Star Wars: The Old Republic (Beta) Impressions

Sorry for the many typos. I'm sick with a cold, and have been playing an MMO all day. Bad combination.

It'd be hard to properly describe the resounding sigh I managed when it was announced the "sequel" to the Knights of the Old Republic games would be an MMO. I remember thinking, "This is it. The series is finished. They're going to get caught up in making silly, standard MMORPG quests that boil down to Kill Ten Rats or Collect Three Eggs or Flip That Switch. Oh, and BioWare's bringing back their voiced protagonist, just like in Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2. Because, you know, that was my favorite part of those games."

tl;dr - "God dammit!"

So, I casually checked up on it, never really seeing anything that I particularly clicked with. The quests did look standard and did boil down to shutting down three relays, or what have you. And the voice acting never really blew me away. I just never saw anything that justified an MMO over KotOR 3. Regardless, I still signed up for the beta, thinking that I should at least give it a try before I wrote it off completely. Similar thinking went into my purchase of The Old Republic: Revan, which has, indeed, been written off.

As of right now, I've put about ten hours into Star Wars: The Old Republic (in one day, sheesh) and I've just gotten off of the intro world, which put me at about level 12 if I remember correctly. What surprises me right now is that, on the whole, my experience has been largely positive. After all the ranting that I've done and all my talk about how BioWare is pretty much dead to me, I'm sitting here honestly contemplating purchasing this game. In my eyes, there's been a decline in quality output from BioWare, but if this game's any kind of evidence: the BioWare that I loved isn't gone for good; they've just been busy making this game.

Getting Started (Races and Classes):

It's that thrilling intro to any good RPG: making your character. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, you have a respectable list of both classes and races, making it every possible to create the kind of character that you've always wanted to play in a Star Wars campaign. There are eight classes in all, with two from each faction (Sith and Republic) being blaster-oriented, non-Force users, and the other two being Jedi or Sith, with one focusing on Force-based abilities and the other more combat/lightsaber-centric.

The cool thing being that you won't be at a disadvantage picking the class that you want. Picking a smuggler won't make you easy pickings for any Sith that happen by, since, if you play your cards right, you can pretty much take down anybody as anybody... Yeah, that made sense.

Not wanting to instantly go Sith or Jedi, I went with the Human smuggler, not expecting to like it a whole lot. The customization was pretty good, so I was able to end up with a character that resembled me a little bit (at least in the goatee region). The game starts out with the standard opening crawl that's specific to your class and you get introduced to what the main storyline (also class-specific) will end up being. With the smuggler, you essentially receive the biggest kick to the crotch the galaxy can conceive for such a character: you get your damn ship stolen.

Welcome to Ord Mantell:

Both the trooper and smuggler classes both end up on the same planet when they start out, and that planet is Ord Mantell: a place that is beginning to tear itself apart as Separatists clash with the ruling Republic in a brutal civil war. My smuggler, Revanth, was dropping off a shipment of weapons when his ship was taken my a separatist spy. Left for dead, I had to make for the nearest Republic outpost, which acted as my main quest hub for the remainder of my stay.

Basically, getting my weapons shipment stolen effectively pissed off the planet's main crime lord, marking a few of his associates and myself for death if we couldn't come up with a solution to the problem. My main contact, a big man named Viidu, sent me on a few missions of appeasement while the location of my ship and its contents were tracked down.

Most of the quests that I experienced were fairly basic when you got right down to it - but then they weren't. For instance, one quest had me going to investigate a crate of medicine that had been stolen. Soon after, I meet another NPC, a Cathar nurse, who admitted that she had stolen the medicine to distribute it to the Mantellian refugees, specifically the children who sat around her. As if that wasn't enough, then you're given options. Help her retrieve more medicine for the refugees, or threaten one of the kids at gunpoint to force her to surrender what she has.

Awesome.

See, the dialogue options for this game aren't altogether deep; you typically only get three responses for any given conversation. But having any way to respond to a given quest was amazing to me, since if you've played as many MMOs as I have, you've never had that ability before. Not only that, there are sometimes more than one way to finish a quest. Once, I was tasked with breaking a guy out of prison, then on my way out of the outpost, I was stopped by a soldier and asked to kill the guy instead (for reasons that seemed justified). So now, an MMO is toying with you, asking that endlessly-intriguing question: Do the ends justify the means?

Or another question: Which one of these refugees, do you wager, will make it through the minefield without dying?

Yeah, that happened. You get to bet on whether or not starving refugees can make it through a minefield without exploding - thus earning the food and water rations they so desperately want.

Awesome.

The game, so far, is simply rife with hundreds of little decisions, ranging from minor to major. Your character never talks out of turn or carries on the conversation without your input, and sometimes you're even given the option to simply react to certain things. I don't want to spoil too much, but there's a bit concerning an encrypted instruction manual that had me cracking up.

Is it as immersive as, say, Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout: New Vegas? Not really. The paraphrasing system drives me insane sometimes - and it's not like Mass Effect where if something like THIS happens, you can just reload the game. There's no reloading an MMO. I dearly hope there's an option to see how your character is going to respond (i.e. -Deus Ex: Human Revolution) implemented in the future.

