I completely forgot about this game until seeing this article, stating that it has 1 million users only 1 week after launch!
Trying it out now. The 1 million users are receiving Golden Mouse Droids this weekend. It's free to play. Competes right now for my thoughts with Lord of the Rings Online, also free to play, and Knights of the Old Republic, 2003 award winning RPG from Bioware, which is almost free to play at $2.99 on Steam!
Very quick registration and avatar picking...
Takes 35 MB to download the SOE installer - I assume this is the same installer used for Free Realms...
Nice - goes directly into opening cutscene, which popped up when I was doing something else in the background.
I am welcomed directly by YODA!
To a briefing with Mace Windu, Anakin, etc. I am a Padawan Learner!
They need my help in the fight. There is much to learn, etc etc.
At one point the pace of the conversation slows a LOT when Mace Windu starts talking about earning credits...
and buying stuff... in the store...
Mace Windu looks at me meaningfully as he says this.
Finally, call to play "take this lightsaber, it's yours now!"
A real lightsaber of my very own. Wow, in KOTOR I could not get this right away.
Then I transition to the game lounge. I expected to see a character beckoning me to click on them, but I feel kind of lost.
It turns out that you can launch mini-games by walking around the ship and launching them, but it's a lot easier to just click on the Games button in the HUD and choose one.
Similar to the currently available version of Free Realms, except there is some exploration in Free Realms. There's no real narrative progression, or "quests" which I think is because of what they found out when they did the first Free Realms.
Very well done art and theme, voice acting, sound effects all hit the quality bar!
In each mini-game, you play through a series of levels, sometimes against other characters. In many of them, the medium and hard levels are only open to Jedi Members (those who have paid for monthly membership with Station Cash or hard $).
I played the below - all pretty standard fare where it comes to mini games, but thematically making sense:
- lightsaber battle - level 1 is Obi Wan, you must hit arrow keys quickly in the right sequence. I beat Obi Wan but 2nd level was against Anakin's Padawan learner, and I blame the computer speed as I tried twice but couldn't beat her fast enough.
- typing game - type the right letters as they fall down the screen, boss fight is words (this was obviously too easy at easy level, which was the only level I could play without becoming a Jedi)
- star speeder - flying forward on rails, steering and shooting at enemy ships
- blaster training - shooting range - droids pop up and you shoot them.
I guess I wish that it had more of a narrative pull to link the games together.
If I earn X credits, do I get rewarded again by Yoda and the Jedi Council who welcomed me?
Is there the semblance of a metastructure?
Here are links about Clone Wars.
* Gamasutra article about Clone Wars
* Interview with Producer Todd Carson of Clone Wars (Todd's presentation is super excited!)
* Laralyn McWilliams interview on MMOgamer at the Launch of Free Realms
" It’s just been really fascinating for us as a team to watch and really exciting because for a long while we were the sort of little game nobody had heard of.
We were SOE’s small project, and so it’s really great for us to finally get it done and get it out in front of players and then have players enjoy it as much as they are."
" While right now casual games are on the upswing, they’re going to hit a certain peak and stay at that peak, and the people are going to say, you know, “I want something deeper.”
