Star Wars: The Old Republic does a lot of things right. While its obvious that the team behind The Old Republic are firm adherents to the school of Blizzard, the overarching stories that carry through the game are immense and exactly what you would expect from the people behind Knights of the Old Republic. All that praise aside, there are still some pretty obvious things missing from the game which would really tie the game into the larger Star Wars Universe.
A T-16 Skyhopper Bullseye the Womp Rats Mission
One of the best parts of Rogue Squadron II was the mission objective where you actually trained to destroy the Death Star by shooting womp rats on Tattooine. While there are womp rats in SWTOR, the only way to kill them is via mundane attacks.
The Sarlacc and the Ten Thousand Year Experience Grind
A common complaint about MMOs is grinding to gain experience. Not a lot of people realize it, but Boba Fett was the first person to suffer this fate.
Sabacc Sabacc is the one part of Star Wars lore that hasn’t been reproduced as some sort of licensing monstrosity. While plenty of people have produced open-source or web-based versions, there has never been anything resembling an official release of Sabacc. Sitting firmly somewhere between hold em’ poker and blackjack, it’s a pretty fun gambling game that could add a depth to the world that is missing.
H. Jon Benjamin as a Random Alien
While walking around the world of SWTOR you occasionally hear bits of random conversation. Were some of these conversations being held by H. Jon Benjamin the game would be infinitely better.
Richard Pryor as a Cantina Barkeep
Richard Pryor and drunk aliens. I don’t know what is more awesome than that.
Pizza the Hutt
You deal with a lot of Hutts in The Old Republic and a disturbing number of them wear silly hats. Not one of them is made of delicious, delicious pizza.
Bill Murrays Lounge Singer
I hate to come back to Cantinas, but they play a pretty huge part in the game. Adding this classic cover of the Star Wars theme would be a huge improvement over the Meco-inspired music that seems to be popular across the Old Republic.
The Tardis
He’s in an MMO now. MMOs are cool.
A Mission to Retroactively Destroy an NPCs childhood
When it comes to dominant themes in the Star Wars universe, there are few more globally recognized as a failure to leave well enough alone.
A storyline featuring a Seafaring Ancestor of George R. Binks
Tony Millionaire is the sole reason I can tolerate Jar Jar Binks at all. Because this comic short appeared in an official Star Wars comic, the woeful tale of George R. Binks is actually legitimately part of Star Wars canon. The fact that Jar Jar Binks’ stupidity drove his own father to attempt suicide warms the cockles of my heart.
The popular Tropico series is poised to blast into the future with a major DLC update called Modern Times coming in mid-March. The Tropico titles have always done an amazing job of using the city-building genre as a vehicle to highlight the silliness of despotism and regimes built on a cult of personality. Kalypso Media invited us out to take a look at the upcoming add-on and from what I saw, Im suitably impressed.
As dictators in the real world continued to up the ante with nuclear weapons, religious cults, and ever exuberant lifestyles, the world of Tropico stuck with the tried and true 1950s banana republic theme to great effect. But alas, all good things must come to an end and El Presidente must also step into the future and embrace technology, science, and nukes to maintain his vice-like grip on his picturesque island home.
In Modern Times, many of the classic building styles from the original Tropico 4 have been updated to more modern versions with added features to improve efficiency. Old buildings arent automatically upgraded, but instead are replaced in the build interface with the new versions. This allows for variety across the island and is one of the first times Ive seen generational change on display in a city building game implemented in such a detailed manner. In line with the El Presidente persona, players could leave sections of their islands slums full of potential workers while building sparkling new financial or resort sections of the island to lure in tourists and foreign dignitaries.
Along with the minor visual and functional upgrades to the existing buildings, entire new buildings are now available to fully bring the dictatorship into the 21st century. Telecommunications headquarters and national space programs add new management options to let the player decide just how oppressive their regime will be. You could use your electronics production facility to counterfeit goods, your space program to broadcast your propaganda to a world audience, or your state sponsored church to preach your place as the voice of God on Earth. Conversely, you could choose to help the planet with technological advancements, purchase health care for all your citizens, and educate your entire populace. With thirty new or upgraded buildings available, the type of dictator you are is entirely up to you.
Modern Times is also set to add twelve scenario missions and ten new edicts. Scenarios like combating the threat of a global shadow government will test your ability to govern the future of Tropico while maintaining your vice-like grip on the populace. Edicts will allow you to control your citizens via Internet censorship, the establishment of a police state, or by lulling them into complacency by declaring a Festival of Love.
Overall the updates, contained within the Modern Times add-on, do more than add a fresh coat of paint to the tropical scenery. Upgrades and new content add play time and refresh the game in a way that is uncommon in the world of downloadable content. It is easy to think of Modern Times as Tropico 4.5 rather than just a standard DLC. Though the Cold War has ended, the rule of El Presidente marches on!
My life is full of background ambiance. A night of drawing requires queuing up a few much loved movies for moments of distractions. Cooking requires background tunes to fit the meal of choice (Motown is great for pasta by the way). Background chatter at a bar or restaurant sets the mood for the whole night. But background gaming? Up until this point I hadn’t even considered the thought of using the highly interactive medium to bring a little hands-off atmosphere to my life.
It may sound damning to a game, but Pugs Luv Beats is a great piece of background gaming. The rhythm and beats based game features adorable little pugs that run around the landscape activating little happy heart radishes. Each step the pugs take and each heart radish they collect make a different sound. But this isn’t Elite Beats Agents or Groove Coaster with their extreme reliance on rythmn and timing to advance through the game. Instead, Pugs Luv Beats is more of a simplified Real Time Strategy game that happens to have some great beats to it.
With Pugs Luv Beats I found myself plotting the path of my pugs and then setting my iphone down and just letting the little guys stockpile their happy radish points while I went about other business. I brushed my teeth while pugs with little hats made zig zag patterns. I got dressed in time to cute pugs with unlockable rock skin exploring the landscape. I walked to work while the pugs in my pocket made my stride a little bouncier.
And when I came back to the game I would derive extreme joy from making two master pugs sing up and down the music scale with a drag of my finger. Gaming can be many many things, from thrilling to relaxing, all absorbing to anger inducing. Now I can happily add atmosphere filling perfunctory background gaming to the mix.
