2015 - A Life & Game Review

I'm trying to think back on the games of 2015 and I'm struggling. In February, I moved from Maryland to Hawaii. I bought Tales of Hearts R for the trip, but technically that was a 2014 release. Even still, I ended up going absolutely head first into Pokémon Y (again) and to some extents Alpha Sapphire. Tales of Hearts just didn't hold my attention. The "Tales" series seems to be hit or miss for me - I love some of them, but others bore me. Either way, none of these games came out in 2015. So what the hell did I play in 2015? Looking back, there really weren't that many new titles in my house.

The Bunker Hill Bros played the hell out of some Dragon Ball XenoVerse which is a great game, but not Game of the Year material. I will never forget the rise of (custom character) Potatta and her domination over this game. I was supposed to join the Deez in Star Wars Battlefront but I ended up flaking out and walking away from the purchase. I got Disgaea 5 for my birthday in October, but for the first time ever - a Disgaea game did not hold my attention for much longer than a week. I got much more into a play of Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness earlier in the year- also not a 2015 game.

Flipping through the internet, I see a lot of talk about Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Metal Gear Solid 5 and even Bloodborne. Surprisingly, all of these were on my "I want to buy" list but none of them were purchased. Particularly surprising is Bloodborne, because I held it in my hands at least ten times and put it back on the shelf - including the day I bought Dragon Ball XenoVerse. I don't really have a lot of excuses for this. I suppose money has been relatively tight, but more so I've just found my large library of older games has really gotten me through the year. When Fallout 4 launched I realized I never fully explored or beaten Fallout: New Vegas and so I loaded her up instead of spending $60. Similarly, when Bloodborne was tantalizing me, I did another playthrough of Dark Souls II. Such was life in 2015 for me.

The only 2015 titles I can think of that I picked up and really sank my teeth into are Final Fantasy Record Keeper and Xenoblade Chronicles X. It feels severely unfair to slap either one with "Game of the Year" title when I really didn't play any other 2015 launch titles to any great extent. It also makes me feel guilty giving Xenoblade the high honors because the only other time I've posted a Game of the Year it was for 2012 and Xenoblade Chronicles won that award.

• TOP Game of the Year 2012 (Spoiler: Xenoblade Chronicles)

So let me tell you about the two games I did play to some great extent. 

 

Final Fantasy Record Keeper is a free-to-play iOS and Android game. It's honestly the first mobile game I've ever enjoyed and endorsed. I know part of that stems from my love for old Final Fantasy games, to which Record Keeper gives much fan service. However, it's been more than just a passing fancy. I play Record Keeper every single day. I'm sometimes overwhelmed at the level of strategy and planning the game takes, but it's the cute SNES-style sprites and the level of challenge the game brings to the table that keeps me coming back. 

The game is at its core an All-Star Final Fantasy Battle game. You collect characters from every Final Fantasy title and equip them with equipment and skills to do combat with various monsters and bosses from each title. Although each character can only have 2 abilities equipped at any given time, the battle system itself most resembles Final Fantasy IV and VI. As of today there are roughly 90 characters to collect, level and utilize to complete new events and dungeons. Events come once a week and new dungeons are added twice a month. 

Like most online, money-driven games it does suffer from a steady power creep. I worked extremely hard for about six months to be able to steadily 100% every event that came along. I finally felt like I was on top of the world and could conquer any challenge. Then a new difficulty was released and I was knocked so hard off my pedestal that I felt like I had just been fooling myself into thinking I was the very best like no one ever was. While there are cons to a steady power creep (like invalidating your best arsenal of relic weapons when new, better ones arrive) I like to think that it will keep the game fresh and keep me driven to take my team to new levels. 

Final Fantasy Record Keeper is easily the best mobile game I've ever played.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is overwhelming. Based entirely on my unendingly positive experience with its predecessor in 2012 and well into 2013, I picked up Xenoblade CX the day it was released and I'm still playing it today. I've sank about 60 hours into this game and I'm only on Chapter 6 of 12. The amount of content this game throws in your face is truly amazing. Simply exploring this beautiful, exquisitely detailed, alien planet will probably keep me entertained for another 60 hours easily.

