Guild Wars 2 looks beautiful. Its art direction is amazing. Its locations – while very stock fantasy in origin – are great. What really impresses though is its scale. The human city of Divinity’s Reach may not take up a vast amount of space in pure square-foot terms, but it does an amazing job of faking it. The districts feel big and (by MMO standards) bustling, especially your instanced Home part of it. The walls and homes and decorations tower above you, making it easy to imagine thousands of people living and breathing behind the scenes.
The most impressive bit though is when you climb high above it to the palace in the middle – a lush, beautifully designed area in itself – and glance up. Hovering above the whole city is a gigantic orrery with massive celestial bodies in constant motion. Nobody would have noticed if it wasn’t there, but it is, and like so much here, it looks absolutely stunning.
The scale is just as impressive wherever you go in the opening areas and capital cities, yet without ever seeming stretched out and padded. There are cliffs, and huge lakes, and sweeping panoramic views everywhere. This is a world you’ll want to explore in great detail, especially knowing that there are secret areas and hidden skill points and all manner of other stuff tucked away off the beaten track specifically to be discovered instead of pointed to.
One of Guild Wars 2?s coolest features is that all your weapon skills are embedded into the weapons themselves. A Staff for instance has different attacks to a Dagger, whether you’re casting spells or hitting people with it. You’ll find lots of other items scattered around the world too, which you can pick up and use appropriately. A bomb might be Planted or Thrown. A bottle can be used to hit someone over the head. In most cases that I saw, there’s no real reason to actually grab a length of 2×4 for combat when you already have the ability to SET PEOPLE ON FIRE WITH YOUR MIND, but it promises some fun options later on.
(For weapons, skills have to be unlocked. The good news is that this is done very quickly by simply using previous attacks the weapon offers a few times; the idea obviously being that you at least see them in action, even if you never choose to use them again.)
