Star Wars: The Old Republic Preview

The guys over at WriteAboutGames.com share their impressions of Star Wars: The Old Republic, after spending some time with the ambitious project during last week’s GamesCom.

Controls are very responsive, and even though there are the typical MMO cooldown timers on your actions, combat is extremely fluid and fast. After battling through the minions, I was finally confronted with the boss character: another Jedi. Killing him awarded me with his light saber, which allowed me to dual wield. This is just as cool as it sounds.

A Bioware guy asked me what I thought. My first reaction was: (This isn’t an MMO. This is a next gen Knights of the Old Republic). The whole experience felt very much like a single player game. It is very hard to imagine how this all will feel when playing with others. Combat and story are so streamlined and so scripted, that I cannot yet see how the experience will be with a random PUG or even with some good friends.

If BioWare throws out many of the conventions that classify an MMO, that can only be a good thing.