Crave the Jedi Life?
Written: Oct 13 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Choices in character creation, career opportunities, customizable attributes,immersive environment.
Cons: Lag in heavy traffic areas, slow customer support, one character per server, buggy
The Bottom Line: Great game for newbie and hard core gamers alike! Plenty of help in game and out and lots of room for growth.
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| ravynwolfe's Full Review: Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided for Windows |
Star Wars Galaxies had me foaming at the mouth for months before it’s eventual release. After many setbacks and changes to the estimated release date I was very pleased when I finally brought my copy home. I purchased 2 copies of the collector’s edition for my husband and myself to the tune of $75 each, plus the monthly payments of $14.99 for each account. The regular game will be much cheaper but I’m a sucker for collector’s items.
INSTALLATION: It installs in less than 5 minutes and is easy to set up. Take this time to browse the manual in the important sections, the tutorial will help you the rest of the way.
GETTING STARTED: The controls are a bit tricky to learn at first but the tutorial covers most of the basics in enough detail where you won’t be completely lost when finally ejected into the game world. You also have the option of customizing the controls/keymap in your “options” menu. The guide is comprehensive but skips over some of the mundane aspects of the game; never fear they are pretty easy to figure out.
LEARNING CURVE and GAME PLAY: A good 10 to 15 minutes of playing with the controls after the tutorial should get the average player familiar and comfortable with it.
You are presented with many choices at first and it can seem overwhelming, but hang in there and do the best you can. You start by customizing your character through race, profession and appearance. The choices for appearance are astounding! Everything from height and weight down to the tiny details of freckles and eyebrow shape. You choose facial features such as lip color, make-up (for females) jaw line and everything else you can imagine. I spent 20 minutes just playing with my character’s features before I even played the game! You then choose a name and starting planet and off you go!
Leveling/Advancement: Hack and slash is not the only way to advance in this game, but in my opinion is the most fun! Killing mobs and NPCs (non-player-characters and animals) is pretty easy once you get the hang of the basic controls. Watch for con colors which will tell you if the creature is easy or will annihilate you. You can also go the road of artisan instead of adventurer and make things other players will buy. Armor and weapons are the big sellers but you can make clothing, houses, droids and many other things. Expect to spend a lot of time looking for resources and staring at your crafting stations, but it’s well worth the effort. You can also choose to be an entertainer and spend your time dancing and chatting in the cantina. This is also a great way to earn money. Who says you have to choose just one profession? Go ahead and train in all of them until you find one you REALLY like, you can always “forget” the training in the other professions later on!
SWG is not like other games where you level up and gain new skills, you have to earn skill points by using skills. For example, one of my characters is a Creature Handler. In order to get MORE skills in creature handler and the ability to own and control more pets I have to use the pets I already have. Each time my pets attack a mob, NPC or other player I get creature handler XP (experience points) and I earn the newest and coolest skills as I go up. Every time I heal someone I earn medic XP and eventually get to earn bigger and better medicines, healing abilities and the like.
Missions: If you aren’t to keen on the idea of running all over the planet looking for loose mobs or spending your days killing newbie creatures, I suggest taking on a mission. You can find mission terminals spread all over the cities. There are even class specific terminals as well as the generic terminals. Simply use the terminals and select destroy, deliver or many other types. This is how you initially earn your credits and they do pay pretty well. Eventually you’ll earn money by selling your looted resources or offering services but that takes time, so concentrate on missions for now. After you accept a mission you will be given a waypoint and objective. Just follow the gold arrow on your screen to find your way to the mission objective!
Travel: Travel is not cheap so be ready to spend quite a bit of your hard earned credits (the money in SWG) to get to places. I think travel is well worth the cost, it keeps the game fresh and new. While each planet is sufficiently sized to keep most casual players entertained throughout the entire game, most seasoned gamers (such as myself) will feel the urge to explore and get into trouble elsewhere. Eventually the designers will include creature mounts and vehicles, but for the time being we are relegated to walking and travel terminals.
Items and purchase power: The game has a player driven economy. You wont find an NPC shop to buy your supplies, which gave me quite a bit of irritation at first. Instead you’ll be presented with the bazaar and player stores. The bazaar is a good place to find items cheap. It is set up much like e-bay and you’ll likely have to bid on items and wait for the auction to run out. There is an option to instant sell items too though, so I simply look for instant sale items as I don’t have the patience to wait for an auction to end. You can find EVERYTHING in the bazaar assuming someone has it and doesn’t want it anymore. The other option is the player shops. I prefer to shop at these since the items are generally NEW and player made. Players are able to customize things so the things in shops are usually MUCH higher quality and normally will be guaranteed by the artisan who made them. Most times you can even place a special order with one of the shop keepers.
Getting help: You can consult your Holocron if you get lost or stuck. It is packed full of useful information and will be an invaluable tool for you while you learn the game. You can also ask other players for assistance. Many players will have the “Helper” tag above their head. They are the players who have chosen to be newbie helpers (the flag can be toggled in the character details window) and are always willing to lend a hand. Don’t expect much help from the CSRs though, they seem to ignore the very existence of the players. I have never been helped by a CSR despite my support ticket being open for more than two weeks.
GRAPHICS: The game world is stunningly beautiful. Each planet has it’s own environment and feel to it. You can see every individual piece of grass and every leaf on the trees. There are even areas where leaves are falling from the trees and showering the ground! The water detail is astounding, you can see each ripple and the light reflecting off of the surface as well as the fish and vegetation under the water. With that said it is important to mention that this game is VERY graphic intensive. It WILL lag a slower machine and make it nearly unplayable if you don’t turn down the options. On a faster machine you still may need to turn a few things down just to speed gameplay a bit, but look around before you do and enjoy the scenery.
SOUNDS and MUSIC: There is a good amount of mood music going on all the time. The sounds change as you do activities such as hunting and killing or simply walking through shops. You can also hear different music by going into the cantinas and listening to other players use instruments and watch them dance. The sound effects on creatures and mobs are pretty good, there are a lot of repeats however; a paralope on Talus sounds just like an Ikopi on Naboo. That is forgivable considering how many creatures there are on each planet.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I think the game is well worth the cost of the collector’s edition set, but the monthly fee of 15 bucks is a little steep. Teens and adults on a budget won’t be able to afford to play. One character per server kind of sucks but the freedom to change and evolve your characters makes up for that. Unlocking the second "Force Sensitive" character will prove to be more than the casual player has time for. The choices and freedom in game make up for the bugs and mistakes that plague every new MMORPG and the development team really seems to be trying to fix the major issues before tackling the little stuff. I give the game a 4 out of five for it’s innovative design and original ideas.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ravynwolfe
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Member: Optycal
Location: Washington
Reviews written: 89
Trusted by: 28 members
About Me:
Mother of 3 homeschooled girls, author, dog breeder. http://www.almostnakedpups.com
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