Game Review: Guild Wars 2

Hello ladies and gents!
Tonight I'll be reviewing Guild Wars 2!

A bit about the game and developers.
Guild Wars 2 has been developed by Arena Net, but has been published by NCsoft. Both of them are rather famous. NCSoft are the guys behind Aion, Guild Wars, Lineage and so on.

About Gameplay. 

To start off, I'll say that Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG. But a bit different MMORPG than any other. Remember how usually MMORPGs have few seconds before making normal attacks or it needs a bit of time to cast some skills? Well in GW2 it's instant! And there is no delay in your basic attack. Everyone attacks like 1 attack per second.  All skills are instant. Sweet and very unique thing about GW2 is that each class has its own set of skills for different types of weapons. For example, when warrior uses greatsword his attacks are Greatsword Swing, Hundred Blades, Whirlwind Attack,  Bladetrail and Rush, while rangers greatsword skills are Slash, Maul, Swoop, Counterattack Hilt and  Bash which include some "spirit animals" appear above you when you use certain skills.

GW2 has four different races and eight different classes, or so called "professions" in this game. GW2 is all about storyline so all the races are friendly to each other. There is no open PvP in this game. Even dueling doesn't exist in this game. The only way to PvP is to either go to PvP island, or to World vs World, which i'll be talking about a bit later.

Questing in GW2 is also a bit different than in any other MMORPG. Your storyline is based on the story that you've developed in your character creation while choosing background. Humans, for example, can chose if they were from a farmer family, royal family or they were raised on streets. If you chose to be raised on the streets, your first part of the storyline is to kill other gang because they want to kill half of the town, queen and so on and on. While if you chose royal family you start off by going to a royal party, where bandits come and ruin everything. Every race, every choice of your background gives you a different story and that makes this game re-playable over and over again. I love that!

Another very interesting thing about GW2 is leveling and XP system. To start with I'll say that everyone in GW2 has their own Loot and xp! Therefore, there is no ninja-ing as in other MMORPGs. Nobody can even see what did you get from loots unless you write it in chat. I think that's awesome! And also, XP is not shared. So if you party up with 5 other people, you will still get the same amount of XP as you would while soloing. In fact, you could even get more XP because you're working in a group! So while in other MMORPG's you pray to God that nobody comes to you and steals your kill,  in this game you will pray to God to get more friends to play with, just so you could level up much faster and have loads of fun while doing so.

In Guild Wars 2, leveling is, in my opinion, hard. Who ever plays GW2 says that leveling is easy, but I don't think so. There is a story quest that you need to follow and there are few side quests which you can do to gain levels. Story quest is, kind of, level restricted so it would be wise to do all side quests. Side quests are marked as hearts on the map and almost all of them are different. Some of them make you kill creatures, others make you feed their animals, while third ones make you drink ale and tell the maker if it's good or not. Very cool thing is Event system. Events, in GW2, are just "events" that happen from time to time. Some may be triggered while the others are just random. Events help you do your side missions, as well as give you bonus XP and money for doing the event! Also, a small thing that I forgot to add: Guild Wars 2 has a level lock system. Which means, If a level 80 comes to a level 5 area, his level will instantly be locked to highest level of that area. 5 in this example. His HP will also lower to the level 5's HP.

Sometimes even side quests and event can't level you up enough to be able to advance your story mission, so the next option is to explore, craft and gather materials. Yep, that's right, you get a lot of XP from exploring, crafting your own equipment and gathering any materials you can find. There are various caves, views and points of interest to discover in GW2, and doing so gives you a very nice amount of XP. Choosing a profession (or a "job" in this game) is also very useful. Not only that it gives you very nice amount of XP for every single object you make, but it also allows you to make better equipment for your character. Or if you are a Cook, you get a lot of useful boosts such as +2 power (on low levels) and a 10% xp boost!

There are two types of PvP in GW2. PvP arena and World vs World (WvW for short). PvP is also separated into two modes: Free tournaments and paid tournaments. In Free tournaments the only thing you need to do to join is to apply. You don't need a pre-set team to join a free tournament, but you can do so. I have tried to set up a free tournament group once but we didn't know how to enter the game together, so we all had to manually join the server. In Paid tournaments you need a team of 5 men (or women). You battle your way up with other teams for a chance to win some nice goodies. If you win it, you get 180 gems which you can use in Black market (official real-money store.) to buy new skins (which are just cool clothing) or more bank slots, bag slots, or you can even upgrade your game to digital deluxe version. Also, in PvP everyone is instantly level 80, and has a good PvP gear. You start as a rank 1 (rank is like a pvp level) and you advance to 80, but rank 1 and rank 80 are totally the same in everything. Equipment is is same in damages and defenses, only the look changes.

WvW is different. In WvW you battle for your server against two other servers. You get into WvW with everything that your character has. In WvW your level does not change, so level 80 will kill level 34 pretty easily. You can also gain levels in WvW. Your goal is to capture some points so your server has bonuses and boosts. Very fun, but extremely hard until you hit 80.

Graphic and Audio
Okay, so, graphically speaking, I got a little bit disappointed. Graphic is awesome but it has a bit too much flashing. That's why I don't like to run the game on full graphic. Sights, on the other hand, are amazing. The land is wonderful, cities, details, everything is just beautiful. The sky is indescribably beautiful. If I could live in a fantasy world, it would definitely look like that. Absolutely amazing.
Audio is very good too! Not even once have i thought about muting the game. Its very enjoyable and calm. And it ain't repeatable. Honestly, I think that the game wouldn't be as fun without the audio in the background.

Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Amazing and beautiful land.
- Ability to go to other races leveling area.
- Gems can be purchased via in-game money.
- Each storyline is separated.
- You lose no XP for being in a group.
- Community is pretty good.
- Character customization is nothing special but it's nice.
- Almost everything you do gives you XP.
- No monthly fee!

Cons:.
- Money is very hard to acquire in early stages of the game.
- Finding dungeon groups is very hard because there is no dungeon finder option in game.

Final Grade: 10/10

Extra info: If you are new to MMORPG's then Guild Wars 2 is not a choice for you. In Guild Wars 2 you already need to have some experience from other MMORPG's to be able to understand things easier. If you are an old MMORPG player and you're just looking for something fresh, then this game is for you!
P.S. I didn't make too many screenshots just yet, so I'll add them today.

Wolfie