Star Wars: The old Republic first gameplay impressions.

Itchy trigger finger.

Ok, the first things to notice about Star Wars: The old Republic are the artistic stylings of the environments and characters. Now having looked around the official forum threads (via http://www.swtor.com/) this seemed to upset ALOT of people who expected a more photo realistically rendered environment, however these people are a minority to those of us who appreciate the lush, not quite cell shaded but casually cartoonish looks.

Every Cutscene adds to the epic storyline.

From the outset the player is also introduced to the reason we waited so long for release, the 100% voice recorded quest conversations. Every single quest in game has its own cut scene with multiple choice answers that ultimately effect your characters reputation be it with NPC's or your companions (more on those in a later instalment). Certain class story quests may offer you Light or Dark side answers, or simply an aggressive reaction to the Jedi councils decision to send your character on a suicide run to Korriban. The fruit of all this effort is ultimately total immersion and the feeling that while not in a group that your simply playing a single player RPG.

As for my wannabe attempt at Han Solo I'm finding the smugglers mechanics somewhat interesting. Rather than simply rocking up to a bunch of Imperial troops, standing in the middle of the road getting your face blasted off, the class integrates a cover system, where rock formations, containers and various other scenery objects can be used to pop up and down from, avoiding seemingly 99.9% of all incoming lasers. There is also a nice amount of abilities to be learnt from the off. At level 5 these already include charged shots, the rapid "flurry of bolts" and grenades. Win.

The cover system in action.