Do you feel like watching some gameplay footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic? Do you feel like watching twenty minutes of gameplay footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic? Can I get a “hell yeah,” please?
Not much to say here – IGN has a four–part series of videos from last week’s GamesCom event in Cologne, Germany, where Senior Content Producer Dallas Dickinson walks us through 20 minutes of The Old Republic gameplay.
For the most part, it’s… well, it looks pretty much exactly what you’d expect the KotOR games to look like if they were an MMO (and had Mass Effect 2‘s dialogue system). We get a look at three planets – Nal Hutta, Ord Mantell, and Korriban – as well as three character classes – the Bounty Hunter, the Smuggler, and the Sith Warrior. It all seems pretty standard stuff, but there’s also look at one of the game’s “Flash Points”: a particular choice that will have a dramatic affect on the game’s storyline.
Interestingly enough, during said Flash Point, we get a glimpse of some multiplayer dialogue choices, which is … cool, but raises a few questions. Why did only the one player get to choose the Flash Point option, and what happens if I’m the second player, and would rather have taken the other branch? It feels like a slightly odd system to me.
The animations and models feel kind of awkward – particularly the Smuggler’s – but hey, this is still very early-build stuff, so I’m prepared to overlook a lack of polish. The combat looks fun, and the environments do look really cool, so props to BioWare Austin on that.
Of course, this is an MMOG, so even a (relatively long) twenty-minute walkthrough is barely a drop in the bucket considering the amount of time players will end up spending with the game.
On another note, I can’t decide if having someone named Dallas working at BioWare Austin is incredibly fitting, or incredibly ironic.
