A Plague Upon Your Houses!!!!: A review of the Jedi Consular Story part 8

So your new Jedi has been travelling the galaxy trying to stop a mysterious plague that's affecting various Jedi Masters, pulling them under the thrall of a Lord Vivicar. Each time you're confronted with a possessed Master, you have the option of either killing them or using an obscure healing technique learned on Coruscant to save them (I've been killing them).

Once you've completed the class quests on Alderaan, Taris, Tatooine and Nar Shaddaa, Master Syo Bakarn summons you to the Jedi home-world of Tython.  Things are bad. More Masters are being affected by the plague. You tell the council What you've pieced together so far:  all of the Masters initially affected were all stationed once on the planet Malachor 3 and the name Parkanus comes up a lot. As it turns out, the Masters who wound up on Malachor 3, stumbled upon the apparition of a dead sith and had to leave one their own behind i.e.,  Parkanus.  The poor guy was possessed by said Sith Lord and resurfaced recently with this plague as Lord Vivicar.  Yuan volunteers to try and contact Lord Vivicar telepathically even though that might make her vulnerable to the plague again. It does, Vivicar possesses her and you fight. At the end of the confrontation, you have the option of killing her or  using the healing technique on her.  Since I played my Consular dark-side, I killed her.

All is not lost however. Yuon was able to give us a location and so off we go to Lord Vivicar's ship.  The confrontation with him is the same as with all of the bosses so far but with an extra fight or two. The dialogue is either about vowing to put him down (dark-side) or offering him redemption (light-side). I frelling killed him. Unfortunately that meant that a lot of the Jedi Masters he had infected in the meantime died with him. You even get an e-mail from the Council with a list of all of these dead Jedi.

Having played this Darkside, I was disappointed that there were no consequences to having fallen. I mean it's not even a subtle thing. My dark-side Jedi was ruthless, cold, vengeful and without compassion. It's not like he saved the day either: a whole bunch of Jedi Masters have died not the mention the five my character killed for the crime of getting preyed upon by Vivicar. The most that comes of this obvious slide down the slippery slope is Grand-master Satelle Shan throwing some shade about 'your methods'.

Here's the thing: I appreciate what Bioware tried to do with the Consular in Chapter1 but it didn't work for me. It seems that the story was supposed to be reminiscent of KOTOR II. The Malachor system and  the search for Jedi Masters are obvious references to the darker story-line of the KOTOR II. One broad similarity between KOTOR II and the Jedi Consular story as a whole is the feeling of being behind the scenes. The events of the former game were taking place inside of a secret history that few people in the era of the Old Republic are even aware of.

Your consular, however you choose to play him or her, is dealing with issues that are not public knowledge, unlike the Jedi Knight who is more front and center in Galactic events. This crisis of Jedi Masters going crazy is, on the surface, perfect for that kind of story. But SWTOR and KOTOR II are completely different contexts for such similar events. In the case of the latter, the Jedi were almost extinct, the atmosphere was bleak and the story took place on the margins of Republic space. SWTOR features a more powerful Republic with a strong Jedi Order, evenly matched with The Empire and its Sith.

Here's an idea: if Bioware wanted to reference KTOTOR II in the first chapter of the Jedi Consular adventure, then why not do so more explicitly. Instead of all this nonsense about LordVivicar, why not have a character from  KOTOR II be the villain? Say, someone who could conceivably live on as a Force Ghost?

I sincerely hope that they at least tried to include Kreia but just couldn't swing it for whatever reason. Because this version of the story writes itself.  Kreia was a historian and a keeper of secrets. She discovered the Sith Academy in the Malachor system. She was a Consular, epitomizing the concept SWTOR described for the class.  She hated (and I mean hated) the Force and almost succeeded in making it inaccessible to Sith and Jedi alike. Attempting to do so again through the Consular in SWTOR would have been more interesting than the plague. What if she had possessed Master Yuan in an attempt to find the perfect apprentice? The best thing about her was her perspective on Galactic history, what might she make of what's happening in the 'present tense'? Didn't she foretell the Sith Empire returning? God help me, I might write a fan fiction myself just to prove how awesome it might have been.

