If you’re a regular reader of TORWars, you know that the TORWars staff is comprised of a proactive bunch of gamers, geeks, and writers. Our heartfelt desire is to bring you the news you really want to hear about, and our journey to E3 today was no exception.  We managed to get our lazy, overhung selves (the price to be paid for the previous night of Guinness and whiskey) up bright and early, get down to the Los Angeles Convention Center, and be the first ones on line at the SWTOR booth.Yes, we’re those kinds of nerds – the overly enthusiastic kind. The upside is that you, faithful reader, reap the benefits.

Being first in line for the SWTOR demo meant that I got to choose which character to play, and I chose the Sith Inquisitor. More specifically, my Inquisitor was an Assassin, complete with flowing cloak, glowing eyes, a companion that looked like a badly assembled golem, and a deadly-looking double bladed lightsaber. I started the game, grabbed a pre-designated quest, and I was off, traversing the sands of Tatooine.

Though I’d played the game before, I’d never experienced the game’s personal vehicles. They work like mounts in most other MMOs, in that you essentially summon them. I clicked the icon for my vehicle (which looked like a large, futuristic flat iron), hopped on, and I was off. I followed the waypoints on my map, and it soon led me to an area populated with Sand People. Sand People are not nice people, and they needed dispatching. After killing a half dozen or so, I managed to acquire a compass – a quest item that allowed me to progress in my story line. I then followed the waypoints to the next spot, killed some more Sand People, and so on for several more steps. Ultimately, I was able to locate a dying Sith NPC, discover his secret deep in a cave (one filled with more Sand People), and complete the quest. The story and quest line were, overall, quite fun, and they kept the pacing of the gameplay nice and brisk.

Now to the more juicy elements of playing an Assassin. I simply didn’t have time to (nor did the BioWare developers seem to allow) write down the specific names, stats, and other specifics of the individual skills I had at my disposal, so we are left with my impressions. Overall, the Assassin struck me as really being quite rogue-like. I had a Force-empowered stealth ability, with which I could sneak past foes. This made quest completion faster and easier. It also allowed me to sneak up behind foes, and then drop some hot double-bladed lightsaber  moves on them before they ever knew what hit them. My companion, Khem Val, also became invisible when I did.

It was clear to me that there was a logical skill rotation I should have been using – for example, Stealth, a particular Force Lightning attack, then a bleed, then a disorienting whirlwind attack, then some simple DPS lightsaber attacks. Actually, I’m not certain that particular example would have really been an optimal (or even logical) rotation, since I didn’t play long enough to figure out what abilities give more damage when chained off of others or when dropping out of stealth. However, it was clear to me that some abilities and skills are better when working cohesively with others, and that my DPS would have benefited if I’d had the time to figure out an optimized skill rotation.

The Assassin is a DPS class, that is clear. While he wasn’t fragile, my character wasn’t a tank. He was much more a ‘kill them all quickly, and get this over with’ kind of character. Further, he wasn’t a ranged class. I recently played an Inquisitor build (e.g., a Sorcerer) that had some very deadly ranged options, but my Assassin played very, very differently. While he had a few ranged force abilities (mostly various lightning attacks), they had a short range. My recollection was that I could use these lightnings on an enemy that was somewhat outside melee range, but not one that was across the room. I wasn’t built to sit back and nuke. I was built to sneak in, and do a combination of lightsaber strikes and short range Force attacks.

Khem's special attacks include sword strikes, yawns, and foul language.

Khem Val, my Assassin’s companion, looks about as intimidating as anything I’ve ever seen. He’s a monster. However, even in the Star Wars universe, looks can apparently be deceiving, because he isn’t exactly dynamite on the battlefield. Khem will sneak up along side you, bust out of Force stealth when you do, and then…well, he kind of tamely throws a generic punch, or a fairly lame sword attack, or a yawn, or something else equally intense. Khem, like all companions, has some special attacks, but I didn’t notice him throw any of them. I got the impression that I was protecting him, instead of the other way around. To be fair, we we were told that the companions are undergoing some serious revision, and that some big changes are afoot. Let’s hope Khem gets a big fat injection of excitement serum when the devs give him his makeover.

In summary, playing an Assassin just feels really cool. I don’t know exactly what it is, but the Assassin has a great look about him, and his animations suit his character. He’s very Darth Maul-ish – lean, malevolent, and formidable. I saw how the Assassin performed in PvE – he offered up some intense beatdowns – and I could easily imagine that translating very well to PvP. Some of his abilities, particularly stealth, are as useful in SWTOR as in any other MMO, both in combat, and in making traveling and quest completion much easier.

I’d have to say, overall, that my experience with the Assassin was extremely positive. It’s a distinctive class, and very different from the other SWTOR classes that I’ve played. At the conclusion of my all-too-short playtime, I definitely felt that this was a class that I’d like to play when the game releases.

I shot some video of Assassins during their run-throughs at the SWTOR booth. Please forgive any shaky-cam moments, as well as the idiots other E3 attendees that occasionally blithely got in the way of the video. The video overall gives a pretty fair impression of what it’s like to play an Assassin.