A Weekend with The Old Republic – Part 2

Please note: this blog post contains minor gameplay and story spoilers for the first 20 levels of The Old Republic.

In my last blog, I spoke of the story virtues of Star Wars: The Old Republic. But how does the game play? It would be sad for me to fall back on saying “Like World of Warcraft”, but I can at least mention how diverse and interesting the character classes are. The Jedi Knight, for example, plays like a hybrid between a traditional aggro-drawing tank and a combo-building rogue, which is lots of fun. This is in sharp contrast to the Trooper, who feels like what the Heavy from Team Fortress 2 would if he had charges, cool-downs and different ammo types. This diversity is made all the more mind-boggling (and potentially problematic, balance-wise) when you consider that all eight of the character classes in the game can promote to two unique specialisations (my Jedi Knight became a Sentinel, wielding two blades), and each of those can travel down three complex talent trees.

There are many beautiful sights in the galaxy of The Old Republic.

I didn’t really have a lot of complaints about my time with the game, but I did run into a few standard MMO niggles. Despite a functional “taxi” waypoint system, travel between areas is problematic at times, although the way each map is broken up into “phased” story areas helps prevent quest resource hogging by giving a player their own private session. In a neat touch, the game also detects when you are clearing out more enemies than you need to in a given area and rewards you with scaling bonus experience appropriately, which makes repeat trips through familiar terrain feel more valuable. As a result of this phased structure, Bioware is able to make a lot of quests into mini-dungeons, which are thankfully quite easy to turn into party experiences. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to participate in a large scale story dungeon (called “Flash-points” here), although I will say that I was recommended to join one within the first 20 levels of play.

Running up to enemies and blasting them at the same time feels really slick.

If grouping with others ain’t your thing, though, then perhaps you might like to partner up with a helpful NPC. Yes, just like the previous Knights of the Old Republic games (and to a lesser degree, Guild Wars), you’re given companions on your journey. In a smart move, the companions are tied into your unique story, which means that they’re class specific and balanced against your role in battle. If you’re tanking as a Jedi Guardian, you’ll be accompanied by a damage-dealing robot or a healing, force-heavy Jedi Consular. Handily, you can switch between companions at any time, and if you do decide to quest with others, they’re automatically dismissed as needed to maintain game balance. And just like KOTOR and Mass Effect, they’re more than simple quest-givers and damage-aids. Not only are they vital to your story choices, some of them can be romanced should you so choose. Companions also take care of crafting, allowing you to mix and match a range of skills (such as archaeology and treasure hunting) for improved material loot gains. In an inspired choice, TOR also borrows Torchlight’s pet mechanic in allowing you to send your companions away for a couple of minutes to sell off your vendor trash, returning with credits in tow. Having a droid that not only fends off my enemies but builds me lightsabers in my off-time is pretty damn cool.

Just a sample of the galaxy. Who wants to go to Hoth?

There’s still so much more I want to talk about, but I have to stop before this second blog post turns into a monsterous preview. Just know I haven’t talked about the awesome, Master Sword-esque moment when I built my first lightsaber, or the ridiculous amount of time I spent reading The Old Republic’s Codex, its built-in lore wiki ripped straight from Mass Effect. I haven’t mentioned the insane PvP battle-zones, or finally finishing the first major quest-line, earning my own starship, and opening my map of the galaxy and realising I can head anywhere. Oh! And the arcade-style, on-rails space combat missions! Heck, I haven’t talked at all about the time I spent as a fiesty Bounty Hunter, serving the Sith Empire – but fighting for good and the light side of the force – and how impressed I was at how well ranged characters control.

So yes, it’s World of Warcraft with lightsabers and fancy cutscenes, but also a few subtle yet significant additions. And that’s no bad thing.

The on-rail space combat missions look rather lovely and evoke the Rogue Squadron games.

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