Until then I have Chapter 2 to review. While I have been somewhat critical of Chapter 1, things improve quite nicely from here on out.  Stay tuned!!!

My Sincerest Condolences.... A Review of the Jedi Consular Story Part 7:

We're getting close to the end of chapter 1! Our Jedi fixer is basically tracking down and killing mentally ill Jedi Masters because he's fallen to the dark side and the Council's pretending that they haven't noticed. Your main quest-giver, Syo Bakarn has sent you, your sidekicks and your hot, hot spaceship off to the planet of Alderaan.

Yeah, that Alderaan.

I was always curious about what Alderaan was really like. All we ever see of the planet in the original trilogy is a pretty epic explosion. Thus, Bioware had a lot of freedom in creating Alderaan however they wished. What we get is fairly interesting:

• Alderaan is neutral: This world left the Republic when the war broke out. Both the Republic and the Empire are trying to coax Alderaan to their respective sides
• Alderaan has intrigue: Caught up in a civil war, the various noble houses who rule this planet are all plotting against each other. 
• Alderaan has mountains:  The designers decided to go with a high altitude theme. It works with the courtly/feudal/fairy-tale motif with all these pretty people living in pretty castles on sugar-coated mountain-tops.  It's a ski resort, basically. Planet Whistler. 

The planet quest is about helping the Republic back their favourite team, the Organas, in their bid for the throne. You basically do everything for them that they cannot do for themselves and get them closer to winning their civil war. This one involves helping them in heir fight against House Thul (backed by the Empire) and House Ulgo (a wildcard who cause problems for both the Organas and the Thuls). Another factor in this world's situation is it's indigenous species, the Killicks described wryly by one NPC as genoshians "with more leg".

I have to say while I liked Alderaan, I didn't like the Alderaanians. I felt like I was dealing with a bunch of self-absorbed, good-looking aristocrats who were kind of getting off on their own drama. On other worlds, there was a sense that choosing one side or another of  the Galactic conflict might have consequences. Here, the various nobles are thinking locally and being oblivious globally.  There's also the awkwardness of knowing this sorry planet's future.  I mean, Tatooine is more or less the same now as it will be millennia later when Luke Skywalker comes of age. But we all know that that same year, poor Leia Organa will watch helplessly as Alderaan goes BOOM!  It adds a level of hopelessness to all the work you're doing here.

But you're not just here to interfere in local politics. There's a crazy Jedi Master to cut down! She's a sort of diplomat who's organizing a summit of the various Alderaanian houses. Unlike the other afflicted Masters, this one's doing a better job of covering up just how off-track she is.  You spend most of your time on Alderaan trying to get into the summit. Each house can only send one representative to this exclusive event. Your target is already representing Organa so you have to help a small-time noble house rise to enough prominence to be invited to the summit and then represent them yourself. Then you can kill her (Dark side) or heal her (Light side).

We're getting close to the end of the Jedi Consular's last chapter. In addition to wrapping up the plot, my next post in this series will include a review of the Chapter 1 story-line as a whole.

Sand, Sun and... um, yeah. A Review of the Jedi Consular Story: Part 6

We are now half-way through the first chapter of the Jedi Consular's class story. Your Jedi is travelling through the galaxy in his or her flash spaceship with a growing crew of companions on a daring mission to ... do something with various crazy Jedi Masters. The latest stop on this odyssey is quite possibly the most iconic world in the entire Star Wars Universe. In Knights of the Old Republic, Tatooine was extremely well-realized, rendered beautifully in all of its arid, blinding desolation.  Now SWTOR  has revisited the game and given us a more detailed, larger and richer version of the same. If you don't have a speeder, now really is the time to get one because Tatooine is huge. Actually, I got mine by Taris  because that was huge too.

