Star Wars: The Old Republic (Trial Edition - PC)
A long time ago, in a country far far away, a group of people gathered together to make a movie that was considered ludicrous and a definate loss of money at the time. The movie was way too ambitious and as such considered to be a folly in film, but even after all the negative buzz, the film hit the screens, and audiences were amazed. The music, the visual effects, the amazing realisation of ultimate good versus terrifying evil, and in space! George Lucas may not have realised it then, but he had created a series of movies so good, they would spawn a full 6 film deal, multiple spin offs, cartoon serie's and video games to boot, and a continual franchise that is still a dominator in multiple industries, 35 years later.
Following the moderate success of Star Wars Galaxies, the MMo born by Lucasarts and Verant Interactive, and released in June of 2003, it was always known that another Star Wars MMo would be inevitable, and in October 2008, Bioware announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic was in production. 3 years after this announcement, in December 2011, Star Wars Galaxies was sadly shut down, but at the same time, Star Wars: The Old Republic went live, and began a new chapter in the saga.
Now obviously I wouldn't be able to go too far into this review without mentioning the current reigning champion of the online role playing genre, World of Warcraft. This game has sat on the MMo throne for 7 years and has barely been touched by any other MMo released since WoW went live back in 2005, with Rift and Aion being the ones that were considered to be "WoW killers" when they landed, but never lived up to the mark, and faded into the background (Aion even going Free to Play recently I assume due to lack of subscribers, focusing more on the micro transaction models). When SW:ToR was announced, the fans went crazy, mainly due to it being developed by Bioware, a company that have produced some impecabble titles, such as Dragon Age, Baldurs Gate and Mass Effect, and many WoW players were seeing it as the first MMo in a long time that could enter into the ring in a fair fight with the now very much into it's twilght years, World of Warcraft, and come out as a possible victor...
...and, here we are, 3 months after the game has been live, and both titles are standing strong, but now that SW:ToR has released (finally) a free 7 day trial download, I picked up my Lightsaber, donned my sandy robes and began my free adventure through a galaxy far far away...
Following the moderate success of Star Wars Galaxies, the MMo born by Lucasarts and Verant Interactive, and released in June of 2003, it was always known that another Star Wars MMo would be inevitable, and in October 2008, Bioware announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic was in production. 3 years after this announcement, in December 2011, Star Wars Galaxies was sadly shut down, but at the same time, Star Wars: The Old Republic went live, and began a new chapter in the saga.
Now obviously I wouldn't be able to go too far into this review without mentioning the current reigning champion of the online role playing genre, World of Warcraft. This game has sat on the MMo throne for 7 years and has barely been touched by any other MMo released since WoW went live back in 2005, with Rift and Aion being the ones that were considered to be "WoW killers" when they landed, but never lived up to the mark, and faded into the background (Aion even going Free to Play recently I assume due to lack of subscribers, focusing more on the micro transaction models). When SW:ToR was announced, the fans went crazy, mainly due to it being developed by Bioware, a company that have produced some impecabble titles, such as Dragon Age, Baldurs Gate and Mass Effect, and many WoW players were seeing it as the first MMo in a long time that could enter into the ring in a fair fight with the now very much into it's twilght years, World of Warcraft, and come out as a possible victor...
...and, here we are, 3 months after the game has been live, and both titles are standing strong, but now that SW:ToR has released (finally) a free 7 day trial download, I picked up my Lightsaber, donned my sandy robes and began my free adventure through a galaxy far far away...
First Impressions
After logging into my EA Origin account and reading through the short guide on what to expect in the free trial, I began the install, and after seeing it would be roughly 27GB, decided to leave it over night, and hopefully will be done in the morning. I wake up, and sure enough, all 27GB have downloaded and installed (taking in total just over 4 hours, which is lovely on a basic broadband connection), but I notice that my 7 days trial starts from the second I click download, and not from my first login to the game, but hey, it's a few hours off my total, so not a problem.
After messing about with all the security questions and login gumph, im finally clicking on play in game and am presented with a really long, and incredible CG sequence showing me whats going on with the Sith and priming the storyline for both factions in the game (The Galactic Republic and The Sith Empire). The video is very detailed, with a lot of action, beautifully orchestrated music, and really gets you pumped up for the upcoming battles you expect to face, and with the option to skip if needed, so no complaints here, my mouths a little open and a flicker of Star Wars fandom drool lingers on my lips.
