Star Wars: The Old Republic review (PC)

Currently one of the most talked-about games of the year, MyGaming takes a look at BioWare’s massive début into the MMORPG genre and determines whether or not Star Wars: The Old Republic lives up to its tremendous hype.

First announced back in 2008, The Old Republic has been one of the industry’s most anticipated games of the decade. Closer to its release at the end of December last year, speculation began to mount about whether or not it would be the World of WarCraft killer.

Activision’s Bobby Kotick insisted that it would not be profitable based on past experience with LucasArts and the royalties of the Star Wars brand. BioWare laughed, sold over 1.5-million copies on pre-orders alone, quashing any doubt and solidifying a record for sales-shattering MMO goodness.

The Old Republic

Taking place 300-years after the events in the original Knights of the Old Republic series, and more than 3,500-years before the events in the films, the fragile peace between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic is wearing thin.

With eight classes and nine races to choose from, players take their place with either faction and ready themselves for the conflict ahead.

Character customisation is wonderfully diverse with a multitude of options at your disposal akin to the character creation tools used by BioWare’s Dragon Age. Picking your class not only determines your abilities but also your character’s voice and individual storyline.

Class quests act as the main narrative force driving the ultimate purpose of your character. It’s possible to accompany friends and experience their quests with them as well as, of course, to assist them.

As these main quests progress, players will inevitably be granted their own ship and come across companions unique to the player’s choice of class. Some are more likeable than others, and you’re unlikely to be able to please them all without significant gift incentives.

BioWare has gone to great lengths to provide players with the freedom to choose how their stories progress and how quests are concluded. For example, a dreadfully emo scene between two robots plays out about their mission imperative. One, badly damaged, and the other, curiously programmed to feel emotion.

Players are offered a moral choice: find a data spike and erase the emotional programming or find the tools to repair the damaged robot. Other quests offer the far more devious choice of life and death.

In groups where other players contrast your morality, the outcome is weighted by a dice toss. However, beyond the events that take place, players’ individual morality is not negatively impacted by this as long as they chose their appropriate dialogue option.

Dialogue and Audio

Dialogue is selected via the oft used but rarely loved Mass Effect dialogue wheel. The usual problems persist, where what is said is nowhere near what was suggested.

While a fully-voiced MMO is wonderful, incredibly engaging and by all means a massive step forward for the genre, it’s sometimes difficult not to wish that voices could have been selected separately from the classes, as large portions of quest dialogue is already shared by multiple voice actors.

Players might favour a particular class only to discover that they dislike the voice used or that the voice doesn’t quite suit the idea of their character or race.

It’s also not uncommon to come across dialogue where generic affirmations from previous conversations are repeated, sounding utterly out of place with what has been said. Often NPCs continue after hearing it as though it had never been said in the first place.

The voice actors hired by BioWare are top-notch, with the likes of Mass Effect’s Femshep, Jennifer Hale, voicing the female Trooper, making for a memorable and immersive experience.

The Old Republic surely has one of the most incredible soundtracks, one that any Star Wars fan is bound to love. It’s as moving and as orchestral as ever. Every cantina, where players head off to rest and gain bonus XP next time they log in, has a jukebox.

For 100-credits, players can pick a song. Some are quirky and reminiscent of Broadway, fun-loving and upbeat, while others are a bit more ambient and forgettable.

Gameplay

Gameplay is surprisingly varied between the different classes, although skills are simply mirrored for the different factions. For example, an Inquisitor will get exactly the same skills as a Consular at the same level, but with different animations.

Notably, the Inquisitor’s animations lack variety. It seems that all damage-dealing Inquisitors are capable of doing is firing lightning. The animations for this particular class grow stale, fast.

Smugglers and Imperial Agents have a cover ability that increases their defence when in cover.

Almost all classes are able to heal if specced to do so, although some are clearly better at it than others, and all classes are very versatile.

The Old Republic falls victim to the trinity archetype: tank, healer and DPS. This is something many people have grown tired of in MMORPG gaming. I don’t believe that there is a desperate need to cling to the trinity in The Old Republic as classes are versatile enough to pull off most Heroic/Flashpoints/Operations without needing any specific requirements – but the trinity remains.

Companions play a big role as beneficent protectors, assistants, gatherers, crafters and all-round curios. They play a part in dialogue and have their own individual personalities. Some are “goodie-two-shoes” types; others are quite hungry and want to devour everything that stands their way.