The main planet mission for Tatooine is one of my favourites. It has a great plot, memorable and likeable characters and nice continuity with KOTOR.  Soon after  you leave the spaceport you are contacted by a mysterious man who refuses to give details until you meet with him. Soon you find yourself drafted by Republic Intelligence to track down a secret installation left behind by the Czerka corporation.  You run around trying to stay one step ahead of a really creepy Czerka executive eventually finding something left behind by the Rakata Infinite Empire!

I really liked Czerka in the KOTOR games. They weren't quite Weyland-Yutani or Cyberdyne, but as evil corporations go, they're quite fun.  Also making a welcome appearance are the Rakata. I liked their incorporation into the Star Wars Universe through KOTOR.  I really dig the notion that the Infinite Empire had the Force figured out long before the Jedi and the Sith ever came along.

The class mission involves tracking down a sort of Jedi anthropologist who's been living amongst the Sand People. As a result of this mysterious plague, he's gone a little nuts and is trying to create an army out them. He basically wants to model the Republic on his notion of who the Sand People are. Your main contact here is a likeable character named Rowan who used to work with the Jedi you're looking for. He's almost companion material. The idea of the anthropologist 'going native' is fairly cool and there are shades of  Heart of Darkness in this part of the class story-line. I do feel that the planet mission about Czerka overshadows the class mission somewhat.

Once you're done here, it's time to visit a certain doomed world.

Damsel? Yes. Distressed? No. A review of the Consular Story Part 5.5

Between Planet Sexy and Tunisia, we get a bit of a detour. You receive a distress call from a Republic vessel named the Carida. It has been commandeered and its crew terrorized  by one of its passengers: a fairly powerful padawan. There's a lot of airlock action here, the crazy padawan blows a poor engineer out into space for kicks. Then she blows herself out of the airlock!

Notable in this mission is your first encounter with Lord Vivicar. The name has come up here and there as the entity behind the plague. His end of the conversation amounts to standard villain dialogue where he shows contempt for you and the Jedi, taunts you about Master Yuon and rants that you'll never stop his dastardly plan.

Playing it Darkside, he does point out that you haven't been using the shielding technique on the afflicted Masters you've found so far. At this point you can respond with something defensive about how you had no choice but to kill the poor buggers.  Like I said before, the Darkside Consular is all about justifying their awfulness. This stems from a sense of superiority to everyone else because no one else is in a position to know what's best!

But as for the very pertinent question that Vivicar asks (abut how you've obviously fallen), that's the only time anyone actually asks about Darkside choices! The main villain of  Chapter 1 has more to say about your transgressions than the Jedi Council! I'll get to this issue in more detail when I reach the end of chapter 1. Until then, it's off to the mother of all dust bowls...

It's off to Planet Sexy! A review of the Jedi Consular Story Part 5

Nar Shaddaa is one of the more memorable worlds of Star Wars' expanded universe. Deliciously Noir, the environment combines bright neon colours with dark shadowy  depths. That juxtaposition of the fun exciting nightlife with sinister sleaze makes Nar Shadda stand out from most other planets you'll see in the Old Republic.

Neither Republic nor Imperial, the "smugglers' moon" is controlled by the Hutts. That's right, the same species that gave us Jabba the Hutt in the movies. I guess there's a certain amount of hand-waving here as to the basis of their power and I'm sure there's some obscure bit of lore somewhere explaining it all away that's not even cannon. For the purposes of SWTOR, we're going to just go with the Hutt Cartel being a neutral power in the cold war between the Republic and the Empire.

The significance of Nar Shaddaa in story terms for the consular is that you meet your second companion character!  Tharan Cedrax is a flirtatious scientist with an almost too healthy self-esteem. He's actually an old friend of your quest-giver, Mater Syo Bakarn.  In game terms, Tharan is a healing companion with some ranged damage and crowd control ability (in the form of his holographic girlfriend Holiday dancing in front of a target to stun it). Unlike Qyzen Fess, he doesn't need subtitles.  Despite his associations with the Jedi, he's just not that into the Force. He loves knowledge for its own sake even if it's ethically so-so and he's not self-conscious about  avoiding danger.  Your character has a lot of options when it comes to dealing with Tharan as part of your crew. I certainly enjoying having him tag along.

