Star Wars: The Old Republic

As with all MMO reviews released within a month of the game starting this one can only cover a small part of the game... PvP server, Empire faction... what about the experience of anyone playing Republic on a PvE server... Of course one person can't spend enough time to cover all the possibilities. I've been playing since release and my Trooper is lvl 32 while 3 other characters are hovering around lvl 10 and a couple more lvls 1-4.

The voice talent in this game is second to none. Its hilarious that the "evil" side all speak with British accents, not only that but a wide range of British accents from Welsh to Yorkshire to Lancashire, its really very entertaining.

As for "cut scenes" these aren't "cut scenes" in the traditional sense of the word - they aren't high quality animations they are renderings of the game characters emoting as dialog is played. Its a nice wrinkle and really scores on the immersivity of the game. Again I can also understand the irritation of repeat viewings.

My criticisms lie in there needs to be more missions available in more obvious locations. I think the leveling is too fast - the space missions give a ridiculous amount of XP when you first do them - then again I'm from the first MMO generation who got used to levelling in EQ (I think I dings lvl 20 5 times on one character!) oh yes and that reminds me - death doesn't appear to have NAY consequences apart from a higher repair bill, but since there are credits awash in the game, this isn't that big a problem.

When you die you can have a medical probe dispatched that revives you and gives you stealth and immunity for 8 seconds (long enough to bypass certain tough mobs in solo Heroic missions). The only downside to this is the wait before the probe is dispatched takes longer each time you die in a mission. Maybe this is the way MMOs are going in the future - "easy mode". I've never played WoW - I refused to at teh start and havn't seen anything that makes me change my mind. However I played EQ for a year when it first launched, then Dark Age of Camelot for 6 years (I even had my maps published in the Prima Books - Kallisti the Minstrel), along with City of Heroes, Asheron's Call for a while back in the day and LOTRO more recently, so I think I've had enough exposure to MMOs over the years :)