
StarWars: The Old Republic
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Bioware
Platform: PC
Release Date: 1/3/2012
Price: $79.90 (Digital Standard), 89.90 (Digital Deluxe) – Buy Here
Overview
Star Wars: The Old Republic is the latest MMORPG set in the Star Wars universe. It is also the second MMORPG set in the Star Wars universe. We shouldn’t let this game only take first and second place though, at third place, this game is also the third video game installment of the Old Republic era in the Star Wars mythos.
Set 300 or so years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic 2, the game picks up in a galaxy far far away, with a backdrop of war and an invasion from the Sith Empire. It’s war between the Republic and the Empire and each player has a role to play in this intergalactic exchange of blasters, swords and sorcery.
Story
Star Wars: The Old Republic follows the individual tale of each player character inhabiting the game within the games universe. This means that players will get a more personalised experience from the games story, unlike other MMORPGs that seem to skimp in this department.
Using the warring galaxy as a backdrop, the game thrusts players on a personal quest that is, while similar for each class, personal to each player. I found that the story experience is enhanced by the fact that there are other players playing alongside you and that they can influence the way your story progresses (to a degree).
Take Flashpoints for instance (these are like the games version of dungeons), these can be undertaken by a group of players. In these, yours and your groups behaviours towards dialogue can have an impact on your own personal story (assuming you don’t do the Flashpoint again, or ignore your actions in subsequent visits), which gives you a greater connection to your player character on a more personal level. It’s kind of hard to describe, but it’s like ‘this is my character, and these are the actions that I have undertaken with him’.
However, the thing that will impact on your personal story the most are the actions you take during dialogue sequences on storyline missions. These missions comprise certain sections of an Act within the story and everything you do can influence the direction of an Act. However, all the Acts are static in their successive progression.
This game is incredibly interesting from a story standpoint and fans of Bioware’s story-telling will absolutely love the way the story has been integrated into this particular MMORPG. Fans of story based video-games will definitely be overjoyed with the amount of story progression available to them within Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Gameplay
Star Wars: The Old Republic plays very similarly to other games in the MMO and RPG genre. What I mean here is that a lot of the mechanics were lifted and slightly enhanced from other games, such as World of Warcraft and Single-player RPGs such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2.
Over the course of the game, you will be conversing with a plethora of Non Player Characters that will all be fully voiced and moderately interacted with. Whilever you are conversing with an NPC, you will be given a selection of dialogue options in a manner similar to the conversational wheel featured in Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2. However, in this game, it is a lot more streamlined and you can’t expand on a conversation as far as you could in either of those two games. While this is barely an issue (like really barely), it still would have been nice to have those kinds of extensions in most instances of conversations with Non Player Characters.
Further, in conversational periods, you will be given opportunities to make important Light and Dark side decisions for your character. For an added bonus, you can turn the games Light and Darkside hints off and on in the Settings Menu. Anyway, I often found that what I thought was the right thing to do given the situation was not always the correct (Lightside) option to take. This has left my own character down the middle path of the alignment ladder. I think that Roleplayers in particular will love this feature as it will allow them to play out their character to the fullest, and with having the hints on, they can ensure that they don’t accidentally make a Darkside mistake.
Combat-wise, Star Wars: The Old Republic plays very similarly to other hot-key based MMORPGs (like WoW), only slightly different. The main difference in the combat is that your character doesn’t sit back and auto-attack. This means that you have to keep mashing hotkeys to continuously keep on the offensive. I found that this gives you a much better flow and makes you feel that much involved with the game than sitting behind a boss and occasionally hitting Mutilate and Envenom.















