Final thoughts on 2011

<p>This year has been amazing from a gaming standpoint. It started strong and steamrolled into a rollercoaster of awesome that I thought I wouldn't survive. There were laughs (littlebig planet 2) there was racing (forza 4) there were cries (skyrim lag problem), and incredible advertising wars (call of duty vs battlefield) but all in all, I am happy with the way things turned out and can't wait for the future.
My top 5 must plays this year are -
5) gears of war 3 - 360 only
4) saints row the third - ps3, 360, pc
3) the old republic - pc
2) uncharted 3 stakes deception - ps3
1) the elder scrolls 5 skyrim - pc,  ps3, 360
There are still a few I want to play (skyward sword, halo anniversary, others I can't think of) but as we close this year, I look forward to games like twisted metal, halo 4, mass effect 3, and (hopefully) Diablo 3. Next year is shaping up to be pretty awesome and I can't wait. I know you read this, so PLEASE comment! Leave your top 5 of the year! Thank you all for reading and as always, See You Online.

The Old Republic (12/24-12/27)

Sorry guys, there have been some unforeseen circumstances that have prevented me from playing much the last few days. Christmas, my car died, got called into work twice, it was like the universe was against me, but I did manage to get a little time in and would like to touch on a something I haven't spoken about.

The user interface. The interface is very friendly to use, and I found it to be very easy to navigate through. I wasn't able to move any of the windows around at all, which did bother me a little bit because default placement for some of them is a little bothersome. The top center of the screen has the menu bar with everything it should have: Character, Abilities, Crew Skills, Skill Tree, etc... Clicking on each button opens up the window and places it wherever the game wants it to go. On the top left of the screen is the chat box. Until you move your cursor there the only thing you see is the planet population and the chat from the players near you. There is an option to turn off the chat and when you move your cursor over to the chat area a blue outline box shows up around it to highlight the chat area. On the bottom of the screen you have your abilities bar which is customizable if you choose. I currently have two bars showing with my offense attacks on the left side and my defense and support on the right side. On the bottom right of the screen is the mini map, which is fairly helpful except it occasionally doesn't outline walls, which is a small problem for me because I tend to just go by map and not by what I see on screen. Not a huge complaint though.

That's pretty much it there. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to play more, and I'm working on that as we speak. Hopefully I'll have more things to post in the very near future. Thank you for your patience and See You Online.

The Old Republic 12/22-12/23

The last couple days have been spent leveling up my Bounty Hunter and exploring Hutta. There is still the lag problem as I get into the swampy areas of the world, but I have noticed that it is going away a lot faster than it was. Last night there was still a wait, but a short one as I jumped into the queue at place number seven. The quests that I have been doing seem to be a combination of fetch/kill quests such as "go and get X of this item, and while you're out kill X of these people if you like for bonus points." They are getting repetitive but that is the nature of the game.

I did get to run a flashpoint last night and it took about forty-five minutes to complete. The group was forming and I jumped right in without any incident. It ran smoothly and once it was over we went our separate ways like nothing ever happened. It was a nice diversion and I look forward to doing more in the future.

I have noticed as I level up my Bounty Hunter that the attacks are more designed to kill very quickly. Everything that he can do is designed to either incapacitate or execute. Flamethrowers, explosive darts, missiles, overcharged rapid fire shots that have a chance of setting targets on fire, and a jet pack punch all add up to one powerful tank. I have noticed that my enemies are having trouble dealing much damage to me even in a pack of three or four. I feel a little over powered but at the same time, when I first started with this character I was taking heavy damage and died five or six times per level because I couldn't keep my health high enough.

That's all for now, I hope to go a bit more in depth as I learn more of the mechanics of the game. Until then, See You Online.

The Old Republic 12/20-12/21

The last two days I have been working on a new character. The options for character customization are both limited, and vast if that makes any sense. My new person is a Chiss Bounty Hunter and he fights like a tank. I spent nearly half an hour working out the kinks in my looks before I even thought about stepping foot onto the game world. Picking out skin and hair color, to scar pattern on his face, to deciding on hair style and body type was quite the quest for me.