Speaking honestly, during my first hour with the game I felt very skeptical. The custom created "main" character is an awkward, silent protagonist in an age of voice acted cutscenes. The very concept has made me question whether Cloud will translate very well into the Final Fantasy VII Remake - or whether a game like Chrono Trigger should ever be brought into the current generation. However, Xenoblade CX pulls this off pretty well with player input answers that lead you to believe he is participating in conversations (silently). I also wasn't entirely sold on the combat and its utter lack of Monado, but ultimately I'm finding it to be a much deeper combat system than its predecessor.

After that initial adjustment - the realization that no, this is not Xenoblade Chronicles that you remember, but something new entirely - the game just goes into full bloom, in my opinion. There are a ton of playable characters to get to know. There is - what feels like - a never ending list of side-quests to pursue (600, I believe is the official estimate). The "mission structure" to the story is the perfect balance between encouraging you to continue the story, but also allowing you to pause and take in the world at your own pace.

In Xenoblade Chronicles, I remember wanting to stop and get to know everyone and do every side-quest, but the story itself pushed a sense of urgency. It was difficult to justify hanging out in one place for 40 hours just to build local affinity when your [insert plot device] was in desperate need of your help. Xenoblade Chronicles X solves this problem by taking the plot away from character driven narrative and making you feel like you are actually building a new world on the planet Mira. Each side-quest, mission and affinity mission all feels like one more step in establishing humanity's place on this new mysterious world and I absolutely love it. 

With a new console on the horizon, Xenoblade Chronicles X will likely be my all time favorite Wii U release - much like Xenoblade Chronicles is my favorite Wii title ever played. It has breathed new life into a system that mostly my children were dominating until now. 

- TOP

@TOPGamingBlog

PS - Let me know what games you think I really missed out on in 2015!

Educational Value of Gaming - Sengoku

It was one week ago, January 28th, that I attended my first, official college course since 2001. I am reluctant to admit that I was unprepared. The entire experience completely overwhelmed me physically and mentally. My first day of school greeted me with well over 200 pages of assigned reading to be finished by Wednesday. My classes didn't exactly ease me into this transition of being a full time student. I was thrust into it head first. I spent every free moment of my day reading (and taking notes) on this mountain of homework that I was given. Mixed in with that was the responsibility to find suitable daycare for my children and celebrating my daughter's fourth birthday (twice). I had every intention going into last week to put up a blog, but my hopes were dashed upon the rocks.

Darth Oda, Lord of the Sith
Unifier of Sengoku Period Japan

So here I am, now. I'm no longer a stay-at-home father with free time to burn on video games and blogging. I am a college student once more. My children started full-time daycare just yesterday and I miss them terribly while we are apart. The recent life-changing, tragic events of last fall give me no shortness of anxiety at handing over my remaining children to someone else's care and responsibility, but they themselves seem to enjoy it a great deal. It has been a complete upheaval of our life at home. It will be some time before we all adjust to the new routines of work, class and daycare. The good news, however, is that after the hectic week I had last week, my homework is going a lot smoother. It's easier to tackle in small chunks spread out over the course of the week than all at once within two days. With proper management, I even find time to play a few hours of games and write up my weekly blog. TOP Gaming can continue!

The most demanding class I'm taking is also the most exciting to me. It is a look at Japanese history starting at 1800 up to present day. The bulk of all the reading assignments come from this course, but the content is extremely fascinating to me. When I was a student back in 1999-2001, I was a Japanese language and culture major, but I never got around to taking any history classes in the short time I attended. That means I have a basic level knowledge of much of this history, but I've never actually read about most of it in depth. I find that I still have a sincere interest in the Japanese people and their history. Although the class is focused on the year 1800 and beyond, I decided to do a bit of extra reading about the events leading up to the Tokugawa Shogunate which was in place in 1800. I wanted to read what the history text had to say about Sengoku jidai - the Warring States period of Japan.

During this time there is over a hundred years of civil war until the eventual unification of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu (building off of his predecessors' and allies' efforts) which ushered in 200 years of peace and prosperity for the country. As I was reading through all the information about Japan's most turbulent time, fraught with constant military campaigns between rival warlords, I realized that I was pretty familiar with most of the major players and events, despite never having touched a history textbook on the subject. The Sengoku jidai is arguably one of the most popular events in Japanese history and it is retold over and over in film, anime and video games. It's through these literary mediums that I learned so much about this time period.

In Sengoku Japan, Pokémon catch you.