First choice is the faction, and I decided to be a super shiny good guy Jedi, going for the full good allegiance too, so picked Jedi Knight on the Galactic Republic, went through the nicely detailed character creation, and watched the faction and class specific intro, as I was tuned into why my character is where he was, and what was going on down on planet Tython.
As the actual game itself loads up it sets the scene for what is to come, with fully voice recorded dialog (and very nicely done too) for every quest, and visuals, that why not entirely eye melting, were good enough for a next gen MMo to be proud of. The game has a very WoW-esque look to it, but so do all MMo's these days, which isn't an excuse, but it lets people feel somewhat familiar, with your basic action bars at the bottom of the screen, minimap, tutorial pop ups, and all the standard bits that make up your UI.
As I worked through the first few quests I found myself to be enjoying them, and while im not entirely clued up on the lore of Star Wars outside of the movies, the spoken cutscenes lulled me into learning more about the world and it's races, and found it very enjoyable to sit back and let the game tell me it's story, while I moved from NPC to NPC, being shunted out to the inevitable "go and kill 10 of those while collecting 25 of these". The first actual killing quests took me through the quest archetypes, and I found the combat at this initial point to be engaging. The character leaps about, spinning his Trainee Sabre around with finesse as he clonks each Flesh Raider into the ground, at which point I see a feature missing from a lot of MMo's that immediately got my attention - AoE looting. Listen up every MMo developer out there, this option is a fundamental when you have a game where you are continually killing large groups of monsters, as no one in their right minds wants to have a tonne of fun slicing through hordes of baddies, only to find they need to right click 20 times every 2 minutes just to pick up a tonne of vendor trash. SW:ToR, you gain 25 cool points for this function alone.
Continuing through the starter zone, I find myself being sucked into the immersive storyline, and feel I really am making a difference to the world around me, as the subtle phasing changes little bits here and there as I go, and the quests I am undertaking are considerably more heroic than "I want 10 rat tails to make a soup", making me feel truly part of the world, and like I am contributing. The graphics are getting shinier and more detailed, the further I delve and the music is subtle but in the same style as John Williams, giving that epic movie feel when the battles heat up.
After messing about with all the security questions and login gumph, im finally clicking on play in game and am presented with a really long, and incredible CG sequence showing me whats going on with the Sith and priming the storyline for both factions in the game (The Galactic Republic and The Sith Empire). The video is very detailed, with a lot of action, beautifully orchestrated music, and really gets you pumped up for the upcoming battles you expect to face, and with the option to skip if needed, so no complaints here, my mouths a little open and a flicker of Star Wars fandom drool lingers on my lips.
First choice is the faction, and I decided to be a super shiny good guy Jedi, going for the full good allegiance too, so picked Jedi Knight on the Galactic Republic, went through the nicely detailed character creation, and watched the faction and class specific intro, as I was tuned into why my character is where he was, and what was going on down on planet Tython.
As the actual game itself loads up it sets the scene for what is to come, with fully voice recorded dialog (and very nicely done too) for every quest, and visuals, that why not entirely eye melting, were good enough for a next gen MMo to be proud of. The game has a very WoW-esque look to it, but so do all MMo's these days, which isn't an excuse, but it lets people feel somewhat familiar, with your basic action bars at the bottom of the screen, minimap, tutorial pop ups, and all the standard bits that make up your UI.
As I worked through the first few quests I found myself to be enjoying them, and while im not entirely clued up on the lore of Star Wars outside of the movies, the spoken cutscenes lulled me into learning more about the world and it's races, and found it very enjoyable to sit back and let the game tell me it's story, while I moved from NPC to NPC, being shunted out to the inevitable "go and kill 10 of those while collecting 25 of these". The first actual killing quests took me through the quest archetypes, and I found the combat at this initial point to be engaging. The character leaps about, spinning his Trainee Sabre around with finesse as he clonks each Flesh Raider into the ground, at which point I see a feature missing from a lot of MMo's that immediately got my attention - AoE looting. Listen up every MMo developer out there, this option is a fundamental when you have a game where you are continually killing large groups of monsters, as no one in their right minds wants to have a tonne of fun slicing through hordes of baddies, only to find they need to right click 20 times every 2 minutes just to pick up a tonne of vendor trash. SW:ToR, you gain 25 cool points for this function alone.
