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Previews: Jump to Lightspeed
Jump to Lightspeed is the awaited expansion that will let players participate in the galaxy of Star Wars: Galaxies from Lucas Arts and Sony Online. Included will be new races, fully customizable ship types and new zones making this an addition worth having to be part of the George Lucas Dynasty.
SWG: Jump To Lightspeed - Ivan "Celedhros" Alexander (10-25-04)
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
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| Space Never Looked So Good!
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...LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment announced the first expansion to their ambitious StarWars Galaxies massively multiplayer offering. It's been more than a year since the release of the core game and the day for which many gamers have anxiously awaited is almost here. GameRifts has had a chance to get an up close preview of this very exciting new addition to Galaxies gameplay. New environments, new species, new professions and, most of all, ships all await the player in Jump to Lightspeed.
Environments
One thing that anyone who's spent any time stargazing knows is that space is vast and beautiful, and Jump to Lightspeed is no different. The graphics are very impressive. Gigantic clouds of gas and dust crackle with electricity, the planets loom across your viewport making large space stations look tiny in comparison. Each planet is unique and has been created with its own atmosphere and clouds that move across the surface, blocking out details that match with the surface features that players experience in the ground game of StarWars Galaxies. All in all, it's a grand backdrop against which to fight your epic space battles.
Ships
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| Ship Painting!
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The attention to detail doesn't stop there, though. It's obvious after one look at the copious detailing applied to each and every object that you encounter in space that the development team spared no effort in putting together what has to be the most fully realized library of ships seen in any StarWars space game to date. All of the classic fighters from the trilogy make an appearance, including the X-Wing and TIE Fighter, as well as larger multi-player ships complete with fully-decked out interiors. Additionally, players will find a whole slew of new, never-before seen designs for the Hutt clans, as well as a host of a capital ships and freighters plying the space lanes. If the sheer variety of ship types isn't enough to keep you entranced, each ship can be built to suit your flying style with various ship components from shields to weaponry and everything in-between, and then customized with up to 6 different paint patterns in a myriad of colors.
Professions
Of course, once you have your ship, you and your character will need to learn how to fly it. Jump to Lightspeed comes with three brand new piloting professions, one for each faction in the Galactic Civil War, and a neutral pilot profession for those who wish to be privateers. Each profession gives you access to different ships as well as special abilities. Not content to let the pilots have all the fun, the development team has leveraged one of the most fully featured and complex crafting systems in any RPG game to create the ShipWright profession for your die-hard crafters. There's plenty here for everyone to enjoy.
Species
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| Don't Call Me Hammerhead!
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StarWars just wouldn't be StarWars without a bevy of exotic aliens populating the world, and Jump to Lightspeed brings to the table two new, playable species to explore. StarWars Galaxies raised the bar on character customization to a new level, and the Ithorians and Sullustans, both fan favorites from the movies, don't disappoint in this regard.
Combat
Of course, putting everything else aside, jumping into your X-Wing or TIE Fighter and blasting your enemies out of space is what Jump to Lightspeed is all about. For those who have played previous LucasArts titles such as X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, the controls will seem very familiar. Many of the features from these previous games have carried over, including the ability to disable ships, rather than destroy them, by targeting specific ship systems. At its heart, Jump to Lightspeed is a space simulation, which sets it apart from the more leisurely feel and pacing of the ground game in StarWars Galaxies. The combat engine feels very smooth, and the action is fast-paced and exciting. The game supports both keyboard-and-mouse as well as joystick controls, and the developers have worked hard to create a system that works well and feels natural no matter what your preferred control setup.
Target Sighted! |
Closing In! |
PWNED! |
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All in all, Jump to Lightspeed promises to be a solid addition to StarWars Galaxies. The combination of a fully-featured role-playing experience along with an action-packed space combat simulation can only mean good things for gamers looking to experience the StarWars Universe first hand.
Celedhros is a member of the Shadow Alliance guild that can be found on the Bloodfin server as part of the Rebel Alliance. He has been an online gamer for a number of years, not wishing to date himself, going back to the original NeverWinter Nights game hosted on America Online.
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