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Blaster versus Lightsaber

August 25, 2010 By

Ok, we all know what happens when someone brings a sword to a gunfight. Now it is POSSIBLE for a highly skilled and sneaky sword wielder to beat a person with a gun. It has been done. Much as I detest the idea of drawing on Hollywood for examples, the 1971 Charles Bronson movie Red Sun shows what happens when an overconfident outlaw gunslinger gets cocky around a samurai. But fighting a man armed with a gun when he is far away and you are only have a sword does not usually work very well. But that is real life. Star Wars is different.

In the original trilogy, we do not see much of lightsabers in combat. We see Obi-wan slice a thug’s arm off, and we see Darth Vader and Obi-wan battle it out in Episode IV. We see Luke and Vader fight in Episode V. And then we see the only time in the original trilogy that a blaster get used against a lightsaber in Episode VI when the last surviving scout trooper tries to gun Luke down and then run him down. The blaster bolts hit the blade and we all remember what happened. They were deflected, leaving the enemy virtually defenseless against the energy blade. Wow, that makes the lightsaber a VERY effective weapon when fighting blaster armed enemies.

The prequel trilogy shows a lot more lightsaber action. From the combat with the battle droids at the beginning of Episode I until the final climactic duel between Obi-wan and Anakin, lightsabers dominate in almost every battle they fight in. The only reason Order 66 worked was it took the Jedi COMPLETELY by surprise. One on one, using a blaster against a lightsaber simply doesn’t work very well for the blaster wielder. And people wonder why Boba Fett carried a flamethrower and multiple other weapons?

According to Wookipedia, blasters are particle beam weapons that fire from a replaceable power cell. This makes them much more powerful than a slug throwing weapon such as a real life assault rifle. Blasters are line of sight, that is, if you can see it, you can usually hit it. Although atmospheric effects will slow and or degrade the particle beam somewhat, only at extreme range will the effect be discernible. On the down side, blasters are fragile, as is evidenced several times in the movies with Jedi slicing weapons apart. But if you hit your target, you will do damage, lots of damage.

Lightsabers are elegant weapons. They are swords whose blades are composed of pure energy. Anyone who has wielded a sword in real life (which I have btw) can tell you that no matter the blade, they are not easy to use. Add to that a weightless blade, you cannot tell by the pull where the blade is. It would be very easy to hurt yourself with one of those. But this is not real life, this is SPARTA! Sorry, couldn’t resist. No, this is not Sparta, this is Star Wars.

In Star Wars, lightsabers are melee weapons. Some users could throw them. Some could wield them using the Force at long distances, telekinetically. But mainly, lightsabers and all their derivatives are meant to be used up close and personal. Ordinarily, this would be a problem. If the blaster wielder sees you before you see him, BAM! You are dead. But then we get into the fun part.

Say that a Trooper sees a Sith Warrior at a distance. Trooper pulls out his blaster rifle and Bam! He fires off a round. What happens? Sith warrior blocks the bolt with his lightsaber is what happens. And then Sith Warrior is likely more than a little ticked off. He jumps to close the distance and the fight is on. What will happen next is utterly dependent on the skill of the combatants in question.

Is the Sith Warrior someone along the lines of Darth Malgus or Darth Vader? In that case, that Trooper is toast, period. But if he is not… Things get more complex. The Trooper will fire, the Sith Warrior will deflect the shots. But can he deflect them all? Jedi Master Ki Al Mundi was taken by surprise in Episode III during Order 66, but he still managed to deflect many of the blaster shots that came his way. But there were just too many bolts coming his way for him to deflect them all. In this case though, the Trooper has problems. The Sith Warrior is virtually impervious to his rifle attacks. The Sith gets close and even a stock strike won’t keep the Sith from making a nice clean slice through that pretty white armor. End of story.

What if, instead of a blaster rifle, that poor trooper had a heavy repeater? A heavy machine gun blaster fires so fast that it is hard to see the bolts, let alone deflect them. The sheer weight of fire will count for something. Anyone wonder why the soldier that Darth Malgus took out first in the ‘Hope’ trailer was the one with the heavy repeater? Because he was the greatest threat. That weapon fired so fast that it would be next to impossible to block all of the shots. And if even one gets through it will do significant damage.

