Star Wars: The Old Republic
According to a quick google search, Bioware has removed their non-disclosure agreement, which means I'm free to talk about that beta I was invited to.
I'm only ~1-2 hours into the game at the moment, so it's more of my initial impression than a solid review, but here are my thoughts:
- Character: Jedi Knight named, you guess it, Jakia.
- Character creation: sadly lacking CC options. I have a feeling that, playing the main game, I'll probably run into more than one twin of my character. You can't go in and fix the face exactly the way you want to like in Dragon Age or Mass Effect--you pick a preset and edit their hair/makeup/skin color and go from there. Which is fine, I guess, but I'm used to having more control over my appearance.
- That said, my character's hair is even MORE ridiculous than Princess Leia's, so all is forgiven.
- You start out choosing between the Sith or the Jedi, which disappointed me at first because, well, what's the point of RPing then? Ten minutes into the game, though, proved that choosing the Jedi didn't mean I couldn't be the biggest asshole/dark side leaning Jedi ever, which is so lulzy. I love it.
- I'm just going to say it: I love voiced protagonists. This game has a voiced protagonist. This pleases me. ^_^
- The game does suffer from the same problem Dragon Age/Mass Effect suffered from, though, in that the dialogue you click on is only a summary of what your character will say. For example, one mission I was on I needed to talk the villagers into helping me. One option (the bottom one, which previous knowledge of Bioware games tells me is the evil/"bad" choice) had me ask "what do I do if they say no?" which I thought was a legit concern. Clicking on that, however, had my character pounded her fist into her palm and went "so how many skulls do I get to crush if they say no?" Which, no, THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED TO SAY! Misleading dialogue is misleading at times.
- I love conversing with NPCs and hearing them talk. It's so BIOWARE. If you don't love Bioware, chances are you aren't going to love this game, because so many Bioware tropes are in this game.
- First piece of usable loot I picked up? Booty shorts. Apparently this only happened to me, because no one else is running around in booty shorts, but I am. "The Force is strong in this one!" Yeah it is. Look at those legs and that ridiculous hairstyle. Unff.
- Graphics aren't the world's best, but they aren't bad, either.
That said, there are some things that I have a problem with, and they are big enough that it may keep me from actually buying the game until said things are resolved:
- Combat. Combat is AWFUL. There is no auto-attack button, and clicking on someone does absolutely nothing. I click on them and then I have to MOVE and manually attack them. It feels like 10 steps back from KOTOR, and it's annoying because I get slaughtered before I can hit anyone. I've played for maybe two hours, and I keep getting killed because it won't let me auto-attack. VERY frustrating.
- The camera! The camera is terrible! It's very difficult to manipulate, and it's almost too sensitive at times, causing it to zoom in/zoom out and zoom around the character while I'm trying to do something. It's terribly distracting.
- the Bioware "female characters have sashaying hips" is in effect full-force. Which was never a problem for me in other games, but it is in this one.
- There be bugs. Example: one of the Jedi Council members didn't show up to the meeting, but rather just projected her voice into the room somehow.
- The game is very, very laggy. I went into an almost empty server and the game was still laggy as all get out. And I know it's not my computer--based on the system requirements, With the game lagging, no auto-attack, and my character's swaying hips, basic movement from place to place is terrible. I run into walls, I run into other players, I run directly into enemies and then it takes me ten minutes to attack them and by then, they've killed me. These things are problems--big ones, and like I said, I probably won't be buying the game until I know at lease some of these issues have been fixed
Overall, I think it has the makings of an EXCELLENT mmorpg one day, and it sucks you in in a way WoW or Galaxies never did for me. I just don't think it's ready to be released yet.
Is there anything in particular people who don't have the beta want to know? Those of you who do have it--wanna play?
jak
I'm only ~1-2 hours into the game at the moment, so it's more of my initial impression than a solid review, but here are my thoughts:
- Character: Jedi Knight named, you guess it, Jakia.
- Character creation: sadly lacking CC options. I have a feeling that, playing the main game, I'll probably run into more than one twin of my character. You can't go in and fix the face exactly the way you want to like in Dragon Age or Mass Effect--you pick a preset and edit their hair/makeup/skin color and go from there. Which is fine, I guess, but I'm used to having more control over my appearance.
- That said, my character's hair is even MORE ridiculous than Princess Leia's, so all is forgiven.
- You start out choosing between the Sith or the Jedi, which disappointed me at first because, well, what's the point of RPing then? Ten minutes into the game, though, proved that choosing the Jedi didn't mean I couldn't be the biggest asshole/dark side leaning Jedi ever, which is so lulzy. I love it.
- I'm just going to say it: I love voiced protagonists. This game has a voiced protagonist. This pleases me. ^_^
- The game does suffer from the same problem Dragon Age/Mass Effect suffered from, though, in that the dialogue you click on is only a summary of what your character will say. For example, one mission I was on I needed to talk the villagers into helping me. One option (the bottom one, which previous knowledge of Bioware games tells me is the evil/"bad" choice) had me ask "what do I do if they say no?" which I thought was a legit concern. Clicking on that, however, had my character pounded her fist into her palm and went "so how many skulls do I get to crush if they say no?" Which, no, THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED TO SAY! Misleading dialogue is misleading at times.
- I love conversing with NPCs and hearing them talk. It's so BIOWARE. If you don't love Bioware, chances are you aren't going to love this game, because so many Bioware tropes are in this game.
- First piece of usable loot I picked up? Booty shorts. Apparently this only happened to me, because no one else is running around in booty shorts, but I am. "The Force is strong in this one!" Yeah it is. Look at those legs and that ridiculous hairstyle. Unff.
- Graphics aren't the world's best, but they aren't bad, either.
That said, there are some things that I have a problem with, and they are big enough that it may keep me from actually buying the game until said things are resolved:
- Combat. Combat is AWFUL. There is no auto-attack button, and clicking on someone does absolutely nothing. I click on them and then I have to MOVE and manually attack them. It feels like 10 steps back from KOTOR, and it's annoying because I get slaughtered before I can hit anyone. I've played for maybe two hours, and I keep getting killed because it won't let me auto-attack. VERY frustrating.
- The camera! The camera is terrible! It's very difficult to manipulate, and it's almost too sensitive at times, causing it to zoom in/zoom out and zoom around the character while I'm trying to do something. It's terribly distracting.
- the Bioware "female characters have sashaying hips" is in effect full-force. Which was never a problem for me in other games, but it is in this one.
- There be bugs. Example: one of the Jedi Council members didn't show up to the meeting, but rather just projected her voice into the room somehow.
- The game is very, very laggy. I went into an almost empty server and the game was still laggy as all get out. And I know it's not my computer--based on the system requirements, With the game lagging, no auto-attack, and my character's swaying hips, basic movement from place to place is terrible. I run into walls, I run into other players, I run directly into enemies and then it takes me ten minutes to attack them and by then, they've killed me. These things are problems--big ones, and like I said, I probably won't be buying the game until I know at lease some of these issues have been fixed
Overall, I think it has the makings of an EXCELLENT mmorpg one day, and it sucks you in in a way WoW or Galaxies never did for me. I just don't think it's ready to be released yet.
Is there anything in particular people who don't have the beta want to know? Those of you who do have it--wanna play?
jak