Its been some time since I posted but here is another review! This time I chose Guild Wars: Factions! Its official page is http://www.guildwars.com/ where you can see not only look at factions but also the original (Prophecies) and the new Nightfall edition.
Produced by: ArenaNet, a subsidiary of the south Korean game publisher NCsoft. The original was released April 28th, 2005, Factions a year later, and Nightfall was recently released on October 27th, 2006. Factions is the first stand-alone chapter expanding on the original.
Storyline: You start on the continent of cantha where two factions are at war. the Luxons and the Kurzick. To start you have no allegiances but as you progress through the game you can join either side. However you do follow along a a more booklike storyline then just battling rival luxons or kuzicks (depending on your choice of allegiance). The story starts out In Cantha, a continent to the south of Tyria (from the original Prophecies) two hundred years prior. The Emperor of Cantha is slain by Shiro Tagachi, his personal bodyguard. When he was killed for his treachery his hatred and deal wail was an explosion of jade, this meaning that the land, the forests, the very oceans turned to solid jade. Now where you enter Shiro's spirit has returned to cantha and is causing havoc. Your job is to investigate and discover the treachery that is afoot and stop it by any means necessary.
Mechanics: Factions is more of a static territory conquest game, intent on winning (or losing) towns, cities, outposts to each faction. There are many guilds that you can join and run around with, make alliances of guilds so you can share guild halls, gain cities and territories by doing alliance missions. So although you could simply go through it all alone, there is a larger more interactive theme in which to take part. Depending on what you choose PVP or Roleplay. I am a huge roleplay fan so I chose that. Which I will get to later. So now onto the "HUD" (Heads Up Display) or just what you see on your monitor. You have a short skill list with which to use. A simple 8 skills (that can be swapped out and changed in town) not the World of Warcraft 50 icons to click. MUCH less cluttered, a little restricting and less to click but easier to manage. You can use both mouse and keyboard to move and what have you but I mostly used my mouse as its just easier, the box came with a little Legend of which keys do what so that usually helps lol
Graphics and sound: All I have to say is wow.. Sure its not too life like, but you can almost fully customize your character (within realism) to best suit what you want. The game graphics themselves are excellent with incredible amounts of attention to detail, from the milling canthan peasants to the twisted and deformed Infected. Each creature as its own details so that they are easier to distinguish. The sound itself is very well done. It makes you actually feel like you there a bit. The music is traditional japanese/chinese (not sure which) so it allows a more personal feel, almost peaceful really. But then I am wierd like that and enjoy soothing music just as much as any other music. There is also enviroment sounds like the wind and commotion in cities it really tries to make it seem like your actually there.
Overview: For a Roleplaying game? It would rock if people actually DID roleplay.. unfortunately there is a lot of abbreviations used and people don't even remotely try and act out their characters. All it is to them is make gold, become some name in the world on a game, which is unfortunate since Guild wars could prove to be a very excellent platform for roleplaying, much like neverwinter Nights (review coming on that as well :) at some point). The graphics and music kick ass basically. I very much like the attention to detail and the traditional themed Music. Also the attempts and amount of area's set up so to reduce lag makes it very efficient as well. So far from what I've seen the actual storyline is interesting and the platform is very stable if not huge! The downside is when you first start out it takes alot of time for the game to unload all the new items and area's you encounter for your character. But once this is done you can freely explore huge terrains full of creatures that can drop gold, items and materials. Also the salvage function is nice, got some junk and a salvage kit? Free up some space by breaking it down into its primary components, to which you can later use to create something you actually want! :D Gold is a bit tricky to come by, mostly you get it from quests you do unless you gold farm and kill a lot. Also a plus. With all these online rpg's (roleplaying games) you have to pay to play. Guild wars has free online play! Score!
Now the downside, as stated before no one actually roleplays in the rp section. The huge starting load times, (and that for new unexplored area's you find) can be a pain in the ass but in the end well worth it. The level cap of 20 sucks, in 2 days of playing you can basically reach level 20 and although you can get more skill points you no longer level. which is unfortunate since the baddies seem to reach higher levels then 20 so going alone is suicidal luckily there are insane amounts of people sitting around looking for parties or there are usually NPC you can invite along if you want to go alone but with help. So all in all a pretty good game.
Overall Ranking: On a scale of 1 - 10 k's. I give it 8 K's
(however as a rp game I give it a 1 k due to no one actually rping! But thats not the producers fault, just the players so no sense in giving the game a bad rating on that.)
