Welcome back to another edition of the RPG Files! Each week we take a look at the latest and greatest in the world of roleplaying games and deliver it fresh with a side of commentary and more than a little snark. This week we’re taking cues MMO part of our site with the news that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be releasing a Revan-centric expansion, a character last seen in Knights of the Old Republic. Will we ever see a KOTOR 3? That and the news of the week in this week’s breakdown!
I know I’m not alone when I say that the original Knights of the Old Republic is one of my favorite RPGs of all time. To me, KOTOR always felt like the truest representation of Star Wars that video games have ever offered. I went so far as to price out an iPad when the game went mobile, but then slapped myself for getting so mired in my own good memories. Ask my wife, nostalgia’s fine, except when you’re shelling out hundreds of dollars for it.
I was more than a little excited to hear Bioware trot out The Old Republic as a KOTORs 3-9 “literally” rolled into one. Knights of the Old Republic was a high point in Bioware’s storytelling career and its combat system a milestone in my own gaming history. The only people who don’t remember the game fondly are Star Wars haters and bandwagon buckers, people who should never have picked up this RPG in the first place.
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… Maybe that’s a little harsh. Sorry about that. But you get where I’m coming from, right? This is a classic game and the people who love it do so dearly.
Which makes it all the more terrible that The Old Republic wasn’t just not KOTORs 3-9, but that it single-handedly lowered the bar on everything single-player fans came to love about the franchise. As an MMO, it’s not bad, but as a KOTOR game, it’s atrocious. It is generic, repetitive, shallowly written in all but a handful of quests, and strategic combat made way for flashy fireworks of class abilities. Also, someone, SOMEONE please tell Bioware that those character models should never kiss. It’s like two mannequin mashing into each other with a wink-wink-nod-nod about what comes next. Hint: it’s the same thing kids have done with Barbie and Ken and probably looks pretty damn similar.
So it disappoints me that SWTOR’s next expansion will bring back Revan in a major way. I know he existed in the game and the literature. But, well, somehow this feels like an acknowledgement that KOTOR 3 just isn’t coming. We have it. Like they told us. It’s called The Old Republic and they’re not afraid to pull out the big guns to show us just how dedicated they are to this concept.
But it’s not surprising. The MMO has absorbed the games that inspired it. The sheer cost to develop the bloated cash cow that is any MMORPG forces studios to shift their priorities, keep the MMO earning, recouping development costs and earning profit year after year, far after a single-player RPG would have fallen from the spotlight. Only after the MMO has died can the single-player game resurface, once the risk of outshining or cannibalizing the other has disappeared.
That’s why we won’t see a KOTOR 3. It’s why we haven’t seen a new Warcraft game since the launch of World of Warcraft. There is no near future in cases like this, only the far away. So let’s hop on the bandwagon for a good expansion for SWTOR, shall we? Something, in this case, is certainly better than nothing. Or worse, pining on message boards like jilted lovers.
Quick Hits:
If you’re as excited to dive back into the Dragon Age universe as I am, you won’t want to miss this chance to pick up the first game for free. As part of EA Origin’s “On the House” program, for a limited time, all you have to do is claim your copy of Dragon Age: Origins to own it forever. Don’t miss out!
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Destiny has begun its Iron Banner event, featuring an emphasis on objective-based play on a limited amount of maps. Bungie has enabled attack and defense ratings for these battles, so players lower on the gear curve were intended to be fodder for the war machine. Except, well, it didn’t happen like that and there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between new players and post-20s. Bungie, inviting players to whip out their e-peens and then chopping them off since 2014.
Final Fantasy 13 released on PC and the port is as underwhelming as the game itself. No, really. The Steam forums pretty much tell the tale. Locked to 720p? Extremely limited graphics options? Ultra-compressed cutscenes? How about this: force-closing the game simply by tapping escape? All of those are things. And lest you think I’m being hard on the game simply because I wasn’t a fan, bear this in mind: laziness begets laziness. We should all be upset by bad ports, whether we love the game or not.
And finally, The Crew has been delayed to December 2nd. I wouldn’t worry though. This seems more like a sales move than anything regarding the game itself.
