The Guild Wars 2 Review: Putting It All Together

     I have been following the development of Guild Wars 2 since the time it was first announced. And ever since then, I kept scavenging for every little piece of information I can get my hands on. I have found that every time I learn something new or if a new preview is up, I always say to myself (and to others of course), if the team can pull off what they say, this will be a really great game. Five years later, the game has finally launched and it is now time to see if the dev team did indeed deliver. So, without further ado, let's wrap up this review series.

The Guild Wars 2 Review: Criticisms

     I have decided to collect all the criticisms around the game in one article. The reason for this is that these criticisms are just facets of the larger systems and are spread across a wide number of areas. Let me start by saying that I have not found any problems that severely destroys the gameplay experience. However, I still find it worthwhile to take a step back and give some areas for improvement. This not only brings out some concerns that players might have, but at the very least, start a conversation between the players and developers to see if they could make the game better. Let's start with the dynamic event system.

The Guild Wars 2 Review: Skills and Combat

Check out a video of combat at the end of this article

     Arena Net has been quite vocal about their intentions on skills and combat from the development of the game all the way to release. The team wanted a combat system that is more active as opposed to a more passive combat that has been the norm for this gaming genre. This is quite a departure since these passive systems already works quite well seeing as it has been adopted for a large majority of games. I myself don’t have any qualms about it but I am intrigued as to how Arena Net wants to implement this new system of combat. Let’s dive a bit further.

The Guild Wars 2 Review: Character Development

     A well implemented character progression system is one of the key factors that keep players immersed in an online game. When we play a character, we expect a certain level of improvement and accomplishment as we continue to spend time within the game. This makes it an essential topic for review since this is what will draw people to play and define how long they will be playing. So, like my other review, let's get to it then. Let's talk about character development in Guild Wars 2.

The Guild Wars 2 Review: The World

     For every MMO, it is essential to have a truly immersive world. The reason for this is that people who play these look for a vast world to explore and adventure in. The landscape is what the player immediately sees and can definitely make or break the player's experience. Let's see what Guild Wars 2 has to offer with its version of the world.

The Guild Wars 2 Review: Primer

     Reviewing an MMO is quite a challenging thing to do as opposed to reviewing games of other genres for the sole reason that an MMO is never quite finished. Because of this ever changing nature, giving an accurate review can be quite challenging due to the nature of the game. How you perceive it now may very well be quite different from the time of the review. Also, the content within an MMO is quite a lot more than your standard game. And because of this scope, being able to capture all the content is quite difficult as well. However, there are some points that can still be reviewed on that are relatively more static in nature. These are the underlying systems and design philosophies of these games. Arguably, these can very much change as well, but not as much as the content and scope of the game.

     Due to the sheer size of the game, I'll be doling out my review in multiple parts each covering one aspect of the gameplay experience. I'll give my objective thoughts on the matter and look at what makes the game great or not so great. With this, I present the Guild Wars 2 Review: A Piece by Piece Look.

Jump past the break to see the sections of the whole review.