It was odd for me to be reading about historical figures such as Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi with images of a recent Pokémon game I was addicted to flashing into my head. I'm speaking of the game known as Pokémon Conquest in North America, but Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition in Japan. It's a cross over that takes the Sengoku jidai and slaps it into the Pokémon world. Samurai warlords staging epic battles with Pokémon companions - could there be a better game? Probably, but it's pretty good. At any rate, it's a strange world where you are reading a history text, but associate the names to characters in a game. I thought about how odd all of this was and began to trace back my personal history with video games and the Sengoku jidai.

This is how I like to picture Myamoto Musashi in 1612.

I believe it was the great company Squaresoft who introduced me to concepts of bushido (the samurai code of honor) with their game Bushido Blade in 1997. This game is about samurai in a modern setting and has nothing to do with any historical samurai conflicts that I'm aware of, but I learned a great deal about samurai, their code of honor, and various weapons from this game. In 1998, another game about samurai was released called Brave Fencer Musashi which also had almost nothing to do with the Warring States period of Japanese history, but it did borrow some of the legends of that time period. This game introduced me to Miyamoto Musashi (and his rivalry with Sasaki Kojiro) even though the game was cast in a completely fictional world. I knew somehow that it was drawing on real historical-mythology. Although Musashi was not a warlord, he was perphaps the most famous ronin samurai (akin to "freelancer" for our purposes) of all time and author of The Book of Five Rings which is still significant to this day.

This all began to snowball in conjunction with my growing love for anime into an increasing awareness of samurai history and culture. The interest in Musashi drew me in to a deeper understanding of a comic series I had loved since I was a boy, Usagi Yojimbo. In turn, this led me to various works of Kurosawa Akira, legendary Japanese film director responsible for Seven Samurai among other great works. Kurosawa's films about samurai cultured a deep love for the video game Way of the Samurai and its sequels which are told in styles very similar to a Kurosawa film - with multiple endings and various perspectives on your enemies depending on how you play through it. Way of the Samurai led to an introduction to the Meiji period, which is the end of the samurai as a ruling class (something we'll be discussing in class in the coming week or two) and the anime Rurouni Kenshin.



Shogun: Total War was given to me as a gift from my father in 2000 when I was a student of Japanese in college originally. The gift was important because it marked the end of a long-standing grudge my father was holding against me regarding giving me computer software and hardware. It was also touching because it was an unspoken support and acknowledgement of my interest in Japan, and given to me on a medium I'm sure he knew I would enjoy - video games. I've said before that I'm a complete "noob" when it comes to the real-time simulated battles of the "Total War" series, but despite that this game was my first foray into real historical simulation in Japanese history, incidentally simulating the Sengoku jidai. I soon learned that if I pushed "Auto-Resolve" through the actual battles (which almost defeats the purpose of the meat and potatoes portion of the game) I could focus on what I was much better at - the strategic overlay of troops and logistics. Not unlike the "Civilization" series, Shogun: Total War allowed me to build up my infrastructures, train troops and march them into my rivals' domains to unify Japan under my banner.

Did I mention my favorite board game is Risk?

I'm trying to illustrate how a simple interest can explode into your major field of study in college, as well as how much you can learn from video games if you pursue you interests within them. It's amazing how much I learned even based on fictional pieces of work set in the background of Japanese history. I learn that Oda Nobunaga was ruthless in his quest for dominance over the landscape of Japan, but ultimately left his conquest to one of his primary vassals, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It was practically usurped from his heir, Hideyori, by Ieyasu Tokugawa (another right-hand man of Nobunaga) who managed to solidify control and usher in an era of peace for hundreds of years. These basic concepts are familiar to me because of what I learned from playing video games and I'm surprised just how much so.

- TOP
@TOPGamingBlog


Here's a few other games that got me swept up in Japanese (samurai) history:

• Samurai Warriors series
• Nobunaga's Ambition series
• Civilization series (among many other histories)
• Onimusha series
• Sengoku Basara series

Week in Review - 3/23/2012

Civilization V

I played my first multiplayer game of Civilization V this week with my brother. Siam versus Aztecs. Good versus Evil. We had a spoken non-aggression pact so I decided to slay him with cultural awesome. We only spent about an hour or two before we decided to give up on our first experimental match. I won with superior scoring techniques. I look forward to a less-experimental match.

