My friend managed to play the free weekend, I could not as i was working. So I bought it at the sale price, not expecting much and then stumbled around learning the class weapons/utilities. I am still bumbling around after losing myself for 10 hours in the game. We got mightily drunk on several occasions, we got our ar...bottoms kicked because we were stupid. We have no idea what we are doing and none of it mattered. It was just a riot and when the Mule heads back to the escape pod and we lose her and start to panic, well, its just sheer bedlam. Driller heads off the direct route, Gunner has laid down confusing zip lines, the scout fell down a hole and swarms of bugs try to eat your face off.

Who cares if you fail, it was worth it just to hear people screaming "For Karl!" (Whoever the hell that is) and "Rock and Stone!" as we scrambled over one another to reach safety only to find the pod swarmed and still two minutes left on the countdown timer. Glorious riotous panic as ammo runs low and we resort to whacking bugs on the head with a pickaxe...(that never gets old)

Thank you so much for this game, its a blast

PS. The two new modes, the liquid Morkite drilling platform and the Drill dozer are brilliant. Genius level additions to an already fun game.

When I had the choice of playing WoW (World of Warcraft) and Guild Wars, the choice was simple, no subscription and much better graphics. I came to love this game and then I moved on to Guild Wars 2 but deep down I missed the original so when it popped up on Steam, it was a no brainer to acquire it and though I had been away for five or six years I quickly picked things up again and found that my head was full of maps so things were familiar. I introduced a friend who was pretty hard core at Guild Wars 2 but this game killed him, he dashed about pulling mobs and died, would not stop to watch patrol routes, pick his targets, lure smaller groups from larger groups. Then he encountered DP (Death Penalty) that mechanic were you suffer if you die/respawn, a brutal mechanic that teaches you to take care and learn patience, something missing from GW2.

Then he began to realise something rather profound. After playing GW2 and reading about the history of the Sylvari and the Pale Tree and ventari the old Centaur he was now living it in GW 1. He met Ventari and saw the small glowing tree that would eventually become the Pale Tree of the Grove. He met the Shining Blade and saw first hand how the Mursaat manipulated the White Mantle and the Charr into being their tools. He saw what went on at the Bloodstone and he travelled the world of Tyria and saw the beginnings of things he was familiar with in GW2.
The game is very different in it's play style from GW2, harder as well I believe but the history of Tyria, the lore, the vibrant richness of its story, you don't just read about it, you actually live it, you shape it, you witness the birth of Gods and the beginnings of cities. The loss of home and the stirrings of hope.
You play as a Human from Ascalon just before the Charr raised it to the ground (Prophecies), you dwell in the vast city of the Canthan Empire (Factions), You are a Sunspear who helped to tear down a God and raise a new one in his place (Nightfall) you don't read about the history of Tyria, you are it's history, with weapon and spell, make it happen.