Guild Wars

So, I've started playing Guild Wars. It was lying around on my desk at work and no-one wanted to claim it, so I thought I'd give it a go.

For the uninitiated, it's like World of Warcraft - with roughly half the users, as NCSoft recently celebrated their 5 millionth sign-up - but without monthly fees. Which is what first attracted me to the game. I'm not particularly interested in playing WoW, but I definitely am intrigued by the excellent Tabula Rasa. It's a futuristic MMORPG that tries plenty of new gameplay ideas - I reviewed it a while back for Strategy Informer and loved it - but I can't commit to paying however much a month when my PC won't run it. So I'm going to build a new one soon (I hope) and I may delve back into it then.

For now, though, Guild Wars will suffice. It's great - surprisingly good looking for a game released several years ago - with solid gameplay mechanics. It's pure fantasy and pure MMORPG - the lack of payment is one of the only major differences I can see from WoW and its ilk - but it is hugely enjoyable. So that's good.

Less enjoyable was Saturday - cheifly because I was victim to several images of Arsenal striker Eduardo's mangled, badly injured leg. It was caused by a tackle from Birmingham captain Martin Taylor - and it was a mis-timed but not malicious challenge, as he was perfectly able to challenge for the ball - but just horrendously unfortunate. Tackles like that, after all, are seen in all matches and all leagues up and down the country. The horrific injuries - and stomach-churning pictures reminiscent of Dave Busst, for Coventry - were splashed over the newspapers and internet. The prognosis is a return in 9 months; that'll be impressive, let alone if he manages to play football again at a shadow of his former talent which has been so evident this season.

Oh well. At least he's not in my fantasy team.