Dungeon Defenders

On Saturday, a friend of mine recommended we try Dungeon Defenders during a free trial weekend. My wife and I downloaded it and logged in. We quickly became addicted. The entire weekend melted away as we were absorbed in defending our Eternia Crystals. The game is 1 part tower defense game. During a build phase, you set up traps and towers to defend critical points of the map. The game is also 1 part action Role-Playing Game. You run around the map, weapon in hand, hacking and slashing creatures not being devoured by your towers. It’s a lot of fun.

The Sims 3

I got bored living out the normal lives of Sims, so I decided to work on a project. I made a Sim that looks like me, cloned him three times, and killed them in various ways. That sounds morbid, but I wanted to make ghost versions of myself. Each way you die in The Sims 3 produces a slightly different looking ghost. I can use this household as a template whenever I need a particular ghost of myself I just load it up and extract one. I have not thought of anything creative to do with them beyond this yet.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

I basically logged on and did the end-game Daily quests twice. I also hunted Corellia datacrons. I really think The Old Republic is a strong MMO, but my interest in it has definitely waned. I think beyond the story that really gripped me, there just isn't that fun of a game underneath. It pains me to admit it, especially since I bought a 6-month subscription.

Tales of Graces f

I continue to work my way through Tales of Graces f. Mainly, it’s just making me miss Tales of Vesperia. I really wanted the PS3 version of Vesperia to launch in North America with more content than the 360 version I played. I could easily play through that game a few more times, but I was holding out hoping to get my hands on the updated version. Apparently, it’s not coming out here like so many “Tales” games.  I like Graces but it’s just not drawing me in as quickly or as easily as Vesperia did originally.

Total War: Shogun 2

I’m not a very big (or good) real-time strategy player. I first discovered this playing Shogun:Total War back in 2000. Ever since Shogun 2 was released, however, I’ve had my eye on it. It just went on sale this week and I grabbed it and its first expansion content for $10. As predicted, I lose almost every battle. Fortunately I can ask the computer to simulate battles, making the game play much more similarly to a “Civilization” game. I’m much better at that. I only played for a couple hours to test my spirit in battle. My spirit faltered.

- TOP

Week in Review - 3/16/2012

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I apologize I haven’t updated “Breton in Skyrim” yet this week. Hopefully, I will have time this afternoon. I had an extremely exciting adventure in Bleak Falls Barrow. I nearly died! Trying to play by a set of rules, and keep my friends and fans informed and involved in the adventure really adds an additional pressure to keep Genjo alive to blog another day. So these scenarios the game concocts to defeat me can really be an adrenaline rush due to the added incentives of keeping this “public figure” alive. It’s extremely fun.It nearly gave me an anxiety attack.

Final Fantasy IV (DS)

I’m continuing to work my way to the end of Final Fantasy IV. I try to beat one major boss a day. I’m currently stuck on Doctor Lugae in the Tower of Babil. He is not quite like he was on Super Nintendo, so I’m forced to think up a new strategy for him, or resort to looking online if I get tired and lazy. Cecil now has “Draw Attacks” which makes all single-target attacks hit him, making “Cover” obsolete. He’s almost the perfect tank now and up until Lugae, he was making the game a lot easier.

The Sims 3

The story of Holden and Gwen played out rather awkwardly. Pancho Villa moved in and to Holden’s dismay also moved in on Gwen. They had a baby together named Micaela Villa Glover. They were together for some time. Holden wrote lots of emotional books about the misery he was enduring. Then Pancho Villa (a successful doctor) had to go to the hospital on an emergency call on Gwen’s birthday. Holden took advantage of the opportunity and they finally got together. They had a baby named Edmund. Pancho Villa eventually moved out of the house. Everyone got their life goals accomplished!

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This is a picture of my Vangaurd, Nerine. She’s my favorite character that I’ve made on Star Wars and she’s seen here in a graphical glitch on the Republic Fleet. Apparently Carrick Station has disappeared leaving her floating freely in space. I took two weeks off from Star Wars, but a recent trailer for the Legacy update in patch 1.2 has me a bit excited. So I’m logging on again to do dailies on Shikari and hopefully level up Nerine and my wife’s character Zelona.

Tales of Graces f

I just bought this game on its release on Tuesday. I’m excited to support a series that doesn’t always make it over to western shores. The first “Tales” game I played was Talesof Symphonia which didn’t grab me as much as I thought it would, and is worth a re-investigation since everyone speaks highly of it. The first “Tales” game that did grab me was Tales ofVesperia. I was hoping that a PS3 version of Vesperia would be released in the US, but Graces is the next to be released, skipping Hearts and Xillia. I have high hopes.

