Product Official Site:
http://www.guildwars.com/

Rating:
4 chickens

Summary:
Guild Wars Factions
Genre: Fantasy/Role Playing/Massive Multiplayer
Cooperative Play: Yes
The Good:
The co-operative game play is fabulous! This game is very easy on the eyes. The attention to detail is superb. The RPG engine appears to be robust, and most of the modifications for the new game elements (this is a follow-on to 2005's Guild Wars: Prophecies) are seamless.
The Bad
There is a steep learning curve, and the preview event evidenced quite a few bugs with the new profession types. Friendly players and online guides help to mitigate the woes of new players, and the publisher rolls out regular bug fix releases.
Value proposition: Pricey at 50 USD, but there is no monthly fee. Compared to other titles in this genre, this game is the clear value winner.
Overview:
I played the Preview Event this weekend and had a blast, even though I have never played the original. The co-operative play style and availability of plenty of opponents and situations offers a chance to explore all the aspects of each profession. This game is poised to be one of the most popular of the year. I have noticed a lot of crossover from friends who enjoy shooters, and I can confidently predict that if you enjoy a rich environment with fully-interactive elements, you will like Guild Wars: Factions even if you don't normally enjoy Fantasy game play.
While this title can be played as an online FPS (using the quests as missions) the gameplay is substantially richer than most shooters and offers quite a bit of character customization.

Details:
Publisher: NCSoft
Platforms: PC
Story:
An evil foe believed to have been vanquished is gathering strength. Players must work together to unite war-torn Cantha by convincing the Kurzicks and Luxons to work together. The first step is establishing credibility by accepting quests and proving yourself to a worthy ally. There is also a third faction, Balthazaar, which I did not encounter but others did.
Graphics:
The Graphics are superb. There are a few glitches related to lag, including recently deceased opponents flashing in and out of view. Also, the lips of the speakers do not move during the cut scenes.
This game can be run in a window as well as full screen, making it easy to use online chat programs or other features.
Internet Multiplayer Modes:
The game appears to have two modes: PvP (player vs. player) and PvE (co-operative). There is a sort of hybrid aspect in certain areas within the PvE world. These are called Alliance Battles, and pit players allied with either the Kurzicks or the Luxons against each other and their AI brothers-in-arms.
It will also be possible to take your characters from Factions or Prophecies and travel "by boat" between Tyria (the continent in Prophecies) and Cantha (the continent in Factions). This feature was disabled during the Preview Event.
Controls and Handling:
I found the controls to have a steep learning curve, but they seem to be mostly comfortable once you learn them. There are some functions that are only accessible through the mouse.
Gotchas and Hints:
At least in the preview event, several of the quests (especially the supply run) were repeatable. This permits you to gain XP and "Faction" (a measure of how valuable an ally you are to either side) over and over again. The drawback is that, with most quests, you can leave to a town mid-quest and resume it later. With the repeatable quests, the quest is reset every time you enter the explorable area in which it takes place. It is not known at this time whether this behavior is intended by NCSoft / ArenaNet.
There are a number of other bugs that were observed in the preview event.
The steep learning curve for the game can be eased by working through some online guides. Also, the original game had a tutorial area for teaching new converts how to play. I expect that Factions, which is designed to stand alone, will also offer this feature. It did not appear to be accessible in the Preview Event.
Scoring:
There are really only 3 blemishes on this game. The first is that there really are no mods to be made because the servers are controlled entirely by ArenaNet. This is a trade-off, because this limitation allows the entire gaming community to join in together. There is no worrying about which servers your friends have joined. At least, in theory. In practice you may occasionally have to switch "districts" but you can communicate with your friends in-game to find out where to meet them. So, I think in some ways this compromise is lackluster, and it prevents meaningful mods.
The second is that while most of the detail is superb, there are some render issues. The most notable are the lack of animated speech movements during cut scenes, and a few long-standing glitches with rendering enemies and their health during combat.
Third are a host of minor issues related to things which could be easily fixed, such as the lack of methods to bind every feature to keys on keyboards or game pads. Another similar issue that affects mission play is that some of the henchies are less intelligent than others, and the most crippling of these is the healer henchman.
I deducted 1/3 chicken for each of these flaws. These could be fixed in a future release.
Conclusion:
Guild Wars Factions offers fantastic co-operative play. There are incentives for working together, including XP bonuses, which are very obvious when you use your abilities to aid other players. Further, if you cannot find a suitable group of players, you can also bring along various AI "henchmen" into most quest areas, as well as use the "henchies" to round out your team.
This game can be played alone or with friends, and the centrally-hosted game servers make it pretty easy to find new buddies and form groups to play together. This title will provide hours of enjoyment and the flaws that rob this game of a 5-chicken rating are purely technical and might be fixed before (or soon after) the official release.
Hope to see you in game!