A long time ago in a galaxy far away… This is how things start, as you would expect from a Star wars games has the classic introduction from the films. So from starting the game you already feel in familiar territory. The game starts with the character creation this is where you can have a lot of fun designing your character, there are various races to choose from Human,Bothan,Wookiee,Rhodan,Calamari,Twilek.

All of these have things they are good at and will give you bonuses to skills. Some even have racial traits like the Wookiees, They get a roar which intimidates things. Everything is explained about character creation on screen, there is a description on the right of the race which lists any bonuses and traits they have. Also there is tool tip help, so hover your mouse over the options you can change and a small box will tell you more about it.

In the centre of the screen is your character in various different outfits, this is where you choose a starting profession. Pick one of those and now you can start to customise your character.

In the centre of the screen is your character, you can rotate them to look at them from different angles which helps when using the options to change different aspects of them. Now you get to be creative, change characters height, torso size, hair style, body markings and so on, there is a lot you can change here.

After finishing the character you choose a planet and town to start in. The names for the planets and towns are familiar if you have watched the films. After selecting a place to start you have the option of doing a tutorial this is where the game explains the basics of movement and the interface.

The tutorial doesn’t last long and after it has finished you are placed in the town you selected. Now things start to get very complicated very fast. Here we are lost and alone in a vast world. Things here have improved though Sony have introduced helper droids which after a few moments of logging in for the first time will turn up and speak to you. These droids will explain how to use them and will remain in your data pad so you can call on them for help anytime. Droids can follow you about or if you don’t want them about at the moment you can store them in your data pad.

Let’s look at this data pad, it’s basically a handheld computer your character has, on it we will store things like droids,vechicles,waypoints, mission info and schematics. A very useful bit of kit the data pad lucky we can never lose it.

First Steps in a new world Now we are set to start our adventures, but where to start, here we are all alone, except for the droid in a place we really don’t know our way around. Ah but we are not alone, there are people wandering around all over the place. A lot of people are helpful and give you advice and basic equipment. Of course this being an online game there are also people that are annoying but lucky you can just ignore them with a command.

Ok so now what, we are standing about looking silly, Star wars Galaxies offers a lot of choice, this is where the game excels. There are 32 professions, 33 if you include Jedi but that is a long way off. Professions are where you get all your skills, there are 6 basic ones Entertainer,Scout,Marksman,Brawler,Medic,Artisan.

Entertainers are the dancers,musicians and image designer 3 professions which are unique to Star wars Galaxies. Entertainers spend their time in cantinas either playing music or dancing for people. Music and dancing is used to heal battle fatigue and mind wounds. Battle fatigue is what everyone gets while out fighting, mind wounds are also gained from battles if your are hit in the head.

Image design is where you can change yours or other people’s appearances.

Scouts are the explorers, they get to harvest meat,hide,bone from dead creatures, they also get bonuses to movement and have basic trapping and survival. Marksman this is the gun using profession, well the basic gun using one, this is where you will learn to use pistols,rifles and carbines. Brawler is the close combat profession they learn unarmed,polearms,swords. Medics are the healers they learn to make stimpacks(health packs) and are able to treat wounds in a med centre.

Artisans are the creators they learn to make cloths, food and armour/guns they also learn business to sell the items they can make.

There we have the base professions now each profession has 4 trees. A tree is skill boxes in a column. How Star wars Galaxies works is like this as you use a skill you gain xp in that skill, so If you shoot something with a pistol you will gain pistol xp. When you have enough xp you can select a box to learn, this will give you more skills and most often bonuses to using that skill.

When you get all 4 trees you can master the profession, this needs apprentice points which you gain from teaching people. Star wars Galaxies give you a lot of choice you have 250 skill points to use and with these you can take whatever professions you like, as long as you meet the requirements. So you can take medic and marksman for example.

Those 6 basic professions aren’t all there is, there are elite professions which normally require you to gain 1 or more trees in a base profession to take, Pistoleer for example need you to get the pistols tree from marksman before you can take it.

Elite professions are dancer,musician,image designer,ranger,bio engineer,bounty hunter,creature handler,doctor,combat medic, pistoleer, rifleman, carbineer, commando, smuggler, tailor, chef, architect, droid engineer, fencer, pikeman, swordsman, terasi kasi, squad leader, armour smith, weapon smith, merchant.

As you can see there is a lot to choose from and this allows a lot of very unique characters to exist in the world. You can take as many of those elite professions and you qualify for and have the skill points for. You also can choose to take certain skills and not them all if you wish, however when taking skills you need to start at the bottom of the tree and learn up.

Now the game play is dependant on what skills you have, if you want to make things there is a crafting system which is complex as the quality of materials is important and these shift every so often, so an ore that was very good might suddenly not be as good. If you are a combat profession then you need to get some basic equipment and get out there and hit things. The currency of the game is credits like the films, you can earn these from mission which you can get from npcs or missions terminals. Equipment you can buy with the credits from players, merchants which can be player owned, or bazaar terminals.

There is no real goal of the game except to have fun, you can do what you want when you want basically. So if you want to explore go out there and explore if you want to kill things well get out there and kill. This game can offer a lot to different people, if you want to really get involved in combat why not step up and take part in the Galactic Civil War, here you will get to face human opponents.

If you join the rebels or imperials you can be covert or overt, covert means you won’t be attackable until you make an offensive act against the opposing faction. Overt means you are constantly flagged so everyone knows your allegiance. There is a lot to explore in the game and it can take a while to get used to, but there are some very nice features.

The graphics are nice, there are some really nice effects these can crop up in strange places, dancers often use droids which can have effects and if you have all the graphic detail on you get a very nice laser show. Music can be very nice as well, although the combat tune is always the same which can get annoying.

System specs for the game are win98 or later not NT, Cpu P3 933 MHz or Amd Athlon 900 MHz, 256 Meg of ram and a 32mb 3d graphics card. Monitor capable of 1024x768 and a internet connection. However I recommend at least a 2 GHz processor and at least 512 Meg ram, although you really need 1 gig of memory to run it nicely. Graphics you really need a good 3d card, with at least 128 Meg of memory. Also no matter what you hear you will also need a good internet connection by good I don’t care about the speed unless its under 56k modem what you need is very good latency. This game really need a good connection, I wouldn’t go to mos eisley on a 56k modem unless it had excellent latency, even on broadband some cities have lag.