Hutta is an interesting world. There is a distinct yellow-brown hue to it and it does look kind of depressing that way. You can tell that people really shouldn't be on that planet. Your character is dropped in the middle of a gang war between two Hutts so there are quite a few enemies to kill right off the bat. Leveling up early on was not a problem due to a low population and large number of enemies that were there to kill. The bounty hunter quests have been a little more interesting for me because I don't usually play the dark side so clicking the darkside option on some of these quests makes me feel pretty bad. One quest in particular sticks out because my decision ended up making me kill an entire village. I am determined to go dark on this one though. My only complaint so far with the bounty hunter is that up to this point (I'm only level six) I can only use one pistol. I can't even use a blaster rifle, I have to use a pistol. The attacks are standard fare; I have my regular rapid shot, a missle, and an overload burst shot.

The area I have noticed a huge change between Coruscant, Typhon, and Hutta is that on Hutta even though my planet population is only in the thirties I have some severe lag from time to time. I believe it is due to the large amount of trees and grass present through the swampy areas, but it is still there and is bothersome. Other than the occasional slowdown I am not really having any issues graphically with this game.

So that's all for now. See You Online.

The Old Republic (Day 2)

So far my second day of playing has been without too much disappointment. Last night when I tried logging in (around 11 PM EST) my server had a twenty minute wait to get in because it was full. It was a long wait and I can see this being a problem in the future. When I logged in this morning (Around 8 AM EST) I got right in without any issue. The server had what the game called heavy traffic which surprised me so early on a Sunday morning. I had some pretty severe lag last night while I was playing which did bother me, but I decided it best to soldier on through the lag because I waited so long to get on. I played through the remaining missions for the prologue section and finally unlocked my lightsaber after what seemed like days (it was only about four or five hours) There were plenty of side quests and I am loving that every conversation is fully acted with multiple responses available. I also unlocked my companion, a droid called T7. The droid has a personality and actually made me smile a few times from the dialogue between it and other NPCs. I have noticed that T7 is insanely powerful and from time to time makes me look like a chump while we are fighting a group of enemies.

I also made it to exploring another planet and so far I haven't been disappointed with my experience yet. I traveled to Coruscant to continue my training as a Jedi Knight. The city is busy with both NPCs and PCs but it helps to make the game feel like it is a living world. I haven't experienced any lag as of yet during my travels. There are MANY different shops and vendors to visit, and a LOT of quests to complete. I haven't had much time to explore yet, as I have only been powering through quests and working on leveling up a bit.

Final bit of the update for now, I unlocked a class specialization for my Jedi Knight. There were two options available, Jedi Sentinel and Jedi Guardian. I chose the more combat focused Jedi Sentinel. My reward was that instead of wielding just one lightsaber (that I only unlocked like an hour before that) I was able to wield two lightsabers. Adding a specialization also enabled several skill trees for that class. The skills seemed to be divided up into three categories, offense, defense, and support. I chose to start off with the offense and was rewarded with a new attack.

That's all for this update, I will have more tomorrow, which is the last day of the early access. Until then, See You Online.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Day 1

As of this moment I am logging off for the day. I have played for roughly three hours this morning and have to go to my real job so I won't be on until tonight after eleven PM. So far I have made my character, I started off with the standard Jedi Knight and made my race the Zabrak, and I am a female. The intro cinematic was beautifully rendered and gave me a lot of hope for this game. I have experimented with combat and it is exactly what you would expect to get from an MMO game. Controls are easy and the interface is compact and easy to use. Inventory control and management is fairly simple and the powers I have unlocked (I'm only at level six) are expected. I was slightly disappointed with the in game graphics, but as this is an MMO with what seems to be a decent player base already, I can understand why the engine is toned down a bit. There is a fast travel system using speeders to different speeder ports that you have found and unlocked and the world map is very informative as to where everything is in each area. The interactions to this point have been fully voiced with no need to read anything but subtitles. Bioware does include the conversation wheel that has become a standard for their games and rewards light and dark side points for actions during your playthrough. I am a little sad that I cannot pick my own powers and upgrades like you could in the old Knights of the Old Republic games, but this is only a minor complaint.

Bear in mind that these are only a VERY minimal look at what the game has to offer. We shall see in the coming days/weeks what will actually be. I have tomorrow off of work so I will be spending a lot of time playing. Until then everyone, as always, See You Online.

Star Wars: The Old Republic PC Review Process

To be honest guys, I have no idea how to review an MMO. I know it's going to take a LOT of hours and more attention than I can begin to fathom. So, what I think I may do is put a few hours on each day, and post my observations as I play the game making a kind of day by day log of what's going on and how I'm doing. If anybody else is playing, feel free to leave some comments on the posts and we can get like a discussion going as to what we all think of the game. I will eventually give it a rating but I think I will forget doing a normal review.

See You Online.