Still, I think I've made more decisions, no matter how small, than are available in all of Mass Effect, and I've just gotten off of the tutorial level. The game finds ways to keep you involved.

The Smuggler's Guide to Combat:

The first time I kicked a guy in the crotch, I laughed out loud. World of Warcraft did a really good job of making sure each class had their own unique play style, and I'm really glad The Old Republic has made that attempt, as well. As a smuggler, I can really play like a smuggler. Cheap shots, taking cover, tossing grenades, charged blaster shots, causing internal damage. Giving a smuggler these abilities makes sense to me.

The cover system is your friend with this class, since some of your abilities rely on it. Initially, I couldn't make heads or tails of how to work it, but trial and error eventually helped me realize that it's pretty fluid. Ironically, it actually works better than in Mass Effect, since you can take cover behind a lot of things, not just conveniently-placed chest-high walls. It feels more real in that sense, because sometimes cover won't be that obvious.

So I'm having a blast playing as a smuggler. I've been in a party composed entirely of Jedi, and I didn't feel helpless or useless in comparison. In fact, I gave some of them a run for their money, and bailed them out a few times when they got a little ahead of themselves.

I stop laying down covering fire for a few seconds, and suddenly everyone's getting delusions of grandeur. Heh.

Knight's First Flashpoint:

There are instanced "dungeons" in The Old Republic, but not in the conventional sense. In your average dungeon, in WoW or RIFT or what-have-you, you run through with your party or raid to kill all of the enemies, defeat all of the bosses, and pick up some XP and sweet, sweet loot along the way.

That basic format remains unchanged for this game, but with the addition of many of those decisions that saturate the rest of the game. Each dungeon, or "flashpoint", has its own story that stems directly from your own, along with a series of developments that you and your party will have to talk your way through.

My first flashpoint was "The Esseles", a Republic transport on its way from Ord Mantell to Coruscant. En route, the transport is attacked by a Sith star-destroyer (or whatever they're called in this Era) and subsequently boarded. Their demand is that we hand over a Twi'lek diplomat, or else. You can make the decision to hand her over willingly, but I'm not sure if it amounts to anything. The other three people in my party were all playing their strictly light side Jedi.

So, we decided to defend the ship instead of handing the diplomat over, which led to a bunch of fighting and story progression. There are a few twists and turns, which I won't spoil, but overall it was a fantastic experience.

When it comes to the cutscenes (and there are many), the entire party is involved. You'll be given your list of responses, but the game rolls to see whose will actually be chosen, so everyone gets a chance to respond to NPCs over the course of the flashpoint without everyone talking at once. This also means that crucial decisions can be decided by the minority. In one part, we were asked to sacrifice one member of the crew in order to save the rest. My Jedi buddies immediately chose the light side option, which was to refuse, while I selected the dark side option, to agree. I won the roll, which meant that part of the story progressed how I wanted.

This gives the flashpoints a sense of unpredictability, since the decision of one player can throw the story in an entirely different direction, giving you different results each time. It also added another facet to what would otherwise be your standard dungeon, since we all began discussing what we should do, how we should react. You can pretty much have a BioWare-style moral confict as a group, which was very, very fun.

That little chat window also offers you a chance to maintain a running commentary with your group throughout the cutscenes, which only added to the fun.

And it really was fun.

To Sum Up:

I'm having a blast with this game, which is really, really not what I was expecting. At all. The lore of the Old Republic Era is constantly making an appearance, both through dialogue and visuals. Unlike Dragon Age 2, the universe isn't experienced through codex entries alone; if you want to visit the Galactic Senate on Coruscant, f**king go there. Tatooine, Alderaan, Nar Shaddaa, Hoth, the ruins of Taris. They're all here! And honestly, I can't wait to see them if what I've seen of Coruscant is any indication of their quality.

What I've seen is a small portion of the game, and arguably the beginning of any game is always the most polished, so I'm not sure how my opinion will swing down the line. But for now, this about sums up my current feelings on The Old Republic:

Awwwww, yeaaaaaah!

First Impressions: Two Worlds 2

Let me talk a little about my experience with Two Worlds 2's troublesome prequel: There wasn't one.

During a sale that Gamestop had going on one week, I noticed several used copies of Two Worlds in one of the bins. I had just happened to have gone there that day in the hopes of scoring an RPG to throw myself into, and when I noticed the extremely low price tag (+ tax, it came out to around $3.75) I figured, "Why not?"

Took it up to the counter and asked the guys working there that day if they had ever given it a try. Both of them sorta bared their teeth, as if recalling some harsh memory, and then nodded their heads slowly. I really had not expected a Gamestop employee to tell me I was better off not buying a $4 game. But I brushed their warnings aside and bought the thing anyway. An hour later, I was back home with the game installed on my 360. I was ready to play.

I never could have known...

