Guild Wars 2 is one of those rare games that unexpectedly knocks your life off-kilter, like a meteoroid banging into a satellite. Call it the pinball machine of MMOs, devoted to keeping you entertained by the minute, whatever you’re doing. You’ll get into snowball fights, go on scavenger hunts for eggs, play catch with barrels, defend homesteads from ice worms, protect towns from bear hordes and knock out enemy portals that spawn creatures like the Chitauri inThe Avengers. All those events and hundreds more play out in real-time — with, as Bono would say, or without you, lendingGuild Wars 2 the feel of a living world, and the sort of compulsive anywhere-you-go playability other MMOs only dream of.

NextFigure (iPhone)