The Jedi Master you're looking for is  messing with Nar Shaddaa's status quo. He's formed a gang out of a variety of misfits, controlling their minds through the Force. You need to stop what he's doing because if the Hutts get wind of the gang's ties to the Jedi, they might ally with the Empire. Luckily your new friend Tharan can help you out with his inventions.  One personal highlight for me is when you have to go into a section of the moon controlled by the Empire. You have to impersonate a Sith Lord. Nolan North does a great job with the Sith 'accent'. If you're playing Dark side like I did, the scene provides some pleasant irony for your fallen Jedi!

Again, I played this Dark side so instead of using the healing ritual I just killed the Jedi Master. It's sort of justified by how dangerous he was and how he could easily have upset the Galactic balance of power in the Empire's favour.

Now that we're done with Planet Sexy, it's off to Tunisia... I mean, Tatooine.

We'll always have Taris: A Review of the Jedi Consular Story Part 4

Of all the planets announced for Star Wars: The Old Republic, the one I was most intrigued by was Taris. Just like Tython is the starter planet for the Jedi Consular in SWTOR, so it Taris the first world featured in Knights of the Old Republic. As I mentioned at the end of my post on Coruscant, Taris was bombarded in KOTOR. Literally, as soon as you're done with Taris: BOOM!  It's a nice callback to what happened (sorry, what will happen) to poor Alderan. The difference is that Taris was left intact. Blasted within an inch of its life, but intact all the same. SWTOR allows us to revisit this broken world and reconnect with the beginning of it all.

There seems to be something a little despondent about the Republic side so far. Tython is a cocoon for the Jedi Order, still traumatized at having their asses kicked by the Sith. Coruscant is being held together by duck-tape. And now we get to tour a former megalopolis whose swampy ruins are crawling with zombies! Yay!

As morose as post-bombardment Taris is,  the main tenor of the planet missions is hopeful. The Republic is trying to reestablish itself there. From scientists risking their lives for research, to settlers trying to eek out a living, most of the quests you'll pick up revolve around the challenges of salvaging something out of the wreckage.  One thing I will say against Taris: I got sick of the Rakghouls (Tarisian zombies) pretty quickly which, I suppose, is the point.

The highlight of the planetary missions on Taris is the opportunity to explore the Endar Spire!!!! It's where the whole "...of the Old Republic" franchise began. The mission itself involves rescuing the survivors of a reconaissance team sent by the Republic to gather data from the crashed ship. You mainly have to contend with mercenaries (oddly enough, you don't run into a lot of Imperials on Taris). It truly was a treat to explore the interiors of the doomed vessel.

Another KOTOR moment comes from the Rakghoul story-line from the original game. You help a group of refugees in the lower levels find their way to a mythical promised land. Well, now you have a chance to see what happened to those poor souls and their descendants. It's... um, sad too.

The class mission is to search for a Jedi Master who has very suddenly become erratic and dangerous, just like Master Yuan.  One of your first interactions is with his Padawan and it's somewhat amusing how just an hour's game-play ago, you were also a Padawan and now your character is talking like they've been a full Jedi forever!

You basically chase this guy around the planet and when you've finally defeated him, you have a choice: you can either use the cure to relieve his madness for Light-side points, or you can kill him to slide further down the slippery slope of Darkness. I, of course, chose the slippery slope. Once you've debriefed with Master Syo Bakar, it's off to Narshaddaa, a.k.a Planet Sexy. Woo-hoo!!

Little red Corvette: A Review of the Jedi Consular Story part 3.5

So by level 16 or so, you've got your lightsaber. You've got a henchman in Qyzen Fess. You even have the title of a full Jedi with the confidence of the Jedi Council. But something's missing. There's just one more thing that  will make you really feel like an agent of change in this crap-sack galaxy.

The Defender-class light corvette is just that thing.

