Star Wars: The Old Republic
It's been pretty quiet around here, for various reasons that I won't get into, but I thought since I was on a roll with queuing posts at Tumblr I'd have a go at throwing up a quick blog entry here.
The title is the name of the game I have my eyes on right now. Some time ago I quit playing World of Warcraft, an MMO that I had been playing for six years. Some friends from my old Warcraft guild then invited me to come and play a new MMO with them instead; Star Wars: The Old Republic.
I'd said no on account of the fact that I don't actually like Star Wars; but there was the void left by WoW - no game to play with my friends, no game to suck up all of my time. I had signed up for an account on Star Wars for the hell of it, so when I was invited to participate in the massive weekend beta stress test I thought I'd have a go. I'd see what it was like, maybe I would like to play after all.
I loved it.
There is a strong emphasis on storyline and character development. All of the quest dialogue is voice acted, and you get to choose from various responses which can alter the outcomes. You could go out of your way to save a guy, or you could just let them die - it's up to you! Obviously how you react affects how 'light' (Jedi-like) or 'dark' (Sith-like) you are.
The graphics are also fairly decent, with a large amount of detail going into the characters and world around you. It's not as amazing as some other computer games, but very adequate, and not too much of a resource hog.
I played two characters during the two beta tests I was invited to (I was invited to the final test a week after the stress test!): a Jedi Consular (level 19), and a Trooper (level 10). I actually enjoyed both, but unsurprisingly I preferred the Jedi Consular, which I made into a spell-casting sage.
I could have levelled her further than I did but I intend to roll Empire when the game comes out and I didn't want to spoiler myself by entering a location that would later be visited by an Empire character, so I finished up on Taris.
Plus, you get your own ship and a lightsaber. What more could you want from a game?