So, let’s try that scenario again. Sith Warrior jumps in and meets a hail of blaster fire. He blocks five, ten, twenty, but the twenty first gets through and nails him. Then while he struggles to maintain focus, a grenade lands at his feet. Ouchtime.

Now I am not saying that a Trooper will always win; not hardly. As I said before it is the skill of the combatant, and thus, the skill of the player that makes all the difference. But there is one other thing that needs to be said. This is not the movies, this is the Old Republic. Jedi and Sith are known factors, they are everywhere. In the movies, no one knew how to fight lightsabers, or they acted as if they didn’t. Does anyone think that people of the time period of this game will NOT have some clue how to fight Jedi or Sith?

In closing, a blaster versus a lightsaber is an uneven match. The lightsaber wielder has the advantage in that he can deflect the blaster shots while he closes, even without using the Force offensively. And once he is close, the contest is essentially over, if all the two have are a blaster and lightsaber. But sneaky tactics or heavy weapons may even the playing field. I look forward to seeing what Bioware has come up with when I finally get my hands on the game. I am definitely going to roll a trooper first.

What do you think? Should blasters be able to counter lightsabers in some way? Or do you want other options to counter Force users?

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Space Combat in SWTOR: a glimpse

August 18, 2010 By

It’s been the hot point of discussion over the past month or two in SWTOR circles, and things are about to get much hotter. Bioware have released a trailer of the space combat component of SWTOR.

As you’ll see in the trailer below, it’s looking like a mighty nice aspect of the game, particularly given that a lot of people see it as purely a bonus in the MMO context. Sure, it’s space combat on rails, but it still looks like a heck of a lot of fun and appears to faithfully continue the pedigree of previous space combat games in the Star Wars franchise.

For all of the 40 seconds or so of actual combat footage, there seems to be some variety in there and the intro section is also interesting in that it shows how NPC interactions work a little more.

If you haven’t already, check it out for yourself:

So – who’s excited? Or do you see it as a diversion from the real game? Let the debate begin! There’s also a dedicated thread on our forums.

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Good Sith and Evil Jedi? Wha…?

August 17, 2010 By

Light or Darkness

Jedi and Sith. Light and darkness. Good and evil. Simple, right? Bioware seems to be hell bent on making what we thought was simple complicated. The whole good/bad thing gets kind of fuzzy, like Dr. Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters put it. Those of us who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy know about good and evil. Darth Vader was evil, Luke Skywalker was good. Empire was evil, Rebel Alliance was good. Stormtroopers, brainless soldiers following orders to the letter with no questions asked, were evil. Smugglers and… um… murderers (Han shot first in the original) …were… um… good? Ok, so he turned good at the end of that movie, but is it so easy to define?

What is good? Oh, man, I doubt I could put that in words if I had a hundred pages to try. We all have our own definitions of good. Selflessness, heroism, courage, kindness, etc. But in the first movie, Star Wars: A New Hope, good was fairly easy to define. The people fighting the bad guys were the good guys, even if all of them were not ‘good’ themselves. Han Solo in particular was a mercenary, out for one thing and one thing only: money.  He took the charter job to carry Luke, Obi-Wan and the droids to Alderaan not out of a sense of helping others, but for one HECK of a payout promised by the Jedi. He certainly did not attack the detention bay of the Death Star to rescue Princess Leia out of the goodness of his heart. He would not have lifted a finger without the promise of a massive reward.  Yes, at the end of the movie it was shown that he was not simply a greedy, self centered scum, but it took most of the movie. But for the most part, in A New Hope, good was fairly easy to recognize. Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi were good.

Now as to evil. Again, where to start? We all have our own definitions of evil. Selfishness, greed, lust for power or other gains, or simply an excess of pragmatism. Why did Darth Vader strangle people with the Force? Was it pragmatism? The easiest and quickest way? Or was it because it was the most terrifying way to do it? Did he enjoy cowing his subordinates, or was it simply the fastest and most efficient method of promoting an underling? From the time of Episode IV until the end of Episode VI, Darth Vader stood as the personification of evil to most movie goers. He wore black, he was big and scary and treated his subordinates like dirt. It wasn’t until the end of Return of the Jedi, when we see his redemption that the entire story comes to head.  Until then, he was always the bad guy, the ULTIMATE bad guy. A sound of heavy breathing still scares me to this very day, wondering if my own throat is about to be compacted by icy insubstantial fingers of the Force. Darth Vader was evil.