Continuing through the starter zone, I find myself being sucked into the immersive storyline, and feel I really am making a difference to the world around me, as the subtle phasing changes little bits here and there as I go, and the quests I am undertaking are considerably more heroic than "I want 10 rat tails to make a soup", making me feel truly part of the world, and like I am contributing. The graphics are getting shinier and more detailed, the further I delve and the music is subtle but in the same style as John Williams, giving that epic movie feel when the battles heat up.
Gameplay
Honestly, it checks every box for a standard MMo. It has your generic quest types (gathering, courier, kill count, discovery etc etc), 2 warring factions, one perceived as good, the other as evil, and a huge amount of terrain to explore, but it seems to have a little something more in each respect. The first thing I loved was the bonus objectives when questing. You could be out hunting for Guid, when on your first kill, it will pop up with an additional objective, asking you to smash eggs too, which you don't need to do to complete the initial quest, but if you do, offers a bonus exp boost. Love this. As an obsessive ring collector in Sonic, and proud owner of all 151 original Pokemon on one cart, you give me a checklist of things to do in a game, and then pop up with a little side check list, im doing it, and enjoying it too, as it helps keep the monotony of questing at a minimum.
The combat is nicely tuned but doesn't step outside of the safe zone when it comes to MMo's, having your standard Tank, DPS and Healing roles, and chaining together moves to unleash more powerful ones once your bar fills up. It has the same feel as WoW in this respect, as in a group, it is again just a case of emptying or filling up red and green bars, which is a shame, as I hoped it would at least experiment a little here, but it is pretty much the same as WoW, only with lightsabers.
The PvP arenas are a lot of fun, having tested out a rugby style game where you nab a ball from the centre and have to bring it back to your own goal to score points, while fighting off the other faction who are trying to do the same, and a king of the hill style game where you have to control all of the guns on the field, as when you have them on your side, they shoot at the enemies spawn point ship, eventually shooting it down, again with the enemy trying to do the same. I didn't see any others yet, but having only done 5 battlegrounds, and being limited to level 15, and not being able to speak to other players outside of /say, I am kind of limited as to what I can experience, which is not to say the trial is limited, as it is HUGE! The journey from 1-10 took me the better part of a day to complete, and as time slipped away from me, I hadn't realised I had being playing for a solid 6 hours, showing me that I was enjoying it alot. I also got to see the other classes at work here, and they seemed to be quite fun looking, tempting me to try out the non-force ones, as the tech weapons look rather tempting to mess with (tossing out traps and little bots that fight for you etc).
You also get a companion as you play, who acts like the NPC's in Guild Wars, being that you can set up their moves, combat styles and even give them professions to do while you are out doing something else. Now I really liked this idea, as nothing is more boring than grinding a craft in an MMo, which is why alot of people use bots to do it for them, and in SW:ToR, you literally have to use a bot to do it, as you send your little robot companion out on short quests (he basically disappears from the game field for a few minutes) to bring back various rewards, or level up his craft. The rewards are usually craftables which he will then grind up into items you can use! I really enjoyed this system, as while im running about doing storyline stuff, he is out grinding me some credits (the ingame gold) and gaining levels on his crafts.
On top of all this is the morality system, which I have never seen in any other MMo so far, whereby your character moves into the "Light Side" or "Dark Side" of the force based on answers to conversations (think Mass Effects chat system and it's exactly that) and eventually leads to specific rewards being offered, depending on if you decided to kill and maim, or pray and benelovise (it's a word >_>) your way through the worlds, and I say worlds, as the game is setup across planets, instead of being limited to 1 or 2 like in most other games of this genre. This leaves a huge scope for continual patches and expansion, as more planets can be thrown in at any time. The game is simply huge, and even though I have only seen a small chunk of it, I can see there is a lot more out there yet. The morality system is extended even further as your companions will also gain trust with you if you act in a way they like. For example, my first companion, a little R2-D2 style robot, likes Jedi's and honor, so if I answer with honor and in a very Jedi like way to questions, I gain faction with him too! All really nice little touches.
