Review: Jump to Light Speed
by Marinda Darnell
SOE has continued with this
legacy of graphics and sound with JTL. Each portion of space has been lovingly created using a large palate of colors and breathtaking pictures that bring back thoughts of the original movies and the scenes of each planet from space. Hidden behind these beautiful graphics is an expansion that does not live up to expectations control and content wise.
Flight controls are extremely unwieldy, as well as difficult to maintain. There are now two distinct styles of character control, SWG and EverQuest styles. In the ground game for SWG, the player is given the option of EQ or SWG style. In the space version introduced by JTL, character control is automatically set to be the same as EQ with no option to change this. Combat with anything other then a joystick or a flight controller is extremely difficult, and does not allow for seamless movement from space to ground. Movement is cumbersome and nothing what is expected from a flight simulation, or a MMORPG.
JTL
added two new player races, the
Ithorians and Sullustans. This brings the total of number of playable
races to ten. Both have been graphically rendered with numerous options
for customization for each species. Along with the introduction of these
new playable species come armor and clothing specific items for these
characters. Most of the newly introduced tailor and armor smith made items
are for the Ithorians, who can not wear most clothes that a human or
twi’lek can. The Sullustans did not receive any species specific items,
since they are able to equip most of the same items as other characters
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already in creation. Besides just species specific
items, other tailor-made goods are now available. Winged Hot Pants, Hooded
Cloaks, and Extremely Revealing Skirts have been introduced. Many players
will recognize the Extremely Revealing Skirts as the skirt Leia wore in 
Return of the Jedi
as a slave for Jabba the Hutt. Other players will find the hooded
cloaks similar to Emperor Palpatine’s from the various movies. Four new professions have been added along with the other content: Rebel, Imperial, and Freelance pilot professions, and shipwright. Understandably a player can only have one type of pilot profession at a time. Unfortunately, a shipwright can only assemble full ships of the pilot profession they have chosen for their character. All parts can be made by any shipwright, but the final ships cannot be made by every shipwright. This places a burden and limitation upon the player which should not be allowed to exist in this player-driven game. One very nice point about the pilot professions is that it does not cost precious skill points to become a pilot. Training is skill point free through these trees. Veteran players who have their final template set and who also wish to travel in space will be able to do so without major changes to the concept behind and to their characters.
Overall Jump To Lightspeed is a decent expansion. What keeps this from being an outstanding expansion is too many bugs, not enough programming, and too little thought in integration between the ground game and space game. If I wanted to play a space simulator, I would go buy one of the numerous that are on the market.
Special thanks goes to Dreieth Talgoth allowing use of his screenshots.