A (fairly) long time ago, in a studio far, far away, BioWare announced that it had secured the rights to develop a massively multiplayer online RPG set in the timeframe of its other hugely successful Star Wars property, Knights Of The Old Republic. Star Wars fans were excited and justifiably so, having seen what the Canadian developer achieved with its previous sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect, the prospect of having a similar gameplay mechanic transposed into the Star Wars universe was akin to the announcement that George Lucas was going to revisit the saga. But not everything goes to plan and now the world has Jar Jar Binks as a result. The recent Clone Wars efforts and the previous MMO Star Wars Galaxies has proved that the licence alone is not a secret to success and so The Old Republic is a game with both a lot to live up to and a lot to live down.

Thankfully, BioWare is a studio that doesn’t believe in half measures and thanks to some recent hands-on time with The Old Republic it seems this latest Star Wars iteration is shaping up to garner a following the likes of which the evil Empire could have only dreamt of. Set 300 years after events in the original KOTOR, game producer Blaine Christine claims the team is adding a strong sense of story to the RPG staples of exploration, combat and progression and with the combined storytelling heritage of BioWare and LucasArts, if nothing else, an engaging experience is virtually assured.

There is, however, so much more to expect. Taking cues from the Mass Effect model, the story drives choice and choice drives action, if you’ve played previous BioWare games before you’ll know that even the simplest of decisions can affect story direction and how your character is perceived in the game world. The flashpoint we were faced with was while playing as the recently revealed Sith Warrior class who is chasing down the Captain of an Imperial Transporter who had disobeyed an order from a Grand Moff. At the start of the level we had to fight our way through waves of Imperial Troopers in order to gain access to the Bridge and confront the captain. This is where the conversation chain began, presented in a style similar to Mass Effect (three choices for each branch) we had the choice whether to let the captain live and use his experience to help rectify the situation or in true Sith fashion, slay him where he stood and face the consequences.

To experience the ramifications of these decisions we were invited to try both branches. Let the captain live and he used his experience to avoid sabotage droids attempting to bore into the side of the ship. Removing him from the scenario, however, and we were left with no defence against the enemies who proceeded to attack and board our ship. Once the enemies were aboard we faced off in head-to-head combat which for the most part was fast-paced and gratifying. Various key pushes denote attacks, from simple Saber strikes, to ranged leaping strikes and Force Chokes. There is no auto-attack but certain moves can target those firing on you. While grunts are predictably easier to dispatch, we did come up against a fully fledged Jedi who proved a much greater challenge. With the Jedi felled we were able to raid his still-riving body for a second Lightsaber that could then be selected for dual wielding.

… continued