Page 2
The tutorial is a nice feature that allows you to learn the basics of SWG. You start out in an imperial holding center in which you are told the circumstances of your arrival (You also get to view a small cut scene before this happens), of which you will start to learn some of the basics of the SWG playing system. Here you will learn everything from how banking and insurance works, cloning, how to pick up items, how to engage in combat, and some of the most important, which is how to interact with NPC's. I will get into these systems later on in the review. You are then given a choice as to where you want the shuttle to drop you. You can choose a variety of planets, and move on from there. Here is where you will start your resounding adventure in SWG. Or will you?
The Star Wars universe that I have come to know and love is full of life. Full of creatures. Full of every kind of alien that one has ever seen. You do not get that feeling at all in SWG. In fact, it feels like you are just playing a normal Sci Fi game as soon as you enter the world. As you start to progress and explore, you will find that a lot of the areas are just cut and pastes of each other with no life given by the creators, in what was undoubtedly a rushed content creation milestone that needed to be met. Saying the world is barren and devoid of anything creative and fun, would be a massive understatement. As you travel around, one of the first things you will be able to do is a mission. Mission terminals are set in various places in the world to give you a push and play type feature where you can log in, complete a quest, and get experience or money in a timely fashion. But there is nothing timely about it. Even if your mission isn't bugged (Which up to this point I would venture with my trial and error would be about 30% of them) you are stuck running and running... and running... to your destination only to fight something that spawned just for you. Once you defeat the monster in the area, you also destroy it's nest from which those monsters came, and you get combat experience and some credits. You also can run delivery missions where you become a virtual Star Wars mailman. Just to give you an idea of how mundane the gameplay is when running one of these missions, I can easily put my character on auto run, take a shower, watch an old Twilight Zone rerun, and make lunch. When I set my plate down on the computer desk, I can eat. Slowly. And when I am done with my 7 course lunch, I will be at my destination. But that doesn't mean anything will be there. You see, for the most part, these missions are horribly untested. You will find yourself sometimes wandering and wasting your time going after something that was either destroyed by another group, or just not spawning in the first place. To find these areas however, is nice and easy. With what is called the datapad, players will be able to pinpoint locations of their final destination. A blip on your radar shows the spot where you need to travel to, and as you get closer -- a beam of light travels into the sky to illustrate where you will be. In missions, these waypoints are set up automatically. It's too bad however that by the time you get there, sometimes there isn't anyone even at the spot. Not to mention you have more fun staring at a blip on your radar then actually looking at the world itself. On delivery missions, there were countless times I would be moving from one area to the next looking for my target -- when I would get there and see that either he/she wasn't there at all -- or stuck in a wall and I couldn't interact with that NPC to complete the delivery. It wouldn't be entirely bad if it didn't take literally 30-45 minutes to get to the destination in the first place. This leaves you incredibly frustrated to the point of chucking your compu
To advance in SWG, you obtain experience through either crafting your items and having those items be used by other players, or through combat. SWG uses a skill based system in where you can choose a path to where you want your specific character to head. Obtaining those skills up the line increases your options during combat -- or your ability to create more items. Combat itself is extremely boring and nothing but another point/click and watch. You basically que up commands and watch your character either hit or miss with relatively nothing in the early stages to keep you from falling asleep doing so. Combat in SWG is some of the most boring gameplay I have ever experienced in any game to date. However, one of the biggest catches is that some of the skill trees when achieved, still do not function as intended. Again, most likely great testing by the public beta testers -- but horrid implementation from SOE quality assurance. There are a lot of bugs pertaining to the advancement of a character -- and like with EverQuest -- developers have slowed down the entire leveling process as a result of not being able to implement the content, or fix the bugs which hamper those very skill trees. Before you head out for combat, there are cloning machines that one can use to make sure they spawn at a nearby city. You also can pay an insurance fee which will allow you to keep your items if you die. Sound like Anarchy Online? Yes it does doesn't it. Aside from the annoyances and bugs, the skill advancement system is a nice feature in SWG as long as it works correctly. However, with a high end lack of rewards and a purpose for your character, why would you even care to advance him/her in the first place? Which leads me to my next segment.
