As I
mentioned in my post about Tera, I am not a fan of Star wars: the old republic
ideas of free gaming. So I thought I made a post dedicated only to that game
and include any additional things that spiked my rage and the things I actually
liked.
I should
also point out that it has been a while since I’ve played the game, so it is
very likely that things have changed or have been updated. I am not well-versed
in the Star wars universe either, so don’t expect me to judge any story flaws
and such.
The good things
Well, I can’t
really say it was all bad since the game had me glued to my screen for longer
that I care to admit now. Some aspects were really interesting and did make you
want to play more.
The first
of one was the way the story was told. I have to admit, there must have been
quite a budget behind this one. Basically anytime you talk to someone you’ll get
a full animated scene of the characters talking… and you can actually talk
back! You are given choices (2-3) of how to reply, some replies making you good
and the others evil. You can even choose if you would rather bribe a certain snitch,
kill him or get his silence by flirting. That’s how my character accidently had
a very… private encounter with a particular “horny” Zabrak. (If you got that
joke you most likely don’t need this review.)
The other
thing that stuck with me was getting your very own spaceship. That did allow
for a very interesting fast travel system from one planet to another. It also
gave you the opportunity to engage in space battles and mission with your ship,
giving the game a more varied way of fighting. You could even make your own
crew and best of all; you could even take one member as your companion that
aided you in fights.
Now on a
more feminist note, I have to applaud the game for their portrayal of women.
The female characters were no less clothed than men, wearing the same spy suit
and the same jedi robes. That is one of its key points against Tera, where the
girls still seem to miss key parts of their armor. Also, the female characters
of SWTOR you interact with are all just as fleshed out as men. It really is a
big step in the right direction of female portrayal in video games, at least in
my opinion.
The bad things
For
starters, I’d cross the “free to play” sign right off it. It felt like at every
turn the game was grabbing for my wallet and urging me to pay for something. I
fully acknowledge that games also need to earn money for maintaining their
servers and so on, but when you restrict the gameplay like this, I wonder why
you would even bother making the game free. At the very start, a lot of
playable races are locked down and can only be obtained by becoming a paying
member. Alright, I can live with playing as a cyborg and not a miraluka.
However, then the game starts taking away more and more. Some useful skills
like sprint or mount are pushed back several levels, making going from point A
to point B incredibly tedious. There is equipment that monsters drop, but you
yourself are not allowed to equip without paying real money first and even the
basic feature like trading object with or sending letters fellow players is
taken away. That was the striking point for me.
The other
one is its combat. I don’t remember anything special about it. It was the tried and
tested ‘click on enemy’ system that most MMO games use. It was alright back
then, but after experiencing Tera’s combat I got spoiled. Another thing was
that the enemies were usually grouped together. It wasn’t that bad since most
of the objectives wanted you to kill off a massive amount of them, but the
problem was you, the player, had no real means to avoid taking damage. The most
you could do is build up your defense, get better armor and hit the dodge
button every now and then. The fights usually left you with low health, making
you either spend a fortune on med packs or making you wait for a long time
between each fight to replenish your health.
Missed opportunities
Let’s move
on. Remember those choices I talked about. Yeah, as the game progresses, that incredibly
interesting feature slowly amounts to nothing. While it does make you follow
the story a lot more than most other MMO games, the choices you make don’t seem
to affect much. Your reactions are mostly forgotten. When it does matter for
you picking the light or dark side, you even have little icons to tell you what’s
good and what’s bad! It stops being about finding out which option is right or
wrong, but a decision of: “Do I want my eyes to be red or white?” Yeah, the riveting
moral grayness does not exist in this game, as you can see. Which is a shame as
it would make the game so much more interesting to play. However, all you get
is obvious, clear defined choices that are mostly about either killing a person
for a bigger reward, or letting them go.
Conclusion
Star wars
was a fun game to play for the time being, but now remains an unvisited icon in
my game folder. All the buyable features along with the draggy combat and black-white
decision-making really stared to get on my nerves. It is not a title I would
recommend as it was back in the days of my brave jedi/sniper expeditions.
