Game of the Week [07/03/03]: Star Wars Galaxies

Bazda wahota shag. Una notu wo shag, me wompity du pom pom. Sleemo. And other industry news.

(GamePro's Game of the Week is our informative review of what's going on with the game business?every week features an in-depth look at the top game of the past five days and a healthy bit of editorial analysis on the latest news and rumors shaping the industry.

The game marketplace is an ambiguous, constantly shifting creature. Read GOTW every Friday to catch up on what's happening with it. You'll come out of it a much smarter gamer.

Due to the Fourth of July holiday, GOTW is going up on Thursday this week. Enjoy the long weekend, eh?)

In a world of me-too online role-playing games comes one more online role-playing game--this time based on a film series that lately hasn't quite lived up to its formerly legendary status, even among its own fans. What could a Star Wars MMORPG possibly add to the industry as a whole?

Quite a bit, it turns out.


Has it really been over two years since the first Star Wars Galaxies screenshots were released?
This Game of the Week this time around works hard to earn the title, doing everything from putting the respect back into the Star Wars license to reinventing the way MMORPGs are played. Instead of being just another EverQuest-in-disguise game (which would have been perfectly forgivable, since SWG comes from the makers of EQ), Galaxies bothers to innovate in tons of different ways, refusing to simply coast on the Star Wars name. It's just the kind of quality-and-license synergy that the industry could use more of--if all other licensed games turned out this good, there'd be little hope for non-licensed properties at all.

What makes Galaxies so good? Well, it's... different. Instead of making you play the game the way the developers want you to, Galaxies lets you choose from handfuls of professions and tons of skills to customize your character whichever way you want. Want a dancer who's a master of fisticuffs and can harvest bone (hur hur hur) in between baking batches of Bofa treats? Fine, go for it--the game wants you to be that crazy. It's also set up to be easy to learn and to play, with lovingly-crafted tutorials and in-game incentives for veterans to help out newbies. Then, of course, there's the Star Wars thing, which is awesome without end, and, well, the game is gorgeous and sounds great, too.

While every MMORPG that comes out has a hook--a single thing that makes it different from other games of its type--Galaxies is almost as much of an improvement over EverQuest as EQ was over Ultima Online. If that's not worthy of a Game of the Week, what is?

Oh, and the blurb on the front page? It's Huttese... Sleemo.

Take me to the Star Wars Galaxies review
Take me to the Star Wars Galaxies Starters Guide

This Week's Top News

Fire International Encourages SOCOM Cheaters (7/2)


If SOCOM online play is to be believed, today's modern U.S. soldier can score 3000 kills per mission and shoot with sniper precision while falling off a sheer cliff face.
It's obvious that Sony Computer Entertainment and developer Zipper Interactive didn't expect SOCOM to become the million-selling hit it's since proved itself to be. How else can it be explained why the PS2's first massively popular online title is also among the most naive games ever coded? SOCOM's programming assumes that nobody will ever even think about hacking the game up with exploits... otherwise Fire's GameShark codes couldn't have worked.

For example, most sane online games these days take a very suspicious approach to its players. Most vital character information (life, inventory, and so on) is stored on the game's internal servers, rendering it relatively impervious to illegal alteration. SOCOM, on the other hand, apparently trusts players enough to let the client program (i.e. your PS2) keep track of how much ammo you have. That's why Fire International could come up with an infinite-ammo code that worked online.

The same criticisms could be made for the rest of SOCOM's program. There's a code that removes the recoil on your gun... but why does the SOCOM game let the client program determine whether a gun recoils or not? There's a more complicated hack out there that lets you see opposing players through walls... but why on earth is this information transferred to the client in the first place? Why does the client need to know the enemy's exact position if we're separated from them by a wall?

You could chide Fire for making all these cheat codes public, but if the demand's there, then the supply has to follow. You can also wonder about the sanity of gamers willing to pay for SOCOM, a headset, a network adapter, and an Internet account just so they can ruin online gaming for others, but it'll still happen regardless?there's no law out there saying you can't be a moron, after all.

Most importantly, though, you can reasonably fault SCE and Zipper for not being prepared for this in the first place. Thanks to codes like these, online play on SOCOM just isn't as fun anymore?even in 100-percent fair matchups, the first thing you hear after a victory are verbal accusations that you're cheating. You can't win. Zipper has announced that they'll deal with this in SOCOM 2?implementing anti-cheat technology, resolving to fix new exploits as they appear, including anti-cheating educational literature within the game itself?and I look forward to seeing how well it works. There's only so much you can expect from a free online service, I suppose... but a game where you don't have to constantly worry about code freaks is the least you'd want, right?

Okamoto Opens New Company (7/1)


Yoshiki Okamoto is taking it slow with his new dev studio.
A couple of excepts from the diary Yoshiki Okamoto keeps on the homepage of his brand-new independent game development company:

"I've only opened up this site today, but I've already received so many applications that it's enough to bring on tears of happiness. I was seriously worried for a while that I'd lose all of my coolness factor if the employee count remained at 1 forever. Thanks to all of you, I've been able to restore my confidence a little bit. To tell the truth, I lost my wallet while I was on the Shinkansen [train] this morning. It got back to me immediately, but I'll let you imagine what happened to the cash inside... June 1st featured a little bit of sadness and a great deal of happiness.

I spent today conducting interviews with several applicants. I'm sorry if you mailed me and I haven't scheduled an interview with you yet...I'm doing this all by myself, so it takes up a lot of time. I guess I should've hired a human-resources person first."

Although it's a shame to hear his new company's in the red after one day of operation, it's wonderful to see Okamoto so busy with creating his software-development outfit... even if it doesn't officially have a name yet.

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