Now, as to good and evil in games. Most video games through the history of them, you play a good guy. From the earliest games like Defender and Galaga, you were trying to protect others, fighting unending waves of bad guys to win. There was no question, you were the hero, and what you were doing was ‘good’. Not so more modern games. Role playing games in particular have always catered to all kinds. People who wanted to play ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. Baldur’s Gate II was probably the best of its era in games where you could choose. You could be an amoral mercenary, killing anyone and everyone who got in your way, a cynical ranger dealing death to orcs and scum from a distance with a bow, or a noble paladin sworn to serve your gods and dealing holy fury to the enemies of truth and justice. Or anything in between.  And in all things, there was choice. You COULD play as a paladin and do evil. You then lost your powers and had to play the rest of the game as a fighter with a few odd quirks. I personally loved playing as a monk, always Lawful Neutral, that way I had to choose VERY carefully what to do and when.

And then games like Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins where your choices for good and evil have a massive effect on the game. Do you support the noble good guy, even if he really seems to have no clue what he is doing? Or the schemer who had his brother murdered to try and snatch the throne? He knows how to get things done after all. Do you play the good cop, bringing truth and justice to dark places? Or the evil scum who is only in it for themselves? Only speaking for myself, I almost always play good guys. I see too much evil in daily life to want to perpetuate it in any way even virtually. Maybe that makes me a wimp, but I think it makes me a better person than many I meet on a daily basis.

Bioware has not given out a lot of information on the actual story of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Part of this is intended to whet potential player’s appetites, which it does very well. Part is likely because they have not finalized everything yet. I mean, come on, how COULD they have finalized it all by now? In any MMO there is a lot of stuff to get done, and in this MMO…sheesh… If half of what they tell us is true, it will put all the others to shame content wise.

But they have said that it will be possible to be a light side Sith. Or a dark side Jedi. My first reaction, like many people probably, was to say ‘WHA…?’ But then I thought about it. Jedi are not necessarily ‘good’. They have to do what it takes to protect the galaxy as a whole. Does this mean they can be paragons of virtue all the time? Heck no. Obi-Wan lies to Luke. Forget the ‘different point of view’ garbage. He flat out LIED to the young man. He did it because the truth would have caused all kinds of problems. We see Anakin, as a Jedi, act Dark Side. And that is what started his fall, in Episode II, avenging his mother.

But we never saw any Light Side Sith in any of the movies, probably because Lucas didn’t like the idea. Jedi were good and Sith were evil, period. Right? But now we have this quandary. If you are serving evil, does that make you evil? Do Sith warriors, Sith Inquisitors, Bounty Hunters and Imperial Agents HAVE to be evil in SWTOR? Bioware’s answer seems to be their stock one. ‘It is all up to the player.’

I personally am looking forward to playing a Dark Side Trooper or a Light Side Sith Warrior. How about you? What do you want to play?

Yin-yang image courtesy of: Dreamstime.

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Sith Sunday – SWTOR in the news

August 8, 2010 By

1. From the official SWTOR site: the Mandalorian Wars get a lore update, and new playable species are announced. Sith Pureblood (Sith Warrior), Zabrak (Sith Inquistors), Miraluka (Jedi Knight) and Mirialans (Jedi Consular) are the four newies.

2. From the SWTOR forums: some nice debate on holiday events being included in SWTOR, a thread on silencing negative SWTOR reviews, and the Aussie / NZ guild thread continues to grow.

3. From our own forums: A bit of a Starcraft 2 discussion, the start of a chat on the new playable species, and more talk on the now settled Real ID fiasco over at World of Warcraft.

4. We’re still really keen to list Oceanic guilds and have improved the look of our guild listing. Drop us a line if you have one!

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Time to fight!

August 3, 2010 By

Well, it’s official. And yes, I admit I had a geekasm when they announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic would include space combat. Yes, I even went ‘squee’. Can you blame me? Most of my fondest memories are of X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance. What can I say? I am not a pilot in real life. With only one eye that works right, I will never be a pilot in real life – certainly not a very safe one anyway. So I do simulations – that way, if I crash the ship, plane, tank, whatever, all I have to do is reset the game or reload the level. But I do love flying. And there is something about flying in space, even simulated, that draws one in, and holds one. I still play Battlefront II, mainly for the space combat aspect.