Gifts are a great way to win affection with companions and making decisions that your companions don’t like is a sure fire way of ticking them off. Affection determines how successful companions are at crafting, as well as how quickly they will do it. Higher levels of affection also open up companion quests.

Crafting is enjoyable but it also feels far too automated. There is no mini-game or any tangible player involvement in the creation of new items. The process is basically to queue up any free companion you have for either companion missions or item crafting and wait until it’s done.

Companion missions cost money and crafting is a very expensive hobby, but it’s also rewarding in other unique ways. A player who does scavenging might come across deactivated or broken robots which they can repair and that will assist them in Flashpoints or Operations. Archaeologists might find ways to open tomb doors that provide a shortcut. Biotechs might find a useful alchemical pet along the way.

Massive Multiplayer

Player-vs-Player is pretty stock-standard and unless you’re on a PvP server, PvP is consensual. Battlegrounds currently consist of three maps, the most memorable of which is Huttball: a kind of awkward soccer game where the idea is to get the ball to your opponent’s side before they kill you. Teamwork is vital.

PvP in battlegrounds has no real level requirement with players being evened out to make things fair. While great in theory, a level 14 character is still only going to have skills up to level 14 and will still be at a slight disadvantage to a character with all their skills unlocked. Still, PvP is good fun.

There are also some dangerous zones, such as Outlaw’s Den where players are forced into PvP toward everyone, including their own faction. There’s a good reason for that, but no spoilers here.

There’s a kind of global “mini-game” in the form of hunting datacrons and matrix shards. Datacrons are cubes that hold permanent increases to your attributes (strength, endurance, willpower, presence, cunning, aim). Getting to them can be ridiculously tricky, insanely frustrating but wonderfully satisfying.

European and United States servers run on the same client, so switching between regions is as easy as pie. This means that if there’s a patch, everyone gets it. Of course, it also means that maintenance happens at occasionally inconvenient times for some folk.

Old Republic presently lacks a number of features one would’ve expected would be a staple in any MMORPG today, especially a high-budget one like this. There is no “Looking for Group” (LFG) window, with the only available LFG option leaving players with a mere symbol above their heads. There is also no Dungeon Finder to allow players to randomly group up without spamming “LFG – Hammer Station”, or similar in General Chat.

Another grievous frustration is the Galactic Trade Network (also known as the auction house). As of this review, it’s impossible to search via text-only, or to filter and compare the prices of items you’d like to sell. Again, for a game that has had the opportunity to learn from so many previous MMOs, failed and successful, it’s disappointing.

Items and player ships

While possible to use neutral trade networks to sell items cross-faction, armour “changes” to its Republic or Imperial equivalent. This means that a white dress robe might appear on the other side as a black or patterned robe, ruining much of the aesthetic appeal.

However, it does one thing very, very right: customisable armour and weapons. Orange items are highly sought after in Old Republic, specifically pretty orange items. Orange items can be continually modified through to end-game and remain useful as well as aesthetically satisfying. This does backfire in the way that it tends to make all other item tiers below it rather uninteresting.

The real milestone, however, is not the tier of your armour, but the moment you get your very own ship. Pretty much each class gets a unique ship that your companions will call home and that can be used in space battles.

Unfortunately, players can’t pick their own ship yet, nor can they customise their ship beyond its fittings. Space battles are essentially tunnel-shooters like the old Rebel Assault games. They are generally quite easy but can be tricky at later levels if your ship isn’t correctly outfitted.

Space battles are remarkably good fun. I’ll shamefully admit getting major vertigo in some of them where everything goes all upside down.

Conclusion

End-game content is still currently lacking substance but then, this isn’t a game you should play to reach level 50 and then grind gear. It’s heavily story-oriented with significant replay value in trying out the multiple classes and the opposite faction. However, three weeks in and BioWare have already announced new content with the upcoming 1.1 patch.

All-in-all, Old Republic is very much the epitome of a tried and tested recipe that works in an MMO. It doesn’t venture far from comfortable gameplay, and while frankly a bit disappointing, what it does do differently, it excels at.

It’s a game not only for die-hard Star Wars fans, but also for anyone who likes a sci-fi setting that offers the non-linear gameplay and exceptional narrative that BioWare has become renowned for.