Star Wars: The Old Republic Review Diaries - Days 1 - 3

Welcome to Made 2 Game's Star Wars: The Old Republic Review Diaries! As outlined in this post about why reviewing MMOs requiries a different approach to the norm, these diaries are an effort to provide information overload for those interested in a genre that is often left under-evaluated through a traditional critical approach.

This first three entries focus on Star Wars: The Old Republic's Bounty Hunter class, focusing on his early stages as well as a spot of player versus player combat.

13/12/2011
Drazlar – Bounty Hunter
Activities: Gained lvl 7. Performed tasks for a giant slug. Shot and exploded many silly aliens.

Here I am. Hutta. Home planet of the giant Slug aliens who, for a race so prone to remaining sentient and stroking scantily clad lady aliens all day, seem to acquire and foster a remarkable seat of power.

Anyway, their repulsive ways are iconic, best just to roll with it. This game is going to be full of diehard fans around about now...

I am here as a bounty hunter and The Great Hunt - a battle royale between the best bounty hunters in the galaxy - is coming. My tale starts in a meeting with my team, the three people who are going to get me into this bounty hunter hunt-off.

The thing that initially sets Star Wars: The Old Republic apart from your usual MMO is that it wants to tell you a story. Each of the game's eight classes have a unique narrative full of Mass Effect-style conversations and moral choices.

I hate to tell you this, but the cantina's don't play that music. Not yet at least.

What this does is apply lashings of clear context to situations. I won't lie, most quests involve going to A and killing some sod/collecting some item and then running back to the mug that asked you to do so. But the in your face plot and elements of input from your character adds a pleasing element of clear context to the game. Which is nice after years and years of dull text and static quests.

Worth noting, however, was one quest which didn't ask me to kill anyone and was just a little moral choice concerning two parents with conflicting wishes for their Force-gifted son. To Sith or not to Sith? I decided not to Sith, got some light side points, and a lovely letter from the father. Brilliant!

14/12/2011
Drazlar – Bounty Hunter
Activities: Gained lvl 10. Continued working for a giant slug. Met a friend. Shot and exploded more silly aliens and beasties. Escaped the turd-coloured surroundings of Hutta.

You know, I wish all these players would piss off.

The main issue I've noticed, in this starting area at least, is that the whole MMO side of The Old Republic seems to grate against its desire to tell a genuine story. Sure, key mission areas are instanced for you and you alone but there is still one main issue...

I don't want to be given a mission to blow up an important signal jammer only to get there and see another sod already planting the charge, knowing I'll have to wait so I can do the exact same thing in five seconds. It's an immersion breaker, it's rubbish.

Another issue at the minute is the amount of quests with choices, it's verging on predictably ridiculous.

That said, I'm away from the starting confines of Hutta now so it's time to see if the MMO side of proceedings starts to sparkle or continue to stutter...

Minnax – Jedi Knight
Activities: Attained lvl 3. Acted smarmy to important members of the Jedi council. Acted smarmy to locals. Acted smarmy in combat through superior Jedi combat skills.

My bounty hunter is quite the suave, slick, walking tank with his blasters, sticky mines, rockets, flamethrowers and missile barrages – and he's only level 10! Jimminy Willikers! - so I decided it was time to investigate what the Jedi class could offer.

And considering the Jedi's are naturally upstanding warriors for all that is good and noble in the world, I made a Twi'lek lass with an eye for being the worst Jedi in the world ever.

This means all emotion, all the time!

Hot Twi'lek tendril clipping action.

Must admit, while some of the supporting and bit part voices haven't been the best – a spectating girlfriend did sarcastically annotate one cutscene with a dry 'amazing voice acting' - the spread of main character vocal work has been remarkably tight. Arguably more so than the awful, awful schizophrenic dick/goodie-two-shoes voice over of Dragon Age 2's Hawke.

It's rather fun being a Jedi. Running in and slapping foes aside with a lightsaber has a geekish charm, while leaps and flamboyant attacks all have an acrobatic aesthetic to them that helps mask the fact that this is quite simple MMO combat. It's actually - whisper it - quite exciting.

Minnax's plot was also a lot quicker to pick up pace as well, with her invited to talk to the head of the Jedi council (that's the woman you've seen in SW:TOR adverts on every game/geek site on the internet for the past week) within the first half hour. But again, as with the bounty hunter, this faked solo importance rubs up against the MMO side of things rather crudely.

15/12/2011
Drazlar – Bounty Hunter (Mercenary)
Activities: Got to lvl 11. Chose class specialisation – Mercenary. Rocked the player versus player arena through incredible chicken tactics. Rocked a party quest by being a goody goody while my squad mates wanted to be dicks.

Two quick slices of impression here from the two ends of the MMO spectrum. Some player versus player, and some good old fashioned instanced dungeon crawling.

Player versus player:
The warzone I sampled today was 'Huttball', a futuristic game of, well, I guess Rugby is the closest comparison.

Oh, and set in a DEATH ARENA. Yeah.

So basically, two teams compete with the goal of grabbing the ball and walking it over to your opponent's goal line to score whilst avoiding acid beds, flame jets, and your opponents efforts to gut you. 'Tricky' doesn't begin to explain half of it.

It's genuinly good fun. Tiered ramparts give ranged mugs like yours truly vantage points to shoot from whilst leaping Jedi and Sith add some spectacle to the whole thing. There are a lot of stunning attacks being thrown around but it's tight arena brawling fun with minimal downtime.

That and the commentating is fun and lighthearted. Just the thing you need to help drown out the constant crying from elitist players in the chatbox.

Traps are fun, especially with all the knockback attacks that players have access to.

Instance – Black Talon:
Black Talon is a thirty-forty minute instance that sees you take control of an Imperial ship and then fight back an attack from the Republic before boarding their ship and killing a Jedi. Level 10 and already feeling like a complete dude.

Okay, so much of running an instance in The Old Republic is usual MMO fare. Someone gets the attention of enemies, someone tops up his health, and everyone else batters said enemies until they all fall down. The Old Republic is fast, with little downtime between bouts, meaning it never drags.

What The Old Republic does differently however is, once again, story. That's right, narrative presentation really is The Old Republic's trump card and this is arguably its best implementation.

Enter the instance and conversations set up the story. When a conversation choice appears all party members select an option with a random roll deciding who reacts. It's impossible to understate just how much this conversation and these choices adds to the feel of an MMO dungeon.

No longer is this just a faceless corridor of baddies, with story reserved for those who read all the asides. No longer do you party with faceless drones, their conversation choices naturally evoke their personality. No more are bosses simply powerful enemies, as dialogue events help them argue a cause and create a genuine narrative.

It's a simple addition, and aside from these moments of plot it's the usual bag 'em and tag 'em hack and slash murder-fest, but it will effortlessly help the game appeal to more people, and effortlessly make more people care for the overarching plots in the world.

Group conversations are brilliant and can immediately cause debate after a moral choice is decided.

And so ends our first spat of impressions. Don't worry, as these go on the diary entries will likely get slightly shorter, we're still in 'New Game Excitement Mode' at the moment, so excuse us for having lots of words to share.

But yes, so far so good. Join us in a few days where we will be delving deeper into the galaxy, and player versus player in particular.

Words by James Bowden (Twitter: @Dalagonash)

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