But that's implying a little too much; I couldn't even play the damn thing. After wading through several very confusing cutscenes, I'm eventually dropped somewhere to do something but I couldn't even do that thing on account of the terrible lag I was experiencing. Couldn't get out of that first chamber without my guy running like I was watching him through a zoetrope. Group that with the deplorable voice acting, the non-existent storyline, and the terrible UI...I returned the game the next day.

So, I didn't have a real experience with Two Worlds, but I think it's safe to say that if I had, it would have been a negative one. A terrible one, perhaps. But if I had such a bad time with that game, why did I pick up its sequel, the horribly-named Two Worlds 2? I didn't, I rented it. It was sitting in the Redbox one day, and I happened to check out the game rentals for the first time. Boredom also factored into it. And thus, I was back home with the game installed an hour later, as before. The difference being, I actually have something to write about this time - and it's actually not all that negative!

This is the part where I give a brief overview of the plot of the game to let you know what you're in for. To be perfectly honest, I still do not understand what's going on in this series. Something about how your sister has a demon in her that will bring about the end of the world if it ever gets released? And then a bunch of orcs break you out of prison, so that you can help them get your sister back? I think? Not really sure.

Whatever. Game mechanics. You play (I assume) the same character from the first game, though you can customize him however you please. The character creation isn't very deep, and you can't create a female character. But once you get into the game, you'll notice that the writing and the voice acting have gotten much, much better. The graphics are something more in line with Oblivion this time, as well. The controls are easy to get the hang of, the UI is much more...it actually works, and the combat, while kinda clumsy, is sufficient.

Sounds like a recipe for a good RPG! And you'd be almost right.

Don't get me wrong, Two Worlds 2 is a massive improvement over its predecessor, but seeing how the first game was as down in the dumps as it could get, the improvements only bring it up to "acceptable" levels.

Once you're broken out of prison, the game starts coaxing you through the standard tutorial missions, where you'll learn all that the game has to offer. You might be groaning a few times, at the orcs that look like they've been ripped straight from WoW, at the poor character animations, and how your character sounds like Batman. I certainly did my fair share of groaning, but then I was actually quite excited by several of the features that were presented on Tutorial Island.

Light-footed rogues can approach enemies from behind for critical one-shot assassinations. Rangers can fire several arrows at once. Mages can craft and modify spells by using "magic cards" that can be found throughout the game. Fighting blade to blade, you can block, counterattack, and bust through defenses. In this sense, combat is more like Fable III than Oblivion, with more emphasis on magic and weapon customization.

On the flip side, combat only truly worked for me when I was fighting people much weaker than me. Strong opponents will block and dodge any move you can dish out. It got kind of annoying, watching a silly guard halfheartedly hop out of the way of my attacks, or continuously keep his shield up to block any sort of attack I made. And it's not that uncommon to just completely find yourself swinging at the air, since the targeting system is not as fine-tuned as it could've been. Combat wasn't a complete bust, in the same way combat in Oblivion and Fable III wasn't. Take that how you will.

But the crafting system actually works pretty well. Over the course of the game, you'll be picking up A LOT of loot, which excited me quite a bit at first; RPGs are starting to move away from their loot-whoring origins. Sad panda. After getting over-encumbered for the first time, it was a simple matter of breaking shitty weapons and armor down into their basic elements and subsequently upgrading the weapons and armor I was using with those elements. That was pretty neat, though you will constantly find yourself overwhelmed with a ton of useless loot. Again, take that how you will.

Now, the world itself. I compared it to Oblivion because I think it really deserves it. Sunlight filters through tree leaves, beaches and forests look absolutely gorgeous, there are no loading screens on the mainland, and the world goes on for a very respectable distance. Cities are filled with people, some of them standing around merchant stands, inspecting the vendor's products in their hands. There are town criers, varied (though, often repeated) conversations, guards roaming around. Compared to Oblivion itself, the world actually feels very alive. Whoever designed this world clearly put a lot of hard work into it.

On the flip side (again), everything kinda has that rough-around-the-edges feel to it. Not quite sure how to explain it. Though the game is certainly beautiful, you can definitely see the seams that hold it together...I'll leave it at that.

I compare it to Oblivion, but you'll know you're not playing Oblivion. Though, with the outstanding soundtrack this game has (it really is wonderful), you can be forgiven for forgetting.

When it gets right down to it, "rough around the edges" is really how I would describe this game in the end. It's beautiful, but not seamless. The writing is good, but not great. The voice acting is competent, but not spectacular. The combat is acceptable, but not very refined. Everything about this game screams "It's just okay." Much like Alpha Protocol, you can tell it's trying for greatness, but just doesn't have the tools to get there.

Despite all of that, I played it for a good long time. As another reviewer pointed out, this game's got heart, and I agree. I think it's commendable that this little German game developer took their rather substantial licks from the fallout of Two Worlds, and bounced back to deliver a better product.

I'm gonna go ahead and recommend this game to forgiving RPG lovers, and to the unforgiving provided they can find it at a good price. Two Worlds 2 is a good game, and probably one of the better fantasy RPGs to be released this side of BioWare/Bethesda/Obsidian, but I'm not quite sure it's $60 good.

Almost was for me, though. Count me in for Two Worlds 3.

3 1/2 out of 5