Personally, I have enjoyed most, if not all of the Star Wars games that have come out in recent years. Whether it be Rogue Squadron, Episode 1 Racer, or Rogue Leader, I’ve pretty much enjoyed all of them that I’ve played, except one. The one game that gave me a disgusting taste in my mouth after playing it was Jedi Knight 2, and it was mainly because that game alone made me feel like vomiting every few seconds.
Like other fans of the Star Wars monopoly, I too have been eagerly waiting for a role-playing Game to come out in the form of Star Wars, and so Bioware (of Neverwinter Nights fame on the PC) decides to take heed of our requests, and releases Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Being one of the few RPG’s on the Xbox, many fans of Star Wars, Bioware, and even non-fans have looked forward to the release of KOTOR since it was announced sometime 2 years ago or so, and Bioware doesn’t disappoint.
My PC, quite literally, resembles a giant pile o’feces. So, I am not ever so fortunate enough to be able to play many computer games (Delta Force is about as much as the stupid computer can handle, that and Solitaire), which means I have not played any of Bioware’s “stuff”, such as Neverwinter Nights. Anyway, back to the subject at hand (how about foot?), KOTOR is all that and a bag of chips, and can definitely hang along with the likes of Halo as an equal in its own right.
Plot/Story
Even though I still liked the movies Episode 1 and 2, I’m not shallow enough to keep my mind closed on the plot for the both of them. They were pretty cheesy, and lacked any real depth as opposed to the first three movies (4-6) in the 70s. The games have been pretty much the same as Episodes 1 & 2 as far as stories go, though Bioware was able to recreate a deep and engaging story line for KOTOR.
KOTOR takes place 4000 years before the events in Episode 1, where the Sith and Jedi are at a raging war. This wouldn’t be so bad, if so many Jedi weren’t falling to the Sith, which means the Sith are beating the Jedi, and that cannot be a good thing. The game starts on the Ebon Hawk as it’s being attacked, and you’ll take control of your character, who is the last hope for the Jedi Order. While KOTOR does have a definite story, there are so many branching paths that KOTOR has a ton more freedom than most RPGs, and as you go through the game, you’ll have the option to grow in so many different ways. From the beginning of the game, you might think that there isn’t much of a story to the game. After getting off the first planet of Taris though, the real story will start to unfold, and your character that may have seemed pointless in the beginning starts to flesh out. Out of all the games on Xbox out so far, KOTOR has the best gameplay, and in a lot of ways, is much higher in quality than Halo. The plot is an engaging masterpiece, and with the multiple ways to go through the game, as well as two different endings, there is enough variety in the game to go through from beginning to end 3 or 4 times before getting bored of it.
Gameplay
Before starting the game, you’ll pick either a guy or girl character in three classes, each class having their own set of skills. After choosing your character and making your way through the beginning introductory-like level, the role that you will take in the fight for the Jedi Order is in your hands to mold to your liking. The biggest draw to KOTOR was the option of being either a Jedi Knight or a Dark Lord, which is also what Fable is being hyped up for (good vs. evil). As the game progresses, depending on how you go about handling certain situations, you’ll either receive Light Points (LP) or Dark Points (DP). Obviously, falling to the dark side of the force is the easiest because for some reason, the natural response from a human when it comes to games like this is “I want to kill everyone” or “I just want to go around slaughtering people with my light saber”.
The Light Side isn’t too terribly hard to get to, though sometimes there are just some places where you want to do some evil for a little while. You see, discussions with NPCs are done in a tree like fashion (you’ve heard it before, you’ve just heard it again), where you are given several different answering options. Usually, there are three different answers you can choose to reply with, each representing a Jedi action, a Dark Lord action, or a neutral response. Deciding which responses go with each Dark Lord, Jedi, or Neutral are pretty much common sense.
When dealing with certain situations, a Jedi would want to avoid confrontation, while the Dark Side will be like “Shut up so I can kill you quietly” or other “violent” remarks like that. The neutral responses usually branch to more responses, a good way to receive clues on where to go and stuff like that. There were a couple times, especially when first starting the game, where I got totally lucky in talking to someone and continuing the conversation, where I was able to continue the story. If I hadn’t had stumbled across them and talked to them just for the heck of it, who knows how LONG it would have taken me to figure out what to do, where to go, or who to talk to.
The Jedi and Dark Lords have their own set of powers, so once you receive enough LP or DP you’ll fall to the Dark Side or become a Jedi, and after that, the kinds of attacks and power-ups you can use split up and go their separate ways. One of the greater things about KOTOR is that their are multiple custom options where you can customize your attack powers, upgrade weapons, and the whole nine yards. Whether you choose to become a Sith Lord or a Jedi, they both can use light sabers. Light sabers ARE Star Wars, and so when you finally fall to the dark side or become a Jedi, after having to use regular swords or blasters, light sabers are a saving grace.
