When LucasArts revealed that it was partnering with BioWare for a Star Wars MMO, millions of people (including Rodians, Mon Calamari, and Twi’leks) paid attention. Star Wars: The Old Republic promises to be like no other MMO to date. At PAX 2009, producer Jake Neri revealed how the game’s story and combat will distinguish it from the pack.

“What we’re really trying to do with The Old Republic is introduce the idea of story into an MMO. The genre has a ton of good games — games that focus on combat and exploration and progression, but when we came together with BioWare to make this game, we wanted to focus on story and what that means in an MMO.

When we looked at the combat and we started out, the goal was to make it heroic and cinematic. One thing that’s interesting — I don’t know if everybody knows — is that everything that we’ve shown is up to level eight. At level eight, most classes you see are pretty impressive. We’ve got cool bounty hunter abilities that people look at and say, ‘Wow, I can’t wait to do that!’ Our Sith warrior flipping through the air and rocking people to the skull — people want to do that, right? It’s cool. It’s unique. It’s exciting. It’s heroic. From the beginning of the game, we’re trying to deliver that experience.”

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Focus on story?
From all I’ve been reading, it sounds like this game could end up being very linear and play out like a console game. I hope not.
Not to mention the dialog in the films is absolute crap.  And from “proudly” released videos showing the voices (which every single character has — dialog seems to happen in console-style cinematics), the creators are sticking to the same style of shit Lucas gave us for 13+ hours.

Whatever the case, I plan on playing it at launch. My hopes are not up. Have you seen the actual gameplay? Pretty basic/straightforward. As for visual appearance, the gameplay looks bad… It looks to be on par with games released a decade ago. But it’s still in development so maybe it’ll get cleaned up. If not, I’ll lose interest really fast. A game’s play can be phenomenal, sure, but when I’m looking at it for hours a day, it needs to be appealing to the eye.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

More easymode.

More FAIL from Blizzard.

http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/090721.html

yep.

Not sure what to think really…

[Click images for sexy large scale.]

“Master Chief, you mind telling me what you’re doing on that ship?”
(Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood)

“Sir, finishing this fight.”

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NOTRLY!

But, I have!  Finally, after finishing the second installment (yeah, I played out of order), my Halo series is over with!  1, 2, & 3 have now all been totally completed.  Of course I didn’t do it on the hard difficulties…but whatever, I still won.

So what’s a girl to do now?  Well, I have Gears of War and GoW 2 (completed 7/5) on hand to take care of.  Also, Killzone 2 has been calling to me.
Mostly, I’m craving the next Halo installment — Halo 3: ODST

Though there will be no beloved Master Chief, I see good times ahead.

{EDITED to combine two posts}
{6/28/09}

With 99% of my blog views being for Halo 3: ODST (a change from my usual WoW traffic), I decided to basically repost info you can find easily elsewhere.

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Halo 3: ODST
(Orbital Drop Shock Troopers)

The game is set approximately two weeks prior to the events of Halo 3 in the fictional city of New Mombasa.

The main objective of ODST is for the player, a lone UNSC soldier known as “the Rookie,” to search through the ruins of New Mombasa and discover what happened to his missing teammates. As the Rookie drops in the ODST pod, the Prophet of Regret’s ship is seen jumping into slipspace. After finding a piece of evidence left behind — a sniper rifle hanging on a lamppost, for example — a flashback is triggered and the player assumes the role of the missing soldier. After players find the first beacon, the choice of where to go next is up to the player. It will also include an option which, unlike other Halo games, will allow the player to play the campaign levels in any order they want to.

ODST’s multiplayer offering is identical to Halo 3’s, and will ship with a total of 24 maps. Maps consist of the original eleven Halo 3 maps (Construct, Epitaph, Guardian, High Ground, Isolation, Last Resort, Narrows, Sandtrap, Snowbound, The Pit, Valhalla), the Heroic map pack (Foundry, Rat’s Nest, Standoff), the Legendary map pack (Avalanche, Blackout, Ghost Town), the “Cold Storage” map, and both parts of the Mythic map pack (Assembly, Orbital, and Sandbox; Citadel, Heretic, and Longshore).

In a recent gameplay trailer, a game mode called Firefight is shown, wherein players take on increasingly difficult waves of varied enemies, similar to Gears of War 2’s Horde mode. Firefight will include new medals as well as the ability to co-op with up to 4 teammates over Xbox LIVE or system link. Each player has a set number of lives which, upon their depletion the game ends. There is no time limit, no limited number of rounds and no maximum number of kills. Skulls will be incorporated into firefight as a means to increase the difficulty and provide variation. The maps used in firefight will be unlocked as the player progresses through the ODST campaign. It is also noted that the enemy characters appearing in each wave are generated at random, thus the player will be unable to anticipate the strength of the next wave prior to its arrival.

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The game’s protagonist, referred to as “the rookie”, is an unnamed member of the UNSC Marines’ Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs) or “Helljumpers”. ODSTs often deploy in small, one-man Human Entry Vehicles (HEVs), launched from spaceships in the upper atmosphere. During the game, the Rookie is separated from his four teammates and must find out what happened to them with the guidance of a city maintenance AI known as the Superintendent. The Rookie’s teammates are Buck, Dutch, Romeo, Mickey, and Dare (voiced by Tricia Helfer). Nathan Fillion also voices one of the ODST in the game.

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Halo 3: ODST will ship as a two-disc set. The first disc containing the campaign mode as well as the firefight co-op mode, while the second disc will contain the multiplayer mode with the complete set of Halo 3 maps. Owners of the game will receive an invitation to participate in the upcoming Halo: Reach multiplayer beta in 2010, while pre-orders will include a token to unlock Sgt. Johnson as a playable character in the Firefight multiplayer mode.

A special edition “Collector’s Pack” has been confirmed, containing the game and a special ODST wireless Xbox 360 Controller.

Links:
Bungie
Wikipedia

I guess being temporarily single (as my man is on business in another state) hasn’t been that bad.  Afterall, I’ve gotten more gaming in!

Now, what to play next…
I suppose beating the first Gears of War would be a good choice…
But then, I am craving some LEBRON JAMES! action too…
Killzone 2 is still begging my fingers to work it…

Hmm…  The used game store is open…  That’s always an excuse to drop some cleavage for the nerds.  (Yes, I do this.  No, it doesn’t work when the dweebs have a girlfriend with them.  In those cases I get to laugh as their whipped-asses get glared at.  I love being a chick gamer!)

You know what’s sad?  I’m debating what to do next with a video game.  Wow.

Some achievements have the greatest titles.

Seriously.