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

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Guild Wars: Nightfall (PC)

Guild Wars: Nightfall

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: NCSoft
Publisher: NCSoft
Reviewed: PC
Genre: MMORPG
UK Release: 27th Oct 2006
Article Date: 14th Dec 2006
Difficulty: Hard
Retail Price: £29.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 85%

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Pros

No Subs

Special PvP area

Linked accounts

Cons

Over complicated in places

Not that different

Screenshots

16 of 20

Now on its third encounter, Guild Wars has totally redefined exactly what gamers want from their fix of MMORPG titles. Like the original Guild Wars and the Factions release, Guild Wars Nightfall is the cheapest introduction to the commercial genre that has made addicts out of millions of players around the world. That’s because unlike most other MMORPG out there, once you have forked out the initial purchase price of any of the three Guild Wars games, you have already paid for a lifetime subscription to play online.

Initially you’d be sceptical of a company offering a one time fee server based MMORPG, especially when the three most successful series from the genre actually require gamers to fork out a steady monthly fee to use the services. Guild Wars broke that mould and thankfully have had the insight to maintain the servers, provide anti-cheat devices and generally provide services most people could only expect from a paid service. The extra effort making the servers playable goes against all myths that to get good service you must pay for it.

Anyone unsure about venturing online shouldn’t be, Guild Wars Nightfall 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. The tutorial might not go into as much depth as perhaps Factions but we imagine the amount of people jumping straight into Nightfall bypassing factions and prophecies is highly unlikely. That being said Nightfall can act as a standalone game or a channel to the other expansions you may already own in the Guild Wars franchise.

Of course apart from the new characters the Guild Wars Nightfall expansion also adds a brand new Egyptian campaign for you to battle through, although for some reason you are unable to take out the new characters and play older campaigns which may disappoint some looking for a different angle on their previous expansions. To make way for the two new characters the Ritualist and Assassin from Guild Wars Factions have been dropped for the new Nightfall expansion although since the expansions work independently of each other you can still play these characters after selecting the appropriate game type. It’s a confusing way to operate although it does have its advantages.

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. That being said grouping doesn’t actually need to be another human player. Guild Wars also allows players to group up with AI players to take on some of the more difficult enemies.

Guild Wars towns area work like a central hub where everyone can explore and trade at leisure, it’s here you can also meet up and try and coax other players into your guild. Once you have created your team of either AI or human players you can then venture out and take on many of the quests Nightfall offers. Only then does the outside world become an instance which only involves your own particular party. Personally we would prefer if the world was a little more open and only used instances occasionally but we imagine this would make an even bigger strain on the server.

Graphically Guild Wars Factions looks prettier than most RPG’s 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 appears to be highly optimised and the developers should be applauded for making every one of your ‘MHz’ count.

Not much has changed for the third Guild Wars release but that’s not necessarily a bad thing either – especially when you look into some of the less talked about refinements. As an introduction to the sometimes scary world of MMORPG we see no better teacher currently available – and at the price it’s very difficult to pass up. It might not contain some of the elaborate features that some of the big guns in the genre tout but for an enjoyable, less hardcore variant we really do see little competition. If you want to play without the stress then Nightfall is certainly for you.

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