Having the option to cause trouble and fall to the dark side or uphold the Jedi Order as Jedi, as well as the branching replies while talking to NPCs (Non-Playable Characters - just in case anyone was confused) allow for a ton of freedom throughout the game. However, even when trying to become a Dark Lord, you can’t just go around anywhere and chop anyone down that you come across, like you will be able to do in Fable next year. Even though KOTOR isn’t a reckless freedom fight, the whole light and dark side thing is a good enough reason for any person who is/was looking forward to Fable to definitely play KOTOR. Either way, KOTOR’s good, and plus it hasn’t been delayed into the black hole of 2004, so the Light Side and Dark side of the force are plenty enough for me, whether I can chop everyone’s head off for the fun of it or not. Now that would be a definition of a Sith. Not caring a thing about anything else other than ripping things to shreds.
You can’t become a great Jedi or Sith on your own though, and so here’s where the battle system comes in, and boy what a battle system is it. Like any normal RPG, you gain experience after defeating each enemy, and you can either use the game defaults where characters won’t level up until you do it manually, or change it like I did my first time through to automatic where once you receive the right amount of experience points, the character will level up. I had no clue what to expect with the battle system, as it was a totally new engine to me, and so when I heard that it was an action/turn-based system, I got confused. All of the enemies are seen on screen, ranging
from the different alien scum of the galaxy to droid patrols and defense turrets (those things are a pain in the rear to get past). When an enemy is seen, the game will kind of pause, and a red target will surround the enemy (or enemies), and then you’ll be able to choose your motion of attack. The battles are reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts in that you can run around and such, but is similar to any turn based RPG like Final Fantasy X where you have to wait your turn before attacking - but in a way are completely different.
The fighting engine is based off of an old D20 engine/game of some sort or something like that, and so what literally happens is that an internal pair of dice are rolled, and who’s ever dice is the highest, will attack. You don’t actually see the dice rolling around on screen, but that is how the battles take place. I have both complaints and praises about this way of fighting, with the only complaint as of now being that you basically just push a button to queue an attack, and wait like a sitting duck for your dice to roll higher and be able to attack. Aside from force powers and such learned throughout the game, you can choose either a normal attack or super attack in the bottom left corner of the screen by pushing left and right on the directional pad. Once you
choose your attacks, you’ll attack with your first command, and then the rest of the attacks are queued. While KOTOR isn’t all about strategy, it takes a great deal of it to be victorious out of some of the tough battles that you have to fight. When there is a big group of enemies, and you’re using some type of melee weapon, it’s not really the smartest idea to jump right in the middle of the group, especially with groups of enemies using blasters, as you’ll be engulfed in blaster feeds. Instead, flank the group, or run around behind them to attack.
KOTOR is in real time, so you don’t have to just stand in front of a big group of enemies like a bump on a log, you can move around, and you’ll just have to input your attack commands again.
On paper (or computer screen), the battle system seems confusing, stupid, boring, frustrating, and all of the above - but it is very addicting when you get use to it and is definitely something new and different. I had the basics of fighting down by the time I reached the middle of the first planet (Taris), and after some more time with it, getting use to it, tinkering with different choices and such in my pause menu, I had pretty much learned almost everything I need to know about fighting. It’s neither hard nor difficult - it just has a fairly steep learning curve, and of course time spent doing it will also help. So keeping the learning curve in mind, judgment should not be passed about the battle system until you’re at least 2 or 3 hours in, or at least off of the first planet. Because once you get off the first planet, the game stretches its wings, and the battles that take place are some of the most enjoyable experiences in gaming. Before becoming a Jedi or Dark Lord, weapons are pretty limited. You either use some kind of sword, or you use some kind of a blaster. That’s it. Then once you become a Jedi or Dark Lord, you then have access to use light sabers, which are 50 times better than any sword or blaster anyone’s got. There are both two handed and one handed melee weapons available, such as dual swords or sabers, double bladed sword or saber, or a blast rifle. Each type has its own weakness, though they’re basically all the same in weakness and strength, so it’s nothing to fret about, at all. I personally prefer melee weapons over blasters, though there were times in the game where a longer ranged weapon would have made a battle much less difficult.
Up to two (the number) other members can join your party, and there are some that have to be in your party during a certain time, and the others are able to be substituted out by any members that are rested up and such. Course, there’s not many people for you to trade members with until you get pretty far in the game. In most RPGs, you can get through the game without much of a dependency on your supporting characters, though the other two characters in your party are very important in KOTOR. Each character can have a type of fighting, whether it be
grenadier, or the default: attack any seen enemies at will. The character AI in KOTOR is not so surprisingly STUPID, as they’ll just run right into different situations guns, swords, or sabers blazing most of the time. The enemy AI have their moments, though otherwise are as dumb as a sloth.
