ic-games Review - Guild Wars: Factions - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

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Guild Wars: Factions

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: NCSoft
Publisher: NCSoft
Reviewed: PC
Genre: MMORPG
UK Release: 28th Apr 2006
Article Date: 14th Jun 2006
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: 29.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 89%

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Pros

No sub fees

Entertaining

Graphics

Cons

Not as 'hardcore' as other MMORPG

Screenshots

1 of 10

Faction’s arrival heralds the latest expansion in the exhilarating Guild Wars franchise. Exciting times indeed as both this, and the original MMORPG that came before it, requires absolutely no monthly fees whatsoever, while at the same time offering up most of what paying MMORPG’s aficionados usually have to splash out for monthly.

This might be an expansion, but Guild War: Factions can also be played without the original package. Even though the Factions expansion can be played independently, players whose Guild Wars account contains both the Prophecies and the new Factions campaign can travel between both at ease. There’s no actual advantage between owning both packages, but at least you can access all the content from the two games rather than one, superseding the other.

The premise of the game is simple, take some highly customisable characters and gain experience by slaying enemies and completing quests throughout the online universe. Realistically though Guild War: Factions is much deeper than this and can seriously eat into your spare time especially when you consider the player v player content.

Anyone unsure about playing online shouldn’t be, Guild Wars Factions takes you by the hand and gently teaches you the finer points before finally allowing you to head out on your own to take on the world. Feeling lonely? You also shouldn’t be, as you’ll also be able to create and join guilds to take on the ‘bigger and badder’ creatures out there that you normally wouldn’t be able to take on solo. The greater the danger, the higher rewards you’ll ultimately receive, because of this grouping at times becomes a necessity.

Graphically Guild Wars Factions looks prettier than any RPG before it. The lush outside environments are a sight to behold, especially when played on a high end machine. That being said there are multiple graphical options that can be tweaked to squeeze out the most performance from your machine. It’s also worth mentioning that Guild Wars: Factions appears to be highly optimised and the developers should be applauded for making every one of your ‘mhz’ count.

For all its grandeur, Factions can appear to be a little limiting in places. There are a few too many ‘invisible walls’ strewn across the world which confines progress and forces players down particular paths. It’s not a massive problem but does distract from the graphical side, especially when you want to visit the wonderful views you can see into the distance. Anyone use to the freedom of DAoC will be a little disappointed, you wont be able to climb steep hills unless its required for progress, and you’ll not be swimming underwater as you can in the ToA expansion.

Ultimately Guild Wars Factions is incredible value for money for anyone wishing to give the much maligned genre a try. The interface could have done with some tweaking, as it’s not immediately obvious what everything does, but aside from that there really isn’t any reason why you should give Factions a run, especially since costly subscription fees have been waved.

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