(www.swtor.com) Rated T for Teen by ESRB. Think massive online role playing games, and World of Warcraft comes to mind. But now, there’s a new player in the online gaming community looking to push World of Warcraft right off its throne, and the force is strong with this one. I’m speaking of the excellent MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Star Wars: The Old Republic, or SWTOR for short.

Presentation:
The game takes place within the Star Wars universe, although it takes place about 3,500 years before the story line of the Star Wars films. Consequently, there’s no hope of running into Darth Vader, or R2D2, simply because they haven’t been created yet. You can, however, visit and explore a galaxy that will be very familiar to fans of the books and films alike. The game itself is nice and easy on the eyes and fairly well detailed as well. Your character will change his look based on what he/she is equipped with, as well as what class you chose your player to be. There are a wide variety of species/classes to choose from when creating your character in SWTOR, and enough items to really make your character be unique in this game.

Graphics:
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a genuinely good-looking game, but not too hard for most PCs or laptops to run, either. The game does use slightly cartoonish graphics, like ones used in the recent Star Wars cartoon series. It works wonderfully, though, as each character in the game looks well-depicted, cities are varied and huge, and monsters and enemies look appropriately awesome and threatening. It’s certainly better looking than World of Warcraft, but not quite as graphic as Aion.

Sounds:
This is where Star Wars the Old Republic shines: with its voice acting. Most MMO games feature text that you read through for mission descriptions. And, as we would all admit, most of us don’t bother reading all that and simply scroll to the bottom to see what we have to do to complete the task at hand. In other words, no one cared about the story behind the task you were executing. Star Wars fixes all of this by providing each mission with full voice acting descriptions and a dialogue wheel for you to choose responses from. No longer is accepting a mission simply a “yes” or “no” thing--you can inquire about certain aspects of the mission, or find out more about the character in need. It’s an excellent addition that makes Star Wars very enjoyable to all players.

Gameplay:
Get really used to the layout of your keyboard and number buttons, since that’s what you’ll be using to battle enemies and control your movement around the galaxy in Star Wars: The Old Republic. It takes a little getting used to for combat, since your different abilities and skills will be laid out to your liking across the number row above the letters on the keyboard. The game does feel great in play, though, and is very rewarding for completing quests and defeating tougher enemies with friends and such. Sometimes there is a delay for waiting for room on a server since the game is still pretty new and not all the servers are set up yet, but it’s not that bad of a delay. If you’ve played any other type of MMO, you’ll feel right at home in this galaxy far, far away.

Innovations:
While the general MMO format has been duplicated countless times since the success of World of Warcraft, none has ever been a serious contender for being a new and successful MMO. However, Star Wars has the potential to be the next great MMO. It takes what has made MMOs successful, and tweaks those elements to match with Star Wars, such as companions you can have conversations with, and customizable star ships. The full voice acting for missions also makes it pretty innovative and fresh as well.

Conclusion:
Star Wars the Old Republic is an excellent MMO for any PC gamer. Since World of Warcraft is a little outdated by now in terms of graphics, Star Wars has a much more “new” and “fresh” feel to it. If you haven’t played an MMO before and are looking to get started, I’d highly recommend getting Star Wars. Even if you’re a current World of Warcraft player and curious about Star Wars, I think you’ll be surprised with what kind of fun this game packs. This game will last for hours upon hours, it’s almost an endless amount of fun, especially if they release expansion packs down the road. The galaxy is a vast and wondrous place, and Star War the Old Republic makes it an unforgettable adventure.