Playing Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel The Sith Lords, the most important location, as essential to the story as any planet you visited, was the ship. The Ebon Hawk  was where a great of of character interaction took place. It was the anchor, the thread which tied everything else together. In SWTOR, the ship your character acquires serves much the same purpose. It's your home, base of operations and, past a certain point, the only place where you can  initiate conversations with your companion characters.

The Defender-class is a beautiful place to live. Bigger than the Ebon Hwak and much more comfortable. Brightly lit with high ceilings and a warm colour palate, it suits the Jedi perfectly. It also comes with a droid who's programmed to crawl up your ass as soon as you step on board. Qyzen parks himself in the engine room. Each companion you pick up along the way will find claim their own spot on the ship. Once you've settled in, it's time to begin Chapter 1. The first of the ill Jedi Masters you need to rescue is on Taris. Now, why does that planet sound familiar?

(Very) Big City Blues: A Review of the Jedi Consular Story Part 3

In the Old Republic, your experience begins the same way: an origin planet followed by an intermediate stage on the Capital of your respective faction. In our case it's Coruscant, everyone's favourite ecumenopolis. Everyone get your sad face ready for why the Republic's Capital is such a sad, sad place.

The glittering jewel of Coruscant has more than a few cracks as a result of the Sith beat-down they got a decade or so earlier. The damage done runs so deep that they're still recovering.Your character has the option of expressing surprise at how the devastation  lingers. Generally (and this goes for all classes) this is your character's first time visiting the Capital world.  The planet missions are all built around the attempt to rebuild those sections of Coruscant that have the most difficulty recovering. These lower levels are full of marginalized refugees, vigilante fiefdoms and criminal opportunists. It's actually quite compelling and I felt some satisfaction whenever my character could help out.  Alignment choices here seem to be about prioritizing. A Dark Side choice is likely to be about privileging the bigger picture at the expense of the vulnerable person suffering in front of you.  For my Consular, the ends definitely justified the means.

Coruscant itself is unfathomably huge, tall, deep and endless. The areas that you are able to explore feel like the tip of the tip of an iceberg. The time of day whenever you're on Coruscant is a lovely golden afternoon  in contrast to Tython's  permanent cool morning. The senate tower is suitably majestic and the lower levels suitably decrepit.

The class mission for Coruscant is very simple: SAVE MASTER YUON!!!! You see, poor Yuon scarcely announced you a fully-fledged Jedi before dramatically collapsing (in a very cinematic first person viewpoint with shifting focus and fade-to-black...). Master Syo Bakarn  has had her shipped off to Coruscant to be treated for... whatever is wrong with her. Your first undertaking as a newly-minted Jedi is to help find out what that is and do whatever be necessary to help cure her.

The knowledge you need exists in the form of three noetikons. These are basically AI's designed to fascilitate research in the Jedi Archives. Each appears to take on the persona of three ancient Jedi Masters (in the form of holograms) to facilitate interaction with whomever is using them. Unfortunately for you, the destruction of the Jedi Temple entailed the destruction of the Jedi Archives or, at least, the structures housing them. The noetikons have been scattered as a result. I really like the noetikons and finding each one yielded a cool scene of your character interacting with them. It's a good callback to the teaching holocrons that you collected back on Tython.  Also a few characters from KOTOR make cameos as noetikon holograms.  Anytime familiar names and faces from the KOTOR games show up I'm a happy gamer.

The scenes with Yuon herself are effective mainly because she's familiar to us from Tyhon. Her deterioration is quite sad if a bit cliché. Once she's been cured you have an audience with the Jedi Council who inform you that several other Jedi Masters have been afflicted with the same madness. I don't know why, I'm not sure what exactly they expect you to do about it...

  

First Thing's First: A Review of the Jedi Consular Story Part 2.5

First thing's first:

There's a bit of an interlude before you get to Coruscant. The shuttle the leaves Tython to take you to Coruscant but you don't actually go there just yet. You wind up at Carrick station where you'lll be spending a lot of time.

