Star Wars: The Old Republic – First Impression Review
Sean W. Gibson / Dec 19th, 2011 1 Comment
Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMORPG created by BioWare and distributed by EA that features Star Wars lore and the opportunity to play as a Jedi, Sith, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Commando and more. Having played the game’s official release through a couple of prologues we can easily say that SWTOR is an evolutionary step forward not just for MMORPGs, but also for PC gaming.
An Overall Look At SWTOR
The story of SWTOR takes place 10,000 years before the events of Darth Vader and the original Star Wars trilogy. The Sith Empire has returned and attacked the Galatic Republic with both Sith and Jedi numbering in the thousands. The entire galaxy is on the brink of war and you find yourself at the center of events that will shape the history of the galaxy.
This new MMORPG aims to take PC gamers an evolutionary step forward with excellent graphics, a ridiculously compelling story, total spoken dialog and deep RPG elements. BioWare, made famous for Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect games, has taken the Star Wars reigns to take on all stakeholders in the MMO genre. One of the main concepts that a gamer should think about before playing the game is that this is not a Star Wars skin on top of something you’ve already played. Rather, it has familiar MMO controls and elements, but is much more of the mold of KOTOR and Mass Effect. Think “What if Mass Effect became an MMORPG (but Star Wars)” rather than “What if [insert established MMO name here] had a Star Wars skin” – and that is a VERY good thing, my gaming friends.
Classes
Star Wars: The Old Republic Review
Story
SWTOR - Darth Baras
Graphics
SWTOR - Sith Maurader
Sound
If there’s a second element to SWTOR that makes it head and shoulders above what anyone else is doing in MMOs, it’s in the sound. Every interaction in the game utilizes voice acting which is all done extremely well. Of course, this accounts for a decent chunk of the game’s 30+ GB of space on your local drive, but it’s well worth it. The voice acting is amazing and grabs your attention like no game before. The music is straight out of the LucasArts collection, so all your favorite Star Wars music (like Duel of the Fates) as well as “Star Wars sound effects” will be found the game. This all added up to SWTOR boasting the best audio work in a video game – ever.
Fun Factor
You don’t have to take our word for it that this game is a ton of fun. Playing on early access servers we constantly saw in both the starting and capital planets in the general chat logs people posting “I love this game” over and over – and we couldn’t agree more. This game is highly addictive, extremely fun and constantly begs you play play it more. There’s no grind feel to the game and there’s so much story that everything through the prologue is just absolutely amazing. The first “flashpoint” – which is akin to a dungeon – will just absolutely blow you away and needless to say will seal the deal for you once you access it around level 10. Star Wars: The Old Republic is as much fun as we’ve had in the world of PC gaming in the last ten years.
Overall Early Game Impressions
Star Wars: The Old Republic puts itself immediately in the conversation for Game of the Year. Both BioWare and EA gambled big on this new franchise and was able to roll the hard eight, which is Vegas talk for saying that SWTOR is a huge gamble that paid off in a big way. The gameplay is fantastic, the graphics are awesome, the sound is perhaps the best in gaming history and we think that gamers are going to have a lot of fun with this title. If there’s one negative – it’s the queues we’re seeing getting into the game. Some of the early servers have been heavily populated to the point where you’re being asked to wait to get in. Each day the wait times have been improved, so perhaps we’re just seeing some growing pains from SWTOR at this point. Overall, this game doesn’t just live up to the hype, it blows twelve parsecs past it.
OVERALL SCORES
Graphics: |
9/10 |
Gameplay: |
10/10 |
Sound: |
10/10 |
Fun Factor: |
10/10 |
OVERALL SCORE: |
97.5% |
Sean W. Gibson
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tags: mmorpg , review , star wars the old republic , swtor
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