: Star Wars: The Old Republic

I was invited to participate in the closed beta of Star Wars: The Old Republic this weekend. Unfortunately, I've been sick the past five days or something, so I haven't been able to play as much as I wanted. But I got to test out two of the classes. One I liked very much, and one I... Well, I didn't dislike it, it just wasn't as fun in my opinion.

Also; The non-disclosure part of the Game Testing Agreement has been lifted, so I'm free to write about the game and what I think about it. So, here I go.

Smuggler

The first class I tested was the Smuggler. I chose this class because I thought it was some kind of rogue-class, purely based on the name, and when it comes to games like this I am very  fond of rogue-classes. It also uses an energy system very similar to the one Rogues in World of Warcraft use. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The Smuggler seems to be a purely ranged class, mainly focused around taking cover behind stuff, as several of the skills can only be used while in cover-mode.

Cover-mode can be activated anywhere, but the Smuggler will merely crouch down unless there's a cover-point nearby. If there is a cover-point nearby, the Smuggler will leap to it when you press the cover-button. Cover-points aren't usually visible, but they will appear once you target an enemy.

This is the class I didn't like too much. I think the cover-based combat is a bit too much of a hassle, but that's maybe because I'm not used to playing games with cover-systems. I think this might've been my first? I can't really remember.

Jedi Knight

The second class I tested was the Jedi Knight. I chose this class only because I wanted to try a melee class, and this was, as far as I could tell, the best choice. Playing this class was a lot more satisfying to me, it felt much better to run (or rather leap, once you get the skill) into the midst of my enemies and cutting them down, than to shoot them from behind a rock.

This class seems to be focused around stances, but it's difficult to tell. I only got up to level 9 I think, and therefore only had one stance available. Aside from that, though, I got quite a few nice skills already at that low level, and using them was fun and felt good.

The Jedi Knight uses a resource system that is sort of similar to a Warrior in WoW, called focus. It's generated by regular attacks and certain skills, like the leap skill, and degenerates when out of combat. It's fun alternating between skills to generate and use this resource.

Other Classes

There are two more classes for the Republic, Jedi Consular and Trooper. The Empire has four other classes, though I didn't check them out. The only one I remember is the Bounty Hunter. I imagine they're not too dissimilar from the Republic classes, but I can't say. It seems there's also some kind of advanced classes, two for each base class, but I think you have to choose them at level 10, so I never got to do that.

Gameplay

The actual combat in this game is overall more satisfying than other similar games, like WoW, no matter which . There's no auto-attack in this game, you have to actively choose every single action you perform. It's not as extreme as Age of Conan, where you have to perform combos by attacking from different angles and stuff like that. That system was a bit too much if you ask me. I like this better, and the resource systems are rapid enough to prevent much "downtime" during fights.

There seems to be some kind of companion system in this game, where you get NPC's that follow you that you can control. While playing my Jedi Knight I got my own little R2-D2-clone, called T7-O1, to help me, and it seemed like I got to keep him as a permanent companion, and I'm guessing there's a system where you gain more companions and can choose which ones you want to bring with you at all times. I don't know for sure, though, but that's what it seemed like.

Presentation

The game looks and sounds good for an MMO, in my opinion. I had to turn down the graphics settings, even with my "super-laptop", but it still didn't look bad. Graphics and sound isn't what I focused on during my short play-time, though, so there's not much more I can say.

Conclusion

There's still a lot more to this game than what I experience in my short time playing it, but I only saw some hints at some of it, and I assume there's a lot more that I had no chance of seeing that early in the game. But the little I did experience left me wanting more. I'm very much considering getting this game when it's released. I might even pre-order it, to get an early start in hopefully not-as-laggy areas. And I'm not even really a fan of Star Wars.

: Dungeon Siege 1

This is the first in a three-part "review" of the Dungeon Siege series.

Dungeon Siege is a game by Gas Powered Games, released in 2002. The game is a sort of cross between Diablo, Morrowind and D&D-type games (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights); A party-based, loot-fest hack & slash with skill-progression based on usage. I used to love this game back when it was released, and I'm currently playing through it again to see if it's holding up.

(Sorry about the lack of pictures, all of my screenshots was somehow corrupted.)

Presentation

Graphics

This is a relatively old game, so the graphics aren't great. They're pretty decent for the time, though, particularly later in the game. You know what it is you're looking at, and while it doesn't look awesome in any way, it doesn't look awful either. For a game this old, that should be more than enough. My only real problem with the graphics is that there is sometimes too much of it. If you're walking through a forest of some kind, it's very difficult to see through all the trees and foliage.

This game does have one particular feature that I missed in other games at the time, and that I consider a plus; Visual effects for elemental properties on weapons. It might not be a big deal anymore, but back then I found it amazing. It's still neat, though.

Sound

There's not much to say about the sound either. The sound effects are generic, and the music is... Well, not very fitting, most of the time. It's always a very calm, ambient type of music. There's never any kind of battle-music in the field, not that I've noticed anyway. There's only battle-music the few timer there's some kind of real boss fight. And particularly at the end boss, there's some rather nice and fitting battle-music.