You're a fully fledged Jedi now. That means you've reached 10th level and have to choose an advanced class.  The Sage is defined by two capabilities: Healing/Protection and Ranged damage dealing. The Shadow's two things are stealth and the double-bladed lightsaber. Both versions of the consular have some degree of crowd control.

Your choice depends on which play style fits your idea of the Consular. I find that all these specializations work nicely as forms of esoterica for a Jedi: masking yourself with the Force, fighting with a spinning saberstaff,  blasts of kinetic energy or healing trances.

The are a couple of missions here that are more tutorial in nature. You also have the opportunity to do the Esseles, the very first Flashpoint (SWTOR's terms for a group mission). Aside form giving you more social points than any other Flashpoint, the Esseles allows a nice way to step out of your individual story  and get a glimpse of larger Galactic matters.

Of the NPCs  that you meet in this mission, the only whom you will ever see again is Grand Moff Kilran. He's a good choice for your first encounter with an Imperial higher-up. He's given deliciously smarmy dialogue with voice acting to match.

Ambassador Asara has a cool background. "Ambassador" is, in this case,  not an official title. She basically trolls allies of the Empire tryign to get them to defect to the Republic which, frankly takes Death Star-sized balls. Considering the risks her jobs entails, she shows herself to be a ruthlessly practical woman (Dark Side points!!!). Whatever becomes of her, depending on your choices, she doesn't show up again.

Flashpoints to me feel like isolated incidents or little diversions away from the 'real' story. That's not to say that they're all stand-alone adventures. A few of them form two-parters and many of them reference the larger conflict that over-arches SWTOR.

As a Jedi Consular, your dialogue (when you can get a word in) is pretty similar to the Jedi Knight's. This is something I noticed with Planet missions as well. I've yet to play very far through the non-Force-using classes so I can't say that this is the same for them too.  I do know at least that the Esseles Flashpoint, the Smuggler and Trooper had more distinct voices during the various conversations.

Once you're done with Carrick Station, it's on to another shuttle to take you to Coruscant.

Jedi 101: A Review of the Jedi Consular Story Part 2

The Consular game in SWTOR gets off to a perfect start in its prologue. The opening as with all of SWTOR's openings, is sublime and very Star Wars-y. "A long time ago in a  Galaxy far, far away..." followed by a scrolling introduction and finally, a shuttle flying ominously towards a planet.

Your character, however you imagine them, is a Jedi Padawan at the tail-end of their training. You're part of a new generation of Jedi that's come of age during the stalemate between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. If you remember what happened to the Jedi Temple during the sacking of Coruscant:

Ouch! Until  his name was established I always knew Master Ven Zallow as "Hot Jedi".

The Jedi had to relocate to Tython (handily discovered by Bastilla's descendant Satelle Shan), reconnecting  with their heritage and rebuilding their numbers with an eye towards the inevitable resumption of their conflict with the Sith.

From the very outset, you are established as being extremely strong in the Force. This is Bioware's way of explaining why you're allowed to go running around fighting and going on dangerous missions when you've yet get your first lightsaber.  You're able to get a bit haughty which matches up with the prodigy aspect nicely. The dialogue system generally offers  you three options: Nice, Nasty and Neutral.  The Nasty options for the Consular  are very much in the vein of "Don't you know who I am?". It makes sense for the most gifted person in the room to be aloof and contemptuous. When said Nasty options allow for Darkside points, it definitely feels like crossing a line in a way your special snowflake jedi can justify to himself.

The story of your time on Tython begins with the recovery of several artefacts of the ancient precursors to the Jedi. You see, the interesting thing about Tython is that it's the good guys' version of Korriban only more so. Just as the Sith Order originated on that dusty rocky world made famous by Tales of the Jedi,  Tython is the origin of the Jedi. But remember, the Jedi predate the Sith. Actually, Tython and the people who discovered the Force there predate the Jedi.

