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Sean's The Old Republic Journal #1: My Fall to the the Dark Side

by: Sean M -
More On: Star Wars: The Old Republic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
I recently was given the opportunity to play Star Wars: The Old Republic, and immediately jumped at the chance to play what I consider to be a sequel the KOTOR and KOTOR 2. Those games have a special place in my gaming heart, so this was exciting for me.

First things first, I began downloading the game and I can tell you that it took some time. It is a pretty big file at over 20 gigs, so if you have download speeds of 2 Mb/s or something similar it will take a while. I was actually having trouble with my ISP when I first tried to download it so I headed up to my school where I was pulling in about 45 Mb/s, and it still took over 3 hours to fully download the game. I'm not sure if it was an issue with EA servers or something on my end, but I have heard of similar issues from other players.

Once it finally finished downloading , it was time to begin the game. After watching the epic opening cinematic, I was allowed to make several choices for my character. First I was allowed to choose to be on the Light Side of the force or the Dark Side. Being the slightly evil person I am, I of course chose the Dark Side and became a Sith warrior. After that, I could choose my characters sex and race, which led me to become a Zabrak in honor of Darth Maul. I am terrible at creating names so I picked a randomized one, resulting in my character being called Kitvedheesh. 

I won't give away too many details for those of you that have not played the game, so there is no fear of spoilers. Once the game began I was placed on Korriban, which serves as a training ground for new players. I was sad to find out that I would not get a lightsaber right away, but I suppose a vibrosword would suffice for the time being. After being trained in the force and slaying a Terentatek, I drew the favor of a dark lord and became his apprentice. Finally being allowed to leave Korriban (and getting my first lightsaber!) I landed on the Imperial Capital of Dromund Kaas where I was finally able to team up with some other players. Thanks to my temporary team mates (thanks Narsuul and Elkaar!) I was able to complete some heroic quests and earn a large amount of XP and items. 

So far, the game looks to be very well made, and I am quite impressed with the gameplay. The controls are fairly easy to get used to, and the games runs pretty smoothly. It feels as if I am back playing KOTOR again, albeit with better graphics and load times. Sometimes there are some minor glitches (like my character being invisible on startup with only his lightsaber visible) but they last for only a few seconds and are not that big of a deal. Be sure to check back in the future for more journal entries.