map completion as well for the curious kind. 6/10

Cons- I will say that the dungeons are sort of imbalanced right now and herein lies one of my biggest complaints. Some dungeons are easy, and some are totally hard, but the rewards are the same. Many dungeons are bugged, and I would really like to see ALL the different armor sets for ALL attributes.. As an ele, I pretty much find myself unwilling to do CM or HotW or some of the ones that don’t award Power gear. (Btw, I hate u arah!) Apart from dungeons, there really isnt much to do for me, as a casual gamer… More content needed.

WvWvW

Pros- Wouldn’t know, I get 30 FPS on max settings in the PvE world, and 4 FPS on the lowest of settings in WvW…. Can’t do much but defend supplies, but the idea seems fun. 8/10

Story

Pros- I have to say, the story, voice acting, characters, etc are really good……
Cons – …… till level 50. When Trahearne took over and I realised I won’t lead the pact with Destiny’s edge, I really lost interest in the story… I’m sure many people agree.
7/10.

PvP – As I said, I’m a casual PvE guy, haven’t tried PvP yet.

Hmm… so yea, That’s Pretty much it.

Conclusion- I have to say, Guild wars 2 is one of the most amazing games out there and it has an AMAZING future… There a few issues right now, but I think most things that are wrong can be fixed..

So in the end, as for the game RIGHT now, I would give it an 8.5 or 9/10, it is truly impressive and a huge leap in MMO evolution. I don’t see myself leaving GW2, 200$ well spent. Thumbs up ANET!!!!

Nice review Drake. I like how you Pro and Con’d it.
I am glad you’re enjoying it. (:
Nice to see some neat reviews than “The game SUCKS SO BAD.” type of road.

Thank you! I hope you enjoy yourself as well!

How did you decide that the voice acting was good? o.O The voice acting is terrible >.<

Well one word buddy- Asura. They’re Amazing. Dunno about the other races, but this was my experience of the game.

Samfisher.7942:

How did you decide that the voice acting was good? o.O The voice acting is terrible >.<

I would say most of it is very good. I do totally agree with this review, once trahearne becomes the main character i totally lost interest and started skipping story scenes instead.

His voice actor is terrible, his personality is just lame, he looks and sounds like a dork with no leadership qualities. It sickens me to follow this twerp who somehow becomes the leader when what i really want to do is kick him in the balls.

That being said the rest of the game is amazing just as the reviewer says.

Sam if you compared the voice acting from GW 1 to GW 2 GW 1 would be Star Wars :Epidode I and GW 2 would be Star Wars : Episode IV . Sure IV had a whiny Luke but over all the movie was great

gotta love the starwars analogy, since anybody watching them without nastalga all in a row will come to the conclusion that despite the pretty effects/cgi the first movies came off as low budget, and the older/later time line movies where low budget as well.(the older 3 that everybody says where so much better are low budget movies by today standards)

the fact is, the old and new movies have their ups and downs, the acting wasnt really great overall in either series, most people just see the older ones as better due to the rose coloured glasses of nostalgia, just as the gw1 fans who hate gw2 because its not identical to gw1 will never like or really respect gw2…because its not the game they expected or wanted….

gw1 was fun, but I find gw2 more fun, its not perfect by any means, it still needs alot of work……but its the fist mmo i have played since UO that hasnt made me feel like i was being forced to progress down the path somebody else set out for me, and I like that freedom……(Sure theres the personal story but i dont really view it as a truly personal story, and i only really do it for the rewards )

WvW can be hit or miss sometimes…. Cause if there’s like nobody on then it’s impossible to take certain locations. When tons of people are on, it’s a grueling fight for every inch.

Drake.7952:

Story

Pros- I have to say, the story, voice acting, characters, etc are really good……
Cons – …… till level 50. When Trahearne took over and I realised I won’t lead the pact with Destiny’s edge, I really lost interest in the story… I’m sure many people agree.
7/10.

