[keg in kc]

Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC)

Our first hands-on reveals an interesting mix of Knights of the Old Republic and World of WarCraft.

By Thierry Nguyen 06/02/2009

What's the game about? Have you seen the new trailer? The one that pretty much everyone describes as "what the Star Wars prequels should have been?" Yea, imagine that, but in game form. Okay, okay, the BioWare crew describes this game as "full of heroic Star Wars moments," or "Knights of the Old Republic three, four, five, and six all in one game." Or perhaps, it's what Star Wars Galaxies should have been.

What's new for E3? A lot, since this is both the first time that BioWare has shown gameplay, and the first time we've played it. For this gameplay demo, BioWare showed off some combat, some dialogue, and gameplay with the Bounty Hunter, Sith, and Smuggler (that last one is a new class reveal) classes.

In general, the game resembles a mash-up of Knights of the Old Republic/Mass Effect and World of WarCraft. The storytelling and dialogue sequences use the same radial menu as in Mass Effect (though, don't expect that all responses in the upper-left to be noble/good ones and all lower-right responses to be asshole ones; the team will vary up the dialogue choice placement), while the combat generally utilizes the menu/hotkey system of an MMO title.

Class-wise, the Bounty Hunter looks like a general ranged damage dealer, while the Sith is akin to a WoW Rogue (lesser attacks build up points that you use to pull off more powerful attacks). The new class, the Smuggler, is the "dirty fighter" class (and also obviously modeled after Han Solo). He's the kind of guy who shoots first, or kicks aliens in their genitalia before putting them down with a headshot. Another interesting mechanic that the Smuggler introduces is cover; he can actually duck behind cover points and perform specific "in cover" moves (I'm not entirely sure whether cover is Smuggler-only, or can be utilized by other character classes as well).

Finally, the developers showed off a story moment. Taking place during a "flash point" (BioWare's term for an instance that changes based on your choices), the big decision concerns the fate of a Imperial ship captain. For a bit of context: the captain has disobeyed a direct order from a Grand Moff, and you (and your buddy, depending on whether you're soloing this or not) fight through the ship and confront said captain. For the purposes of the demo, the BioWare fellows killed the captain for insurrection. As a result, the crew is forced to follow the orders that the captain disobeyed; as a result, a rival Republic ship (with its Jedi captain) attacked the players, and his Republic forces breached the engine room.

For my hands-on, I found myself in the bizarre situation of being a nice, sensible Sith. See, I had already seen what happens when the dude dies, so I want to see how the mission changes when he lives. But, well, I was a Sith -- one that said things that "you're forgiven" and "we need to be all in this together." Letting him live alters the context and geometry of the flashpoint: instead of fighting a sudden breach in the engine room, you literally go in the opposite direction and fight fewer opponents as they arrive via the hangar. While it sounds like just a wall-texture swap, there were some subtle differences; such as how the lack of breaches means that the enemies didn't just smash their way through the walls, they conveniently had to go through doors and were hence really easy to spot without surprise.

What's our take? I generally like what I saw and played. The Sith is a pretty fun class; I basically used enough basic attacks to build up enough points to perform a cooler move, like a Force Choke or some sort of force lightning stomp that stunned enemies in an area, or a simple "stab you in the stomach" type of move with the lightsaber. The combat feels a bit faster and more active than in WoW; the BioWare guys noted that there's no auto-attack option. So while combat doesn't quite match the fidelity of 1:1 input that you'd find in, say, a Ninja Gaiden or a Devil May Cry title, but it does translate into a more frenzied, button-pressing affair. If anything, my only gripe is that I am not a fan of how the character's faces are. The general art style, landscapes, architecture, and even overall character design works just fine. But the moment I see a face, I just don't like it; it seems a bit too close to the art style of the recent Clone Wars cartoon, which I don't like either. Basically, I'm going to be wearing a lot of hoods, masks, and helmets when I play.

Even as such, a huge game like this can't be summarized in a fifteen minute playthrough. Class balance, quest content, PvP, etc. etc. are still up in the air, and we got a long way before its release. I did enjoy what I play, but that's just a fraction of what BioWare is expecting people to play. Though, I'm cautiously optimistic right now, despite the faces.

Ironically, when I first saw the artwork for the game months ago, I said I wouldn't play because it looked like clone wars...

Anywho, there's a few dozen screenshots here, so you can get an idea of what the game looks like, as opposed to what we saw in the cinematic trailer: http://www.1up.com/do/media?cId=3168646&sec=IMAGES