Guild Wars Nightfall, My Life as a King, Spider-Woman (Nooooo!)

Picked up Guild Wars: Nightfall on eBay for $17 total the other night, even though I’m not finished with Eye of the North yet… But I’m glad I went ahead and got it, because there are some skills that are really beneficial to my characters and my heroes. It also added two character slots to my account, which I used to create the two classes exclusive to Nightfall. I thought the spear-tossing Paragon was going to be my preferred class from this campaign, but it turns out that it’s the scythe-wielding Dervish that has snagged my attention. I guess I’m a sucker for melee classes. The scythe has the inherent ability to slash up to three targets (which I instantly fell in love with), and there are some pretty devastating skills to use that I already have access to because I unlocked them through Re Zon’s heroes. Woot! I also recently created a Monk, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with her yet...

The wife and myself will start Day 104 in FFCC: My Life as a King tonight. I was certain we were at the end last week, but it’s just kept on going. No compalints there! The game doesn’t keep track of how long you’ve played (and I’m too lazy to go add it up through the daily record keeping the Wii does for you), but we play approximately an hour an evening, and more on the weekends, so I think it’s safe to say we’ve played it at least 20 hours. We just recently purchased all of the rest of the Add-Ons (except new outfits for Leo and Chime – meh), which add a TON of new dungeons to the game. It’s rare that there is a game that my wife enjoys THIS much, so the Add-Ons are worth it in my opinion. She says it could quite possibly be her favorite game, and I feel a great sense of joy when she says ‘Ready to play Final Fantasy?’ Best. Wife. Ever!

Spider-Woman… a skrull??? Curses!! Ah, I really didn’t want her to be a skrull, but things are definitely looking that way. Hopefully after this whole Secret Invasion thing is done, good old Jessica Drew will still be in the mix. Her appearances in Wolverine in the 80s, as well as her return to New Avengers a few years ago made me a fan, and recently spurred me to pick up about 20 issues of her original series (along with her first appearance in Marvel Saga). I really hope she ends up still playing a role in SI before it’s all said and done.

-Zon

Back to Tyria

I have recently been playing Guild Wars on the PC – this game and I go way back (to 2005), where I spent a great deal of my time as part of the GWO community, and met some really great people. Some of those people still play, though some don’t – but most of them are still active on the forums because of the community that was built there. We were a part of it from the very beginning, and shared a lot of laughs while goofing off on the forums instead of working at work. More recently, while browsing those forums (mostly in the Off Topic Forum), I was asked by an old pal, Aretelio, to give the game another shot. Not really being interested, I still gave it a go anyway, and discovered that my year and a half break was just long enough for me to be excited about playing again. There were my characters, just as I left them, patiently waiting for me to log them into the world to hack some monsters. I’ve rejoined the guild I was in (Veritus Invictus), and am in the process of helping to build activity back up again.

I give Guild Wars’ developers a great deal of credit - there are still weekly updates, events every weekend, new content at no charge, and still no monthly subscription fee. They also go out of their way to listen to the community at large, implementing changes in the game, and heading off scams and exploits, from information found on fan sites.

I purchased the expansion, Eye of the North, last week. I’m really impressed with how it’s not just ‘more of the same’ like I thought it would be. They’ve added in an array of new items, titles, buffs and upgrades, as well as customizable Heroes, and I honestly feel like I’m playing a brand new game. The Eye of the North also happens to introduce new races that will playable in the upcoming sequel to Guild Wars, as well as the ability to preserve certain things about your characters, their names and titles, for example. Presently, I don’t have any intention of buying the other two ‘stand alone’ campaigns, but we’ll see what happens after I have thoroughly played Eye of the North.

-Zon


PS – I strongly recommend seeing Iron Man – you are not required to be a fan of Iron Man to understand or enjoy the movie, and I give it my highest recommendation.