Hello everyone, this is Van here and today I am going to tell you my general assessment SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic). I would first like to say that BioWare and Lucas Arts did a wonderful job putting this game together. Although I would have preferred if Electronic Arts not been in the development, as they tend to cause a game to come out too hastily. As far as game development goes SWTOR had some hurdles to jump, one of which is a major one. They wanted a story driven MMO, likely a decision influenced by both George Lucas and the designers over at BioWare. Another was creating a story that was unique, and distinguishable to the individual while at the same time offering the opportunity for group play as all MMO’s need.
I would first like to go over the stories in general. At this time I personally have played through the Sith Inquisitor, Sith Warrior, Jedi Consular, Smuggler, and Trooper classes to level fifteen or so. I must say, each story feels genuine and unique to its class. So far the most boring story I have encountered though, would be the Troopers. But at the same time I can say each class feels different and is a unique story experience. I must follow that up with saying, it only feels like a Star Wars environment when playing one of the Sith or Jedi characters. Otherwise it somewhat feels like a futuristic military story, or the tale of a space cowboy chasing big money. Each of the quests, and storylines are fully voiced and offer opportunities to go to the light or dark side of the force. This is through speach options, so it is possible to be a horrible person, a horn dog, a yes man, and many other things through the available options. I give it the score on story I due, just due to the sole fact that in some cases, it just does not feel Star Wars like for all of the classes. This may change later in the game however. This is also my early game assessment of what has happened thus far. My highest level character at this time is a level 28 Smuggler, and a level 21 Inquisitor.
Story 8.5/10
The voice over work is very fantastic, each character is filled with emotion. Excluding a few who are badly voice acted. One such example is Yuon Par in the Consular story. I will not go into details, but it sounds more like someone is having a “Good Time” with her as opposed to her breathing heavily in pain. In most instances where a character is in pain or suffering however, the voice acting is either poor or sounds very sexual. Ignoring some of the minor inconsistencies however. I would like to say that the speach does not (in most cases) feel stretched. I also like how everything EVERYTHING is voice acted. I have encountered some glitches where it feels like an episode of speed racer however. Where words keep coming out though they have stopped moving their mouths. Another factor I would love to point out, is that the music is godly. It starts up music whenever you are in a battle and it just gets you in that high action, edge of your seat with anticipation mood. So for my score on sound quality, I leave it fairly well off.
Sound 8.7/10
Graphics are another of the factors I like. They take great pride in treating every moment of the game with cinematic prowess. Going through different angles, and showing characters faces display emotion. Much unlike world of warcraft where your characters face only every blinks through a poorly done animator or their mouth opens to display flat pixels which are supposed to display tooth and tongue. Unlike other MMO’s, Star Wars has some pretty intense graphical advantages when compared to WoW. However there are still games that I feel take graphics higher. For example TERA online has got some of the most visually pleasing graphics in MMO’s in my honest oppinion. But back to SWTOR, it does seem to have some various glitches once in awhile. One such glitch I encountered was that the camera placement is off center and I am viewing a wall instead of a character. That or the character only stands four inches high, then returns to their average height after the quest cinematic. This at least for the most part does not happen except at very select opportunities, I use the term opportunities as I have had it happen at times where before it had not. Example being my Human Trooper vs my Twilek Trooper. One major factor though that will drive down the score for graphics, is that there is little to no optimization. The number of options to improve the graphical experience, or lower it for better frames is minimum at best. So all in all I can say for graphics, I offer the game a lower score in perspective to many other MMO’s options in the graphics preference menu.
Graphics 7.2/10
Lastly the one thing no game can do without a review on, GAMEPLAY! Of which I have little to no comment on this. Other than it plays like old world of warcraft used to. You have talent trees, several “Specs” each class. You have your advanced class which ultimately decides which roles you can fill. All in all this is a great refresher from all the MMO’s that try to be “New & Unique”. Sometimes just going back to the MMO standard is ok if you are not a WoW clone. Of which this game is not, and it does feel genuinely different yet in some ways similar.
Gameplay 8.9/10
In closing, I would heavily suggest this game to everyone who is an MMO fan or a fan of starwars in general who dislikes where world of warcraft is heading.
Total 8.3/10
