Guild Wars 2 launches in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow, and I am almost completely prepared. I've got my collector's edition. I've got my caffeine. I've got SteelSeries' gorgeous mouse and headset combo. Let me tell you about those last two before performing an emergency formatting of my hard drive and then attempt to reinstall everything and download the client before servers open.
But Fahey, you have the collector's edition! It has DVDs, and requires only a minimal download! That would be comforting indeed, only I removed my DVD drive earlier this year to make room for the empty space my DVD drive once occupied. As an added plus, I want to remove all the cluttered crap on my hard disk and the ill-advised preview copy of Windows 8, to ensure I have the smoothest experience possible.
So much doom. But hey, mouse and headset!
As you can see in the photo above, ArenaNet made choosing the color scheme for the official Guild Wars 2 peripherals incredibly easy on SteelSeries. White, red and black, the colors of Captain America that one time he went rogue and they replaced him with the Super Patriot who then went crazy. The Captain, he called himself. He had nothing to do with Guild Wars 2.
These do. Let's start with the ears.
The Guild Wars 2 Gaming Headset -$99.99
It's tiny, plastic-y, and rather fetching. In a world where black is the new black as far as gaming peripherals are concerned, the matte white of these ear dealios is incredibly striking.
The Guild Wars 2 Gaming Headset is actually a branded version of the SteelSeries Flux, a sexy new product that in its normal state is a highly customizable piece of high quality audio equipment. You can swap out colored ear cushions and side plates. It's got a removable audio cable that fits into either ear cup, which allows others to plug their own headset into yours to hear what you hear. You can even purchase an optional mobile cable to turn it into a Mac or phone headset.
The Guild Wars 2 version does all of this as well, so what you're really purchasing is a Flux with red ear cushions and branded side panels. There is nothing wrong with this.
The sound is quite lovely, much more powerful than I would have expected from a smaller-sized device. The cloth SNDblock ear cushions help muffle the outside world while you game, though not so much that you'll not hear your children fighting over bottles in the next room over. STOP IT, KIDS.
I fell in love with the Flux design the first time I saw it. To have one sporting Guild Wars 2 colors is just goodness on top of greatness. I'm not a big fan of the in-line mic, but then I'm not a big fan of talking to people I play MMO-type games with either.
Now for that pointy thing.
The Guild Wars 2 Gaming Mouse - $69.99
Like its more demonic cousin, the Guild Wars 2 Gaming Mouse is a riff on one of SteelSeries' most popular mice, the Sensei — specifically the Sensei Raw, if I am not mistaken. It's a fine piece of pointing machinery from a company that realizes that you don't need 86 million CPI to play a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. 5,760 is more than enough to click anything's ass Guild Wars 2 sends at you.
It's got those seven programmable buttons, which can be configured to work together with your keyboard for maximum impressive complexity. You don't need a lot of buttons for Guild Wars 2, so this sleek (and hey, ambidextrous) and sexy beast is plenty.
I'm also a big fan of the red rubber cable. I don't know why. It just pleases me.
So yes, I am almost fully prepared. I've just got to create a bootable USB installation of Windows, delete everything I own, reinstall it all, and then download Guild Wars 2. I'm sure I'll find plenty of time to curl up in a ball and cry while all of that's going on.
See you in-game (eventually)!
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