Reviews VideoGame / Star Wars The Old Republic

Good, but could have been so much more

I have a very weird relationship with TOR. On the one hand, it's a major step forward in MM Os as far as narrative, setting, story, and a handful of other things goes. On the other hand, a lot of it feels rehashed from previous success stories like World Of Warcraft, and there's a general sense of incompleteness in the air.

First, the good:

• It has a plot, and it's actually pretty good. Each class gets their own storyline, which range from great (Agent, Trooper) to just meh (Consular, Bounty Hunter). There's also a metaplot that advances through the storyline, and each Flashpoint and Operation has a reason to exist besides loot.

• Space Combat is a bit of a mixed bag, but I liked it, and thus it's going on this list.

• The Flashpoints are some of the very best Instances I've seen in an MMO in a long time. While there are still a few duds, there are plenty of very well-designed and executed runs to make parties fight for survival AND have fun doing it.

• The Legacy System is a genuinely good idea (albeit not fully executed yet), and since the game is designed to be run through multiple times, the upcoming bonuses in 1.3 will be a definite help.

Now, the bad:

• PVP just sucks. There's no way around it. If your class doesn't use a blaster, prepare to die. Queue times can drag forever, and the four maps altogether are just dull. Open world is restricted to only a few places outside of a PVP server, and virtually nobody ever goes to those spots to begin with.

• The gameplay is very, very similar to WOW. I won't say it's exactly the same, because there are a few differences, but overall it feels like reskinning your Night Elf into a Sith.

• There are still a lot of bugs and performance issues. Alderaan and Belsavis are almost unplayable if you don't have a decent enough rig, graphical glitches are frequent, and there are still some serious bugs with abilities and conversations. It doesn't help that the graphics aren't too impressive to begin with.

So, all in all, is TOR a bad game? No, it's actually pretty good. For $15 a month, though, I expect quite a bit better.