Related Links
A Breton in Skyrim - http://bretongenjo.blogspot.com
My Sims 3 Profile - http://mypage.thesims3.com/mypage/Kirutaru

Week in Review - 3/2/2012

I decided a week ago that in March I'd begin posting a short Friday blog regarding games I'm currently playing and any thoughts associated with them. Originally, I wanted to add a "Games Played This Week" picture or widget in order to let people know the games I'm playing so they could inquire about them, or understand where I came up with the ideas for blog topics. I just thought it would be a good record to keep. Unfortunately, there wasn't always enough space in the article for the insert, or it was too distracting from the story I was trying to tell. It needs it's own space.

And so, TOP Gaming Week in Review column is born!





Civilization V

I read earlier this week that Civilization V is finally getting an expansion pack called “Gods & Kings” which will add religion and espionage mechanics along with new scenarios and civilizations. I’ve been playing the "Civilization" series since 1991, but I often overlook the scenarios. I booted up Civ V to correct that oversight. I finally beat the Mongolian scenario, terrorizing Asia with horsemen. I also conquered the New World (scenario) with France and united Polynesia! I’m currently working on a Roman Cultural Victory. I’m lodged deep in a war with Denmark over territory and fear I may be overwhelmed.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I recently read a blog about a player trying to emulate the life of a Non-Player Character (NPC) within Skyrim. It was so clever and fun to read that it made me remember how much role-playing you can do with a world like Skyrim. The blog ended abruptly with the death of the main character. It inspired me to try and play a realistic life in Skyrim (though not necessarily a drab, non-adventuring NPC life). I am chronicling this adventure in another blog called “A Breton in Skyrim.” Both links will be provided below.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

I’ve been playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning quite a bit since its release on February 7^th.  I did a review of this game Tuesday, so naturally I’ve been playing it this week. I’ve provided the link to that review below in case you missed it. I’d like to add to it, this game is HUGE. There are several of faction storylines to pursue and many battles to be fought. The game’s map appears deceptively small at first, but after a few hours of exploring, you realize it’s quite an impressive size world. You’ll be exploring it for many, many hours.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This is the current MMO I am playing, so presumably I will log some hours every week. I just logged in to take this screenshot of my main character, Shikari. She is a Lv50 (out of 50) Consular Sage, specializing in healing, on the bridge of her ship that I dubbed Mjolnir. I have been neglecting this game most of the week due to working on “A Breton in Skyrim” blog project and a resurfaced addiction to Civilization V. I will provide a link to the review of The Old Republic I wrote several weeks ago.

Related Links
The Elder Strolls - The inspiration for "A Breton in Skyrim"
A Breton in Skyrim - http://bretongenjo.blogspot.com/
TOP Gaming's Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review
TOP Gaming's Star Wars: The Old Republic Review

I'm also trying to get up a spreadsheet of my entire library of games. It's mainly for personal reference and online so I can access it anywhere (anytime I buy or sell a game), but since it's relevant and people may want to see it (?) I'll add the link. I'll make this more readily available on the site once it's all formatted to my standards.

TOP Gaming Library - Note the first sheet is blank. It's a placeholder for future expansion.

The Old Republic Under Review

Star Wars: The Old Republic has had the most successful launch of any Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMO) that I have ever seen in 10 years of playing around in the genre. There is a lot to like for the hardcore veterans, the casual players, and the single-player role-playing game (RPG) fans. I have personally been playing various MMO since 2003 when I had my first true experience with online game addiction in Final Fantasy XI. Since then I have not been so drawn into a world by its story or compelling characters until now. While The Old Republic (TOR) has launched with its fair share of  bugs, glitches and imbalances I’m not going to spend any time picking those apart, but rather point out what sets this game apart from its contemporaries.

The Old Republic was developed by BioWare (Mass Effect, Dragon Age) and released on December 20, 2011. It has an Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) of Teen meaning the content is suitable for 13 years old and older, but as with any online game the experience is truly dependant on the types of rude or vulgar people you meet (or do not meet) online.