I disagree with the voice acting. It’s generaly childish and pedantic. It’s sort of goodie goodie (Lawful Good for D&D fans) and doesn’t allow for character development. Nowadays I skip all convo’s, even new ones. I can’t stand them really.

I do agree with the con. Trahearne is annoying and you really lose the “this is my story” into “I was also there”.

I prefer the local stuff (DE’s and tasks) much more because they don’t annoy me. I suppose I only still do story line stuff for certain rewards but even there I might give up on it totally.

So I give story a 4/10, but luckily there’s many things I do like in the game and from that perspective it’s good that the main story line is a small part of the content.

Pros – Action based combat, All skills have a purpose, you don’t end up with a wall of skill buttons and then get stuck in a rut of using only a 5 skill rotation anyway, Skills attached to weapons allows players to try vastly new combat techniques with the same profession (Class). Outstanding social mechanics with dynamic events, shared quests, and allowing each profession to combat rez. All quest objectives are shared, drops are player specific, and harvesting nodes are phased to the player. Mobs give XP to all that help in the kill. Entire open world feels multi-player with players spontaneously working together in concert. Very well done cross server economy system and useful crafting with a discovery mechanic. No barrier for PvP – WvW if you want to just e-sport you can do that right from level (1).
Overall fun combat, outstanding music and visuals make GW2 a hard game to set down.

All other MMO’s should look hard at the social mechanics at work in GW2 and take a lesson on how game mechanics shape community.

Cons – Dynamics events seem to be clustered together in “Hot Spots” where other parts of the game world are void of them, I’m not sure if this is a bug or by design. Champion classified creatures have no loot drops and are being avoided unless they are attached to a Dynamic event win condition. Some PvE progression centric players may find endgame lacking a gear centric latter to climb. Guild centric and RP focused players may find a lack of Mounts, Housing or Guild based PvE achievements concerning. The length of the path to a legendary Weapon may be discouraging to some. The visibility of Bots can be very annoying to many players, although there presence is less impacting on players then other MMO’s over time they could swing the economy in unnatural and destructive ways. ANet seems to be very slow at addressing the botting issue effectively.

I agree with the story part.

Trahearne: “Yo! I came out of nowhere and everyone knows me even though I’ve been sitting into a hole to study all my life! You won the most important battles in the story but I’m going to take over and command you all by now, whether you like it or not! Regardless if I have no experience whatsoever with war.”

As much as I love the pre-Trahearne story, after that it was a big downhill for me.
The story was meant to be about me, why a random guy comes in to steal my part is beyond my understanding.

So I’m like, this Order of Whispers Lightbringer right? Going around being a bad kitten agent helping out these tribal folk and chick with daddy issues and I’m, you know, just being a bad kitten and what not.

Then undead came, stupid things all over the place and this Flower Nerd guy was there to “help” swinging his little rod and shooting little bolts at stuff, complaining and being a negative little tw** “waah theres too much undead this doesn’t look good gaiz”.

Anyway, as the bad kitten I am, I nearly single handedly win the battle for us as Flower Nerd sits in the back yelling “Watch out gaiz, he has bad breaths!” over and over, and at the same time I unite the orders, again I’m just a bad kitten Then all of a sudden, everyone elects HIM as the friggin leader, god knows why.

He’s all unconfident and stuff “waah I’m a nerd not a soldier” and goes crying to mommy and she has to make up this crap telling him what a special little flower he is and how I’m such a good little sidekick, shove it tree lady.

Anyway, no one even remembers who I am, story rocks.

Okay so I’m gonna create a new topic and rant about ALL the kittenz thas brokez yo. Seems rant topics get all the attention. I’m fine with that. I just want new players to NOT be turned off by all those negative remarks, they should look at the good side as well. Forums are not only for complaints you know. Discussions com in two forms. Just saying.

xerxys.2635:

please, somebody close this topic, its just a guy who said that the game is fine. nothing to do here

Apparently, some people like us likes the game. So, yeah, while your opinion matters, ours matters too.

@poster:

Nice read, especially the part where Tehearn (spell??) came.