Guild Wars

Online role-playing games such as Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot can turn out to be pretty expensive, as they charge a monthly subscription on top of the initial cost of the game itself. Guild Wars breaks that mould by allowing you to play online with no monthly fee.

It follows the standard role-playing format, allowing you to create a character such as a warrior, magician or priest, and then sending you off on a series of quests in order to gain experience and develop new skills.

There's an initial 'warm up' section that allows you to master basic weapons and skills, and then you're plunged into a war between humanity and a horde of monsters known as the Charr.

At this point you can start to team up with other players on missions against the Charr. You can also form a guild with other players and fight other guilds in a series of 'arenas'.

This guild-versus-guild combat is limited to relatively small teams of four to eight players per side, meaning that Guild Wars doesn't have the huge scale of rivals such as Camelot (where battles can involve dozens or even hundreds of players at once).

However, the smaller scale means that the game's developers don't need to charge a monthly fee to keep it running. The game itself is great fun, with exciting combat and spectacular graphics.