My Jedi Consular, Shikari, with Nadia (Companion)

TOR is the first MMO in quite a long time to captivate my attention so effectively and it has done so in two easy steps. First, it has 8 compelling stories that all lightly intertwine and put you into some archetype roles you would expect to encounter in the Star Wars universe. BioWare will be the first to tell you that they made this game with storytelling in mind and I agree that as a story-lover they have done quite a good job. Second, the Companion system allows you to automatically recruit 5 crew members to your team and the interesting personalities and subsequent development by getting to know these characters will have you feeling reluctant to leave them behind when forced to choose one to adventure with you. These two story-telling mechanics help solve a large issue in keeping subscriptions in MMOs which is an attachment to your character. Someone playing World of Warcraft, for example, might have 7 years of dedicated work put into their character or characters and after a brief tour of Star Wars may be more invested in his previous work. That risk still exists, but TOR does a good job of getting you very wrapped around your character and the companions by involving them in a complex story and with their unique personalities. It is a good attempt to pull a player in emotionally and sever ties to old characters that are not quite as engaging.

My Jedi Knight, Kyru, with T7 (Companion)

TOR also manages to feel like a complete package with promise of more to come. One of the biggest problems with new launch title MMO games is they have to compete with some very well established titles that have had over 7 years of live updates and game changes based on customer feedback. There is so much to do in those games that new games may burn up all their content within a few months and those old games with plenty to do look mighty inviting. That risk also still exists for TOR, but they have managed to launch a game that feels like a full game - it does have, after all, 8 storylines to play through to get a full scope of what’s happening in the galaxy. It has essentially packaged 8 full-length single-player RPG games into one, plus the ability to play with your friends which is quite optional. Every story is able to be done solo or in a group, with group content being provided incrementally along the way for additional rewards and challenges. That is why from any avid RPG lover’s point of view, TOR may be quite welcoming, and for any MMO veteran’s point of view give you plenty of things to do while you wait for new content to arrive on your primary or favorite characters.

Once you finish your Prologue around Level 10, you are free to progress via questing, Player versus Player (PvP) arena content called Warzones, or group raiding called Flashpoints. They each provide unique rewards for your playstyle: quests often provide gear upgrades for your Companions who help you solo through the story of the game, PvP will reward you with gear that will better suit you to a future of PvP playing, and Flashpoints give some of the best Player versus Environment (PvE) gear in the game for tackling increasingly harder group challenges as you progress through the game. All of these areas could use and will receive work over time, but as they came at launch they are very well designed and implemented. I have enjoyed exploring all of the above content on a single character’s journey to the level cap of 50. 

Flying into Battle

The final thing of note is the space battles and that is a point of contention. At a certain point in your characters’ personal stories they will receive access to a ship that they will use to navigate the galaxy (a truly romantic experience on your first playthrough). They can also engage in space battles sanctioned by their allegiance’s command head quarters. Some players feel the battles should have been more like they were in Star Wars: Galaxies, the MMO predecessor to TOR (that I did not have the pleasure of playing) which as I understand it was a bit more along the lines of playing Star Wars: X-Wing or Star Wars: TIE Fighter. However, as it stands now, it is a moderately challenging rail shooter - meaning your ship is guided along a set course and you move about the screen dodging and weaving and shooting enemies “down” (a relative term that often does not apply in space combat). I truly enjoy it this way because it reminds me of my younger days playing Star Fox and Star Fox 64 and honestly is one of the most well developed “mini-games” I’ve ever seen in a role-playing game, much less an MMO. Unfortunately, in its current state it does lack multiplayer options so you won’t be flying side by side with your friends, nor will they be mounting your gun turrets like Luke Skywalker on the Millenium Falcon. You also won’t be targeting enemy players of the opposing faction. While I would welcome the upgrade to a more 3-dimentional space flight/dog fighting simulator, all I would really need is to add more “massive multiplayer” to this mini-game and I think it would truly shine even on rails, as it were. 

Star Wars: The Old Republic is a great experience for anyone who loves the Star Wars universe or role-playing games in general. It is fully voice-acted which breathes life into all your character interactions and is widely unprecedented in the MMO market on this scale. The story-telling is what will keep me coming back for more and keep me hopeful for more of its kind in future expansions and patches. This attention to character and story is what has earned it the TOP Gaming Seal of Approval and will be my MMO of choice for quite some time to come, I believe. Though it has a tried and true foundation based mostly on EverQuest and World of Warcraft, it comes with enough fresh new twists on a somewhat stagnant genre to really set it apart and keep it alive.

Related Links

Official Site - http://www.swtor.com/

PC system requirements - http://buy.swtor.com/us/#system-requirements