Due to the trial restrictions though, I have not been able to sample group play other than auto queued PvP battles, so haven't been able to try out much instanced content, but im told there are group spaceship battles on top of the standard dungeons and raids.
The combat is nicely tuned but doesn't step outside of the safe zone when it comes to MMo's, having your standard Tank, DPS and Healing roles, and chaining together moves to unleash more powerful ones once your bar fills up. It has the same feel as WoW in this respect, as in a group, it is again just a case of emptying or filling up red and green bars, which is a shame, as I hoped it would at least experiment a little here, but it is pretty much the same as WoW, only with lightsabers.
The PvP arenas are a lot of fun, having tested out a rugby style game where you nab a ball from the centre and have to bring it back to your own goal to score points, while fighting off the other faction who are trying to do the same, and a king of the hill style game where you have to control all of the guns on the field, as when you have them on your side, they shoot at the enemies spawn point ship, eventually shooting it down, again with the enemy trying to do the same. I didn't see any others yet, but having only done 5 battlegrounds, and being limited to level 15, and not being able to speak to other players outside of /say, I am kind of limited as to what I can experience, which is not to say the trial is limited, as it is HUGE! The journey from 1-10 took me the better part of a day to complete, and as time slipped away from me, I hadn't realised I had being playing for a solid 6 hours, showing me that I was enjoying it alot. I also got to see the other classes at work here, and they seemed to be quite fun looking, tempting me to try out the non-force ones, as the tech weapons look rather tempting to mess with (tossing out traps and little bots that fight for you etc).
You also get a companion as you play, who acts like the NPC's in Guild Wars, being that you can set up their moves, combat styles and even give them professions to do while you are out doing something else. Now I really liked this idea, as nothing is more boring than grinding a craft in an MMo, which is why alot of people use bots to do it for them, and in SW:ToR, you literally have to use a bot to do it, as you send your little robot companion out on short quests (he basically disappears from the game field for a few minutes) to bring back various rewards, or level up his craft. The rewards are usually craftables which he will then grind up into items you can use! I really enjoyed this system, as while im running about doing storyline stuff, he is out grinding me some credits (the ingame gold) and gaining levels on his crafts.
On top of all this is the morality system, which I have never seen in any other MMo so far, whereby your character moves into the "Light Side" or "Dark Side" of the force based on answers to conversations (think Mass Effects chat system and it's exactly that) and eventually leads to specific rewards being offered, depending on if you decided to kill and maim, or pray and benelovise (it's a word >_>) your way through the worlds, and I say worlds, as the game is setup across planets, instead of being limited to 1 or 2 like in most other games of this genre. This leaves a huge scope for continual patches and expansion, as more planets can be thrown in at any time. The game is simply huge, and even though I have only seen a small chunk of it, I can see there is a lot more out there yet. The morality system is extended even further as your companions will also gain trust with you if you act in a way they like. For example, my first companion, a little R2-D2 style robot, likes Jedi's and honor, so if I answer with honor and in a very Jedi like way to questions, I gain faction with him too! All really nice little touches.
Due to the trial restrictions though, I have not been able to sample group play other than auto queued PvP battles, so haven't been able to try out much instanced content, but im told there are group spaceship battles on top of the standard dungeons and raids.
Characters
The universe of Star Wars has a myriad of different races, religions, factions aswell as any other archetype you can think of, and this game is no exception. You get to choose from a handful of races to play as, but the game has literally hundreds of them to fight against or ally with as you venture through, the first focus for me of which were the Twi'lek versus the Flesh Raiders. I met with my Jedi Master who had me doing quests for the Twi'lek to help build a bond between the 2 peoples, and met a lot of very interesting NPC's along the way.
Each had their own personality, and stood as unique enough to remember when they popped up again later down the line, unlike in both WoW and Rift where the characters physical design is, outside of key lore characters, very bland and samey.
The voice acting really adds depth to the game, and while heavy on the hard drive, I feel it is a neccessary feature in all modern games as we now crave them to be more and more dynamic, real and immersive, as sadly, text based delivery is a dying medium (which is why I will eventually be doing video reviews!).
