the MMO world is a vicious one with huge
development costs high risks and a
majority of the competition available to
players without an entry fee Bioware's
the Old Republic has been in development
for years now and many are looking at it
as the next big thing to get a sense of
how it all works I had a chance to play
for several hours as a Jedi Knight the
initial verdict it's surprisingly good
I say surprisingly good because in
previous much shorter play sessions the
combat felt fairly standard for an MMO
with additional time the emphasis on
story became much clearer the combat
doesn't feel like anything radically
different but the questing structure and
especially the story and presentation
are standout features at the beginning
the character must first make do with a
train sword until you're finally awarded
with your lightsaber as a legit Jedi the
special abilities includes strikes that
build a focus meter which is then used
for better attacks to start a fight the
Jedi Knight can jump from long distance
and once close in as a number of options
to deal high damage it's also cool to
watch the animations as the knight will
move the saber around to block
individual discharges of blaster fire in
terms of story it's really easy to get
caught up in the tale thanks to the
fully voiced cutscenes instead of simply
speeding by quest giver NPCs you
actually remember their faces and
personalities when it's presented this
way making the game feel much more like
a single-player RPG giving context to
kill and retrieval quests makes them all
the more meaningful especially in some
instances when you're given light and
dark side options regarding how to
complete them with an easy-to-use
interface that makes it simple to find
quest goals and targets getting to play
for several hours made me a lot more
optimistic about how this might turn out
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