We don’t know a lot yet about what space combat will involve. What we DO know is that it will involve ‘hotspots’. Will these be instances? We don’t know. It is touted as an ‘alternative gameplay experience’. Does this mean it won’t be a mandatory part of the game, for those people who seem strange to me who don’t like flying games? We don’t know. There is a lot we don’t know yet.

Many people seem to be holding out for a free flight simulator like X-Wing Alliance was. I admit, I am one of them, but I am not holding my breath. The problems in the Jump to Lightspeed expansion for Star Wars Galaxies shows just how bad twitch based flying can be in an MMO. There were parts of it that were quite enjoyable, mixed in with mindless grind, mindless grind, mindless grind, mission and then back to grind, grind, grind. I always enjoyed tweaking my birds for maximum efficiency, speed, firepower, you name it. And I enjoyed making life miserable for Imperial dogs. But free flight is a big enterprise. How many items were there to program in Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed? Hundreds if not thousands or more. Ships, asteroids, space debris, planets, stations, nebulae… you name it, it was there somewhere.

An alternative is the gamestyle of games such as Rebel Assault, or like the gun turrets in Knights of the Old Republic.  This is a game or mini-game where you have no control over the movement of your ship, you just blast everything in sight as quickly as you can. Some people call these games rail flight simulators for a good reason- your movement is set, you can go around and around, but nowhere else. If you shoot fast enough, straight enough and pick the right targets, you will survive and progress to the next level. If not, there is always that handy ‘reload save’ feature.

Most games that have come out since the dawn of video games have been one or the other of these. Some of them have been a mix. In Space Invaders, Galaga, Centipede and the like, you could move a bit, but not much. You were on rails, but you had the ability to move your ship or whatever in a limited area. Then there were games like Defender and Asteroids where you had free control to move your ship anywhere on the screen. But those were rarer from what I recall, admittedly, I only played some of those games. I was mainly a Galaga fan. And I still am. I loved getting three ships in a line to blast the enemy three times as fast.

So… What will we see in the Old Republic? We don’t know yet. It may be a free flight simulator like X-Wing Alliance, but what are the odds? Those are incredibly hard to pull off well. Most of the space simulators that are made never make it past a week on the on the store shelves and wind up in the bargain bin in two weeks, and then the trash can in three. Will it be something like Star Wars: Empire at War, where you control each ship from afar? Will it be something like Lego Star Wars where you had a tighter view, but a top down one designed for console players? Or will it be something like Rebel Assault, where you could shoot up things to your heart’s content, but never deviate from your flight path? I personally hated that kind of game play. I like to have control of what my in-game thing is doing, whether it is a tank, a plane or a spacecraft. The top down games always seemed… off in some way to me, if that makes any sense. The far view in Empire at War was fun, but again limited in what you could order your vessels to do. There was simply too much other stuff going on to have a lot of controls for things like say, fighters.

Bioware and Lucasarts will likely give us more information fairly soon, especially since after the announcement at Comic Con, many of us needed to change our pants and wash our faces to get the froth off. But no, we are not fanatics. Just dedicated. We do know that there will be space battles, we know that there will be larger vessels than the player ships. We are told that we have to ‘blast our way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles.’ (quote from Sean Dalhberg) What does this mean? We don’t know. But knowing Bioware, they are unlikely to market Space Invaders: Star Wars style.

For myself, my dream is another flight simulator like X-Wing Alliance, but harder. I want to fly around, get on an enemy’s tail and stay there while he maneuvers frantically. I want him to sweat while I pump enough laser fire into his hull to make him a pretty cloud of scattered atoms. But then, I am not a nice person when I fly. Good thing I only do it in games. I quote a famous man: ‘A fighter pilot finds the enemy and shoots him down, everything else is rubbish’ -Manfred Von Richthofen (AKA the Red Baron)

And yes, I have to say it again. SQUEE! As soon as that issue of PC Gamer comes out, I am on it like a X-Wing on a TIE.

Over to you, what kind of space flight would you want to see? Free flight like X-Wing Alliance or SWG JTL, rail flight like Rebel Assault, top down like Lego Star Wars, far view like Star Wars: Empire at War, or something in between?

Photo courtesy of Retro Gamer.

Filed Under: Community, News, Opinion Tagged With: , ,

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