I found the character design to be pleasing, and each one likable enough to want to help, but there isn't really much more to say about them, they do their jobs, move on, and the next ones pop up to give you a whole new load of traumas to solve.
Each had their own personality, and stood as unique enough to remember when they popped up again later down the line, unlike in both WoW and Rift where the characters physical design is, outside of key lore characters, very bland and samey.
The voice acting really adds depth to the game, and while heavy on the hard drive, I feel it is a neccessary feature in all modern games as we now crave them to be more and more dynamic, real and immersive, as sadly, text based delivery is a dying medium (which is why I will eventually be doing video reviews!).
I found the character design to be pleasing, and each one likable enough to want to help, but there isn't really much more to say about them, they do their jobs, move on, and the next ones pop up to give you a whole new load of traumas to solve.
Design
After reading the forums for months, and seeing a tonne of youtube "lol SW" videos, I really was ready for something pretty awful. I expected buckets of bugs, getting stuck in the terrain, NPC's falling through the ground, and pretty much something akin to the Lawnmower Man in visuals, but so far, haven't experienced anything other than a comical glitch with my weapon, where even when seated, in sanctuaries, it would be unsheathed and held above my head, but that was it.
The terrain was lovely, rolling up and down, and really detailed, with individual blades of grass blowing in the wind, the plates of the world meshed together beautifully giving a seamless experience as I journied across Tython, and the monsters all had gorgeous skins, looking similar, and in some cases identical to their film counterparts.
Now I don't think for one minute that the game doesn't have bugs, but in the trial experience so far, I have seen only one, and being as it was only cosmetic, I don't really see where all this rage is coming from. The games quite a feat of design, and seems very solid. The UI is clean, concise and uncluttered, taking a page out of WoW's book, keeping it simple, instead of Rift, with all it's spikes and shinies, often being difficult to read. The quest tracking is lovely, giving the same functionality as WoW's quest log, however so far I have not seen a limitation on how many quests you can have, which if turns out to be the case, another great feature. Inventory is also nicely laid out, keeping it simple, clean and very clear to read, with tooltips explaining if an item is trash or not.
The terrain was lovely, rolling up and down, and really detailed, with individual blades of grass blowing in the wind, the plates of the world meshed together beautifully giving a seamless experience as I journied across Tython, and the monsters all had gorgeous skins, looking similar, and in some cases identical to their film counterparts.
Now I don't think for one minute that the game doesn't have bugs, but in the trial experience so far, I have seen only one, and being as it was only cosmetic, I don't really see where all this rage is coming from. The games quite a feat of design, and seems very solid. The UI is clean, concise and uncluttered, taking a page out of WoW's book, keeping it simple, instead of Rift, with all it's spikes and shinies, often being difficult to read. The quest tracking is lovely, giving the same functionality as WoW's quest log, however so far I have not seen a limitation on how many quests you can have, which if turns out to be the case, another great feature. Inventory is also nicely laid out, keeping it simple, clean and very clear to read, with tooltips explaining if an item is trash or not.
Sound
The music is fantastic, no other word for it. It's every bit Star Wars, and beautiful. There are loads of recognisable pieces from the movies, as well as what sound like new pieces, but all with that very distinct orchestral style John Williams stands out for, however he didn't do the music for the game, but the ones who did have done a wonderful job.
The ambience and sound effects are all perfectly recorded, with every swish and swing of the lightsaber wommming out the speakers in ear pleasing goodness, keeping the immersion very strong. The ambient sounds as you adventure through Tython have that feel of a cold but green pine forest with wind blustering in the distance. Of course there is the voice acting too, which, while of a top quality, does begin to tire after listening to so much dialog, but as each line is skippable, there is no issue, as for those of us that want to hear the full story, we can, and for those who don't, don't need to.
The ambience and sound effects are all perfectly recorded, with every swish and swing of the lightsaber wommming out the speakers in ear pleasing goodness, keeping the immersion very strong. The ambient sounds as you adventure through Tython have that feel of a cold but green pine forest with wind blustering in the distance. Of course there is the voice acting too, which, while of a top quality, does begin to tire after listening to so much dialog, but as each line is skippable, there is no issue, as for those of us that want to hear the full story, we can, and for those who don't, don't need to.
Rating
A very solid: 9/10
plus the 25 cool points for AoE looting...