Old republic Star Wars video game launches

Monday, 19^th December 2011 22:08 GMT (Europe/London)
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Budding Jedi masters and Sith lords now have somewhere else to hone their lightsaber skills. Star Wars: The Old Republic launched on 20 December and lets gamers play as characters from the iconic SF series. Reputed to have cost more than $130m (

The Old Republic is set 3,500 years before the events depicted in the Star Wars films but uses many familiar elements from the movies. Many aspects of the game involve moral choices that push players towards the light and the dark sides of the force. The Old Republic (SWTOR) is a massively multi-player online (MMO) game and resembles World of Warcraft (WoW) and many others in that it asks players to go adventuring to turn their relatively weak starting character into a powerful hero. Players can choose to play as many different races including human, Sith pureblood, Twi'lek and cyborg. At the start of the game players must choose whether to be part of the Galactic Republic or Sith Empire. Different species adventure as one of several different classes including Jedi knights, smugglers, troopers and bounty hunters. Players also get a starship to explore the many different planets making up the SWTOR galaxy. The game went on sale on 20 December in the US and Europe but people who pre-ordered the game got access from as early as 13 December. In the UK, the basic edition costs