Review by: Jason McMaster

Star Wars: The Old Republic is a story-driven roleplaying narrative that doesn’t skimp on the production values. It’s also a standard MMO. That’s the big question: can you handle the MMO grind and mechanics? For some people, this will be a walk in the park and an enjoyable experience; to others it may seem like hell. If you are a longtime player of World of Warcraft, EverQuest, etc., and don’t mind the grind then this may be your new addiction. The Old Republic takes the MMO formula and layers an intriguing storyline over the tried-and-true mechanics of those that came before it.

This is the first MMO that is fully voiced. Each quest giver has a story and set of dialog options, giving the game an immersive, personal feel. Adding to this, each of the eight classes has its own specific story. This is achieved by creating instanced, or personal, areas for the players to explore and interact. Other than the player, or members of the player’s party, this area is completely private. This helps cut down on the jackass factor that you may be familiar with from other MMOs.

With the exception of the MMO mechanics, this game could, and mostly will, serve as Knights of the Old Republic 3. The voice acting and writing are both of the quality to be expected from Bioware. Each class has its own unique vibe, different enough to make replay a very viable option for most players. The only real barrier to replay burn out are the side quests.

When you start the game, you share your starting world with one other class. The Sith Warrior shares a starting area with the Sith Inquisitor, the Bounty Hunter with the Imperial Agent, so on and so forth. This means that while you’ll be doing new class story missions, the side quests will be the same. Between playing several classes to several different level ranges, I’ve played through some of the same quests three or four times. A sense of fatigue can eventually set in and dampen the experience.

Repeating quests isn’t exactly a new concept for the MMORPG. In World of Warcraft, many players are familiar with the concept of the daily quest. Daily quests are repeatable and offer a type of currency or reward to collect for an advantage, one way or another. Star Wars: The Old Republic also boasts these, but they’re mostly in the form of flashpoints or space combat missions.

As you progress through the game, you get different forms of transportation. One of those forms of transport is your ship. As you level into the teens, you get access to a star ship that allows you to move from planet to planet and take part in space combat. Space combat is akin to, for WoW players, the bombing run missions. You fly to these space combat zones and then you take part in an on-rails shooting run that has you take out different ships and gun installments while navigating the battlefield. While this part of the game is mostly on rails, you can smash into certain objects, so there’s the real possibility of collision ending your life (and your crew’s). As you level up, you can buy different upgrades for your ship, making it tougher and more lethal in combat. These combat missions boast some of the more attractive graphics in the game, and are a pretty darned entertaining distraction to break up the leveling grind.