Camera

The camera controls feel very outdated and clumsy. The middle mouse-button can be used to move the camera, but it's very clumsy. You're better off using the arrow buttons, or, as I did, re-bind camera movement to the WASD buttons. It's not an ideal way to do it, but it's actually not too bad when you get used to it. The camera still isn't optimal, it never really feels like you can position it right.

Story

Main Quest

You start out as a farmer, there's an attack by a savage race called the Krug, aaand... Then you're off. I haven't really paid much attention to the actual story, it's such a small part of the game that it's difficult to remember what it is from town to town, particularly considering how few and far between they are, and how few NPC's there are out in the wilderness.

I've never actually played through the game before now, but I feel the end is a bit... Abrupt. At least when playing the Steam-version, which might be altered somehow, the game just cut to the game menu as soon as I had killed the end-boss. Why he dropped stuff if that's the way they game is supposed to end, which means I will never be able to actually use it, I have no idea. Oh well.

Side Quests

There are a few side quests in this game, a couple of them every chapter. They aren't very obvious, though. There are no indications where they are, or where you're supposed to go. There are quests that I haven't been able to complete because I didn't know what to do, or that there were more things to do. I can't really go back either, as there are no travel or way-point system like in Diablo II. Walking back to finish those quests would take an insane amount of time.

Game World

One of the problems with games like these, with big exceptions being Diablo II and Torchlight, is that the game world is always the same, and too linear. This game isn't any different in that department. Granted, there are several rather huge areas, and there are a few sidetracks that can make you question whether you're going the right way or not, but for the most part you just follow a rather straight path.

Gameplay

Skills

This skill-system in this game is very simple. There are no active skills like in other games. When you start out you're just a simple farmer, with no combat skills whatsoever. The very first thing you have to do in this game is to choose what kind of character you want to be by starting to use the associated weapons or spell scrolls; If you start using melee weapons, you'll gain levels in melee. If you use bows, you'll gain levels in ranged. If you use magic scrolls you'll gain levels in the associated magic school.

Leveling either melee or ranged will do... Nothing, actually. It seems weird, but leveling the actual skill doesn't really seem to do anything, other than change your class-name. There are no special skills or abilities within these skill-types, all characters with these skill-types can do is attack. But using melee weapons will also increase your strength, which increases health and melee damage. Using ranged weapons will increase your dexterity, which increases armor and enables you to use more powerful bows.

There are two different schools of magic; Nature and Combat. Nature is mostly ice, lightning and healing spells. Combat is mostly fire, with some random other stuff thrown in there. Spells come in the form of scrolls, that you can place in a spell-book. Gaining levels in the magic schools will increase the potency of most of the spells in that class, as well as allowing you to use better spell scrolls. The biggest problem with leveling spell-skills, particularly nature, is that using spells that doesn't do damage, like healing spells, doesn't seem to increase your skill in that school.

There's nothing stopping you from choosing more than one specialization, which opens up for more varied gameplay, but it can be risky. You will most likely have more total levels, but you're still more likely to be weaker than a single-spec character.

Party

You can have up to eight characters in your party. That might sound like a lot, but you can decide yourself who and how many party-members you will bring along. You will meet your potential party-members along the road, some are just mercenaries for hire, others are somewhat important to the story. No matter why they want to join up with you, though, they will almost always ask you to pay them for their services, which sometimes seem a bit weird.

If you choose to leave some character slots open, they can be filled with pack mules, that have greatly increased inventory, but run away from battle. I'd recommend always having at least one, maybe two, pack mules in your party, as the regular character's inventories gets filled up too quickly, and, as mentioned, there's usually a rather long trip between towns.

Controls

Just like the camera controls, the gameplay controls also feel outdated and clumsy. Both left and right mouse buttons are used to attack, however, only the left mouse-button is used for regular movement. The right button can also be used to move, but it's more about positioning formations, which I feel is a pointless feature in a game like this. When attacking, it's better to use the right mouse button, as the left button is used to select characters, and it's very easy to miss-click and deselect all but one character.

By default, every character is bound to the F-buttons. The first character in the character list is bound to F1, the second to F2, etc. These can be changed, though. You can rebind these keys to any character, or combination of characters, you want, just like control groups in RTS-games. This is particularly useful when dealing with pack mules.

You will always have four different attacks to choose from for each character, visualized by four quick-slots beside your characters portraits; One for your melee weapon, one for your ranged weapon, and two for spells. The number keys can be used to change attack configurations. By default they change attack mode for all characters to the same attack slots; 1 is melee, 2 is ranged, 3 and 4 is the two magic slots. But they can be re-bound to any attack mode configuration you want. Switching between these configurations is the most active part of combat besides choosing which enemy to focus attacks on. This can't change between spells that are in the rest of the spellbook, and not in the two quickslots, though.

Saving

There are no save points or checkpoints in this game, which means you can save anytime you want. And you'd better save often, 'cause this is not an easy game; You will die a lot.

You can also use the F9 button to quick-save and F11 to quick-load, but with this game I think it's better to create new saves every time.

Conclusion

The game itself isn't really as boring and monotonous as it might sound, it's actually pretty good in my opinion. But it's a bit too long considering the limited combat-system. Took me more than 26 hours to complete the game, and that's not including reloading over and over again. There's a reason why I never finished it 9 years ago.

I give this game a 4 out of 10.