KOTOR kind of paces the story through that of Quests, both side and main, though they’re both mixed together in a list that is updated every time you figure out something about where to go next. As you talk to people, more quests will be added to your trusty quest log, and after reaching certain points, quests will be surrounded by a purple border. There are also completed quests, though they don’t mean much to you unless you like to read the little excerpts that talk about how you got something, who you talked to, how they felt about it, etc. KOTOR is scripted in certain parts, in order to pace the story right, and sometimes you go through a ton of side-quests in
order to reach the main quest or receive information about the main quest. While there are plenty of optional side-quests, the side-quests en route to the main story are what pace the game. While most of the quests include talking to someone or retrieving a package and delivering it or something, the “puzzles” in the game aren’t anything major, and so a major portion of the game is exploring and fighting. Not that I’m complaining or anything.
KOTOR is long. Spanning seven different planets, including Tatooine, Datooine, Kashyyk (the home planet of the Wookie), and Korriban (home planet of the Sith). I’d say that on average, KOTOR is 35-40 hours long, though it depends on how you go through playing the game. If you do everything there is to do, then you could go well over the 40 hours - for either the Light or Dark side. So really, there are almost 80 hours of gameplay, and the Light and Dark side are both different enough to warrant a second time through to be part of the force that you weren’t the first time through.
Graphics
Bioware did a great job at representing the Star Wars universe in KOTOR, as everything you’d think is Star Wars and ever was in Star Wars, is in the game. The locales are awesome, like the Kashyyk and Korriban planets, home of the Wookie and Sith, and also the space ports are bustling with activity. KOTOR is huge, and for the most part, environments are about as good as they’re going to get, though they are full of detail in the first place. The character models have a decent amount of polygons in their garments and accessories, though the faces don’t move much and they look like they’re stoned sometimes. Otherwise, all of the different alien races look just like they’re suppose to, and the wookies still look like walking carpets. It would have been cool if Bioware could have used the same detail design as Rare did with Fox in Starfox Adventures, but it’s not that big of a deal really. Bioware wanted to build the planets and different environments to immerse you in the Star Wars universe, and they’ve done just that, and then some.
The battle animations are pretty cool, especially as you get to use the light sabers. The different effects that flare off of the light sabers as they clash with other light sabers and the glow of the light sabers themselves light up the screen. There are various cut scenes throughout KOTOR that look real nice, though sometimes lacked in much detail and smooth edges. Much of KOTOR is kind of rough around the edges, and I don’t mean that as in the game content is brutal, but much of the models are kind of jagged and aren’t smoothed out. There’s also a slight concern with the frame rate in certain areas. The game will take huge rate jumps at random places, and the frame rate will also jump a bit whenever you do a lot of running within an enclosed area, though they’re highly sporadic, so it’s nothing big enough to decrease the value of the game.
Sound
KOTOR captures all the essence of Star Wars in every area, and the sound isn’t not receiving the same Star Wars treatment as every other area. I think the only musical score from John Williams is the main Star Wars theme played at the beginning of the game and every once in a while in the background during gameplay. Otherwise, a new composer composed 90 minutes of new material of KOTOR, and plays at climatical points in the game, and will play in the background, getting really loud and then going quiet again (like what is used in Resident Evil, when the music starts to climax is when something is usually about to happen). The sound effects are nothing short of Star Wars, whether it be the roaring engines of a space shuttle, to the techno like sounds of light sabers butting against each other. The voice acting is also done well too, especially the different alien races, which speak in their own tongue. The Wookie speak Wookie, the Tw’ilek speak Tw’ilek, etc., etc.
Overall
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is just what the Xbox needs - variety. Right now, the Xbox has been primarily focusing on Xbox Live, and first-person shooters and such to go with Xbox live. The RPG genre is really lacking on the Xbox (as it is on the Gamecube for the most part), and what better than to have a game fill that RPG void, and also hang out with Halo as one of, if not THE best game on Xbox to date. There are a few problems such as sporadic frame rate leaps and L-O-N-G loading times, though they are not anywhere near big enough problems to decline any of the value that KOTOR has. The gameplay is awesome, the graphics are great, and being able to completely immerse yourself in the Star Wars universe is a force to be reckoned with. I suggest that any Xbox owner should own KOTOR, though if you’re not sure of the game or you’re not really too fond of RPGs, KOTOR should not be passed up and at least be rented. One way or another, every Xbox owner must experience KOTOR.
