E3 2011: Hands-on impressions of Star Wars: The Old Republic

I finally got my hands on SWTOR the last day of E3, so I was going in with some serious anticipation and excitement. I’d never played the game before, so my only impressions have come from Massively coverage, trailers, and gameplay videos. I had pretty high expectations, even though it’s not my favored genre.

Since it was my first hands-on, I chose a starter character, and I felt obligated to make a Jedi Knight. My impressions were of an extremely polished game… and a super-uncomfortable stool to sit on, but that’s neither here nor there.

When I picked up and set out on my first quest, I found a nice balance between a game that held my hand and led me along and a game that allowed me to explore and find things on my own.

I enjoyed the different choices in my conversations with NPCs, followed by the brief cinematics. The setup felt very novel and open to me, and I enjoyed thinking over my options before answering. Once I was out in the open, running around and killing, it felt like a fairly typical MMO, albeit a nicely created one. Kill 10 of these, rescue five of these, find this cave, and so on. I don’t generally have a problem with this MMO staple in the beginning areas because it is a nice tool for helping brand-new players learn combat and get a feel for the world around them. I’m interested to find out whether that sort of thing continues into the higher levels. I hope not.

The look of the game wasn’t particularly to my taste, but personal preferences aside, I can appreciate that it’s consistent. I’ve seen enough games with stunning characters and butt-ugly worlds — or vice versa — that I’ve got big love for games that keep a consistent art style throughout.

All of that said, this game is just not for me.

There’s nothing wrong with it. On the contrary, I was extremely impressed with how well-done it is. But it didn’t hit the right notes for me. It didn’t hit any notes. When the demo was over, I climbed out of my chair and walked out with nary a frown that I’d been made to stop playing.

Thankfully, I’m married to a SWTOR fanatic who cannot wait for this game to come out, and I can appreciate it on his behalf. He’s gonna love it.

the first time in 2010, I admittedly was a bit overwhelmed. Granted, the highly anticipated MMO was still in a very early stage of development, but most of what I saw was fun and easy to grasp. When you put so much hype into an MMO — especially during a time of so many recent failures in the genre — you really do expect a certain amount of excitement. At the time, I felt that the game delivered, but it still didn’t blow me away entirely.

Fast forward two years later and I’m playing the game again as a level 26 Sith Warrior Marauder at a demo room at E3 with probably 15-20 other people. I’m usually not one for melee characters, but I was thoroughly excited to get my hands on the game once again.