Rage inducing review? SWTOR Edition

Recently, Gamepro has released their review on the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG. Many of us haven't played the beta for this game and videos of actual combat have been few and far between. Luckily, professional journalists have done us a service by talking about this game and telling us how they feel about it. Before I give my reaction to their review, you should probably see the video for yourself.



So let's make a few bullets to highlight important pieces of information from this video:

• Many of the reviewers only played a few hours of the game itself before putting it down.
• Character Customization was felt to be lacking exotic alien races.
• Subscription fees are about 15 dollars per month.
• Cutscenes are not skippable(for now)

A good portion of Internet was not impressed by this review. Bioware, Star Wars, and KOTOR fans alike shared an equal amount of hatred toward this video. Many posters on the messages boards go so far as calling the reviewers "casuals" for not burning the knowledge of the Star Wars: The Old Republic universe into their brains. Despite being new players to an mmo, disconnecting from the story and character background is a sign of being a casual player. Highlights of the internet include:

• They didn't like it because it wasn't World of Warcraft.
• They weren't paid enough by Bioware to give SWTOR a good review.
• Calling the Republic "the Blue side" makes you an idiot and your opinions are furthermore null and void.
• Reviewing 5 hours of an MMO is like watching 10 minutes of the movie [i]Titantic[/i], leaving the theater, and writing a review based solely on that.
• This review was a PR stunt to get more traffic to the Gamepro website.

Now, I have no interest in deciding what is true and what isn't true. I am not a Lucas Arts enthusiast(a lot of their product is pretty entertaining), nor am I an advent Bioware/EA fan. My opinion on the game is based solely on the videos I see on the internet and the impressions a few of my friends give. I suppose that, given the choice between playing monthly for new content in SWTOR, I would rather have the same environments and classes in 8+ player online in a new Star Wars Battlefront game. Watching combat videos in SWTOR are generally the same. Laser blasters shooting at enemies, lightsabers, shields and your occasional bomb or flamethrower. Every MMO has repetitive combat based on the character you chose, but most gameplay videos for SWTOR open combat the exact same way every time.
Lead into combat with your laser gun. If your damage is based on shooting, stay back and continue firing.
Once you have aggroed the room, equip your lightsaber or applicable short range gun, and kill everything. Activate shields whenever necessary.
Not every MMO needs flashy animations and loads of skills to spam in every fight, but something just doesn't look fun about activating a shield, then holding the flamethrower button as a robot tries to melee you down. Dungeon progression seems like fun, with turrets that attack you and robots that jump around. Mobile characters like jedi and sith make these moments seem a bit more interesting. Standing characters like Troopers, Powertech and others are probably what shy people away from the game. Videos for gun-based classes are often very boring and it is understandable that some players will not like it. Besides, what's the point of an MMO of 80% of the playerbase is the same class?

SWTOR doesn't look like an MMO for everyone, and it shouldn't be. It should also be said that those who don't like SWTOR shouldn't be ridiculed by the elites who think everyone who doesn't like their game is a WoW/CoD conformist. I know I won't be playing this game, that shouldn't change your opinion about me as a gamer.