While crafting is pretty handy and is nice way to waste your time there is another way to well waste your time in GW2 and that is well simply exploring the area you are in. Each area offers a certain amount of things to do and find. These include completing tasks (quests), locating waypoints (fast travel points), points of interest (interesting locations in the area), skill challenges (these are little challenges that reward you with one free skill point), vistas (these offer a great wide view of the area you are in) and random events (these are events that take place all over the zone which see you defending allies or attacking certain enemies).

These all sound simple enough and don’t really need to be talked about, but there is one that needs to be discussed and that is the vistas. Vistas offer great views of the area you are in, but they also offer great challenges. Some vistas are easy to get to, but other require you to think and to find a not so obvious path for example one vista in Lion’s Arch requires you to do some simple enough jumping puzzles etc. speaking of puzzles there are also hidden puzzles in zone which require a lot of thought and are difficult to discover, but are worth it if you love to explore.

Now it is time to look at one of GW2’s best selling point and that is the PVP specifically World v World v World (WvWvW) battlegrounds. There are four battlegrounds where three different servers (worlds) are fighting for dominance in. The goal of these battlegrounds are to capture various points throughout each battleground and if you capture enough points your sever will receive bonuses which includes increasing the health of players in your server, increasing the amount of gold you get in drops etc. To add a challenge to the WvWvW ArenaNet varies up which servers are fighting, this is good because if your server is been dominated by the others you might have better luck when the servers change.

I have to say apart from crafting and exploring the game WvWvW is defiantly among my favourites because of how structured it is. The goal is clear capture as many points as possible, but you have to capture certain points to gather material to attack stronger points such as keeps and well in Guild Wars 2 there is nothing more fun than attacking a keep with a ton of other players. Honestly if there was no PVE and just WvWvW PVP battlegrounds I would be happy enough with GW2.

You might have noticed I haven’t really mentioned PVE and levelling, well that’s for a good reason and the reason is well there isn’t a lot really to say about them. Outside of random events and the personal story there isn’t a lot of PVE to do apart from completing easy enough tasks which don’t really require you to kill computer controlled enemies all the time (a lot of tasks give you multiple ways of completing it). You can kill monsters in zones, but unless they are in random events they don’t offer enough experience in my mind to warrant killing and anyway PVP, crafting and exploring all offer experience.

So if you are looking for a really focused PVE experienced GW2 might not be a good first choice for you.

I have to say graphically GW2 is well frankly gorgeous to look at. At max setting and hi-resolution character textures on, I find it difficult to find a mmo that looks as good on my well frankly dated computer. While the game looks gorgeous there is the occasional pop-ins and my characters hair does cut through my helmet piece which is a bit annoying.

There is so much to talk about in GW2, but the above is some of my main likes and dislikes about the game. Here are some thoughts on the more minor parts of GW2. The sound for me in GW2 is a bit of a letdown by this I mean I have had sound issues with the game with audio out of nowhere spiking or to low when sound setting have not being adjusted, but that said voice acting in the game is excellent apart from my own personal grievance with the human male playable voice. The trading post which has being down since launch and recently opened up has your standard auction house feeling, but it offers a great pricing selection if you are buying items in bulk.

There is the real money store called the Gem store the store offers basic real money items boosters and cosmetic items, the store has a great option which made me warm to it and that is the ability to by gems with in-game money which means you really don’t need to spend any money at all. Speaking of money GW2 has two main currency types’ normal money and karma, karma is reward for completing various tasks and can be used to buy more powerful armour, weapons and other items.

Also before I finish for who like to see how well they are doing there are achievements for you to complete.

You might have noticed I didn’t mention dungeons or portions that require to group up. This is because I have not experienced these portions of the game yet.

In summary GW2 is probably one of the best mmo’s I have played in a long time. The game offers great exploration, crafting, story and massive PVP, but it is let down by the combat system which just doesn’t match up to the rest.

SCORE: 88%

Pros:

+ Immersive crafting which requires you to discover new items yourself
+ Massive WvWvW PVP battlegrounds
+ Looks beautiful
+ Personal story really does feel personal
+ No subscription model, you just have to purchase the game just like for Guild Wars 1
+Real money store items can be bought with in game money
+weapon skills provide a nice bonus to an overall boring combat

Cons:

– Combat feels too easy
-Outside of the personal story PVE is a bit of a let down
-Sound cuts in and out for me at times