These ancient Force-Users had a conflict of their own between those who wanted to commune with the Force and those who embraced its dark side. One of the artefacts you're searching for is a holocron of the ancient Master Rajivari, a Dark-sider who amassed his own following and tried to destroy his fellows. Needless to say, he failed and the victors went on to found the Jedi Order.  Now his teachings have corrupted a Twilek from a nearby illegal settlement who stumbled on the Holocron.

The nice thing about the Rajivari drama is that he is not a sith.  In this game, your character's alignment (the Dark-Light axis)  is distinct from your affiliation (Republic vs. Imperial). A Dark Side Jedi  is not interchangeable with a Dark Side Sith. If your character falls, they don't suddenly apply for a visa to emigrate to Dormmund Kaas. Learning about Rajivari's history is a nice primer on what Dark Jedi can be and how distinct they are from the Sith.

As you progress through Tython, you begin to accumulate various resources namely: force powers, your companion Qyzen Fes and at long last, your lightsaber. I have to say, playing through those first ten levels, I got so used to being a Padawan and having to use a vibroblade that actually receiving a  lightsaber feels like a well-earned moment.

Qyzen Fes is effectively introduced. We meet and interact with him several times before he joins us. He's not my favourite companion character in the game but he's far from the worst and does what he's supposed to: draw fire away from the squishy Consular. I will say that I like his interactions with Yuon Par (your character's mentor).

Nalen Roloch is the Twilek who gets corrupted by Rajivari's holocron. He's an interesting choice of villain for the Consular given that themes of the class. It is worth pointing out that one of the recurring plot elements in the Star Wars Expanded  Universe is corruption via exposure to heretical teachings. The confrontation with Nalen at story's end is a definite 'graduation day' in that I could swear that there is a shift in the writing and voice acting for the Consular.

Tython itself is beautiful. The designers have done a superlative job creating a landscape that's beautiful but wild. The various ruins are nicely realized as well: an entire civilization covered with millennia of arboreal growth to contrast with the sands of Korriban.

But it's time to venture out of the cocoon of the Jedi Temple and get to the second half of the prologue...

Man + Skirt: A Review of SWTOR's Jedi Consular Story PART 1

Leading up to the launch of  Star Wars: The Old Republic, One of the biggest issues that seemed to come up in all of the discussions amongst eager players to be was the skirt. No kidding, almost every forum discussing the Jedi Consular included some guy or another whining about how he didn't want his character to run around the galaxy wearing a skirt. The next most common complaint was about being pigeon-holed as a healer, which... whatever.

Gender-policing aside, the Jedi Consular was definitely one of the most awaited classes in the game. The Consular was introduced in the Star Wars RPG and was an intriguing distinction: a Jedi who focused on the more intangible aspects of the Force itself.

Right away, there was interest in the more indirect cousin of the Jedi Knight. We were told that there would be a story focusing on the mysteries of the Force as well as  behind-the-scenes political story-lines dealing with the Republic. I was certainly intrigued by the bits and pieces that we were told about leading up to launch. Telekinesis and double-bladed lightsabers? Count me in! Unearthing lost knowledge and immersing oneself in the depths of the Force? Sign me up.

I knew early on that I wanted to play my Consular dark-sided. How could I resist the idea of a Jedi who looks a little too closely at the dark side? I love the idea of a fall from grace precipitated by innocent intellectual curiosity.

It took me longer than I would have liked, but I eventually finished the Jedi Consular game a few months ago. After having mulled it over for a while, I'm going to relate my experience of it.

First of all, I refer to this as the Consular game because it is exactly that. Each class quest in SWTOR is about the same size as either of the KoTOR games and takes around he same length of time to finish. This is excluding Flashpoints and Planet quests. Finishing this game is a commitment making plot and characterization as essential as game-play.

So I'll say this much for now. I loved it. Overall, I loved it. There were some parts that didn't work for me and some that were just okay. But the parts that were awesome more than made up for the parts that weren't.

Speaking so generally, I decided to make part one of the review spoiler-free. The rest of it won't be. I'm going to review each chapter of the game separately so, if you're new to the Consular's game, wait until after playing each chapter before reading my take on it.