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The first playable cRPG in over a decade

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: May 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Over the course of the last ten years, I've bought just about every PC RPG that's had any remmendations behind it whatsoever -- from Diablo to Baldur's Gate to Planescape: Torment to Morrowind to Baldur's Gate II to Diablo II to Neverwinter Nights, the list goes on and on. And yet not *one* of these games was capable of grabbing my interest. Like a gambler throwing it all away I knew that my luck was going to change sometime. When I picked up Knights of the Old Republic, it did.

I didn't have high expectations going in. After all, the game was based on the Neverwinter Nights engine and that game was a snorefest. Likewise, I had no existing affection for the Star Wars movies, books, or other games -- I've never even watched all three movies in more than bits and pieces, and all out of sequence. The box didn't exactly promise much, either.

But once I began playing, I was absolutely blown away by this game. Well, not perhaps not at the very beginning, but within the first few hours, most certainly. The game grew on me as no game has in the twenty-plus years I've been an avid gamer -- I was playing KotOR upwards of eight hours a day. The storyline wasn't astonishingly deep, but it was personal and relevant in the way that Baldur Gate II's deteached plot could never hope to be. I cared about these characters; they weren't just little sprites (or polygonal models, in this case) on a screen. The characters reacted to what happened around them, and there were clear consequences for your choices (unlike Morrowind, where everyone says exactly the same thing and doesn't care if assassins attack in their house).

The developers had a clear concept in mind and it shows, despite the occasional bugs (which are nowhere near as problematic as Morrowind's). The NPC AI is decent, the characters more than one-dimensional, the storyline engaging, the battle-system (based on the D&D 3e [d20] system, albeit simplified) somewhat strategic, and the overall experience very enjoyable. When I reached the end of the game for the first time, 35 hours in, I only regretted that the game was so *short* -- and yet I've never had so many quality hours with a computer/console RPG before.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the best electronic RPG since the Gold Box games of the late 80s, but a game that is also accessable to a new generation of players. Kudos to the Bioware team for a fantastic product.

Only for certain types of gamers

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 22 / 44
Date: December 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

SWKOTOR is Lucasarts' most self-guided, open-ended Star Wars game ever. It is sophisticated and complex beyond belief. Players choose every power, every weapon, every partner, and every word, because, as in the Star Wars universe, the choices you make will determine whether you embrace the light or the dark side of the Force. But BE WARNED: this is a very certain type of game for a very specific type of player. I'm more than a casual Star Wars fan, but about nine or ten hours in, gameplay became boring and monotonous.

First, the pluses: the in-game graphics are good, considering the vast number of worlds and creatures; I'd rank them about a half-notch below Jedi Academy. The cut-scenes are spectacular, though. Gameplay is easy, and there are lots of nice little touches here and there: the characters are deep and emotional, the rapid-transit system is helpful, and the item-sorting and sharing systems are perfect.

But you'll find yourself doing much of the same thing over the course of the game: talking. It's like an overlong movie, not enough action, too much reaction. Plus the plot is enormous, and the sidequests are either pointless, annoying or both. While the Jedi Academy games had steady pacing and clear start-to-finish goals, this game has clunky dialogue and repetitive lectures. The fights aren't great either; basically you push a couple of buttons and your character goes on autopilot. I loved controlling the functions of the light saber in the Jedi Knight games, but here the computer does it all for you.

If you are devoted to Star Wars and have the patience to read every word and find every clue, this game might work for you. If you really want a game where every action decides your fate, maybe you'll like SWKOTOR. But if you like a more linear style of Star Wars game with controllable fighting and better Force Powers, try Jedi Academy instead.

So close to a perfect Star Wars game, but for the interface

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

KOTOR's mix of options for your character, its storytelling, and the interactions with the non-player characters in your party show developer Bioware at its best--these aspects of the game are as good as anything in the classic Baldur's Gate series. You can develop your character as a noble Jedi or a corrupt and vile servant of the dark side of the Force--and, unlike many games, still win either way. Your party members will comment on your actions and raise their own troubles and start new quests. The story itself, set thousands of years before the Star Wars movies, is not groundbreaking, but touches on classic themes of redemption and betrayal. This is good stuff.

Combine it with the fact that you get to play with all the cool Jedi powers and lightsabers, without having to deal with the annoyances of the Star Wars prequel movies--there are no silly attempts to rationalize the Force, there are no bumbling sidekicks. In fact, somehow, Bioware managed to slip in discussions about how the Jedi may have misunderstood the Force all along. Bioware seems to know how to make the Star Wars universe interesting in ways George Lucas forgot long, long ago.

But, alas, it's not perfect. Where KOTOR falls down is in its interface. This game was developed for both the PC and the Xbox, and it shows. Unlike most PC RPGs, where you can tell your character what to do, and he does it, in KOTOR, you have to steer him (or her) around as in a 3rd person shooter game (e.g., Tomb Raider). Equipping your character or managing your inventory are arduous tasks, limited by the need to accomodate the Xbox. Moreover, unless you have a pretty powerful PC, your attempts to maneuver the interface will be hampered by frequent slowdowns in the graphics. Fortunately, the fighting is done in a more conventional style, where you issue commands to your character (plus your party members, if you want).

The interface problems never quite went away, but I became accustomed to them by the second or third day. Once you reach that point, they do not overshadow a terrific game.

Lots of fun! So many cool details...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Last night I finished playing this game as a "good Jedi". Everything up until the final fight scene was outstanding. (My only problem with the last fight - if your character didn't have certain skills, it meant big trouble.)

There is a computer RPG concept I've heard called "The Rail". A character can only do so much creative stuff before hitting a boundary: (walking into the edge of the world, NPCs who can't be killed or rescued, things that cannot be done). As far as I've seen this game is "state of the art" for giving the player wide choices and showing the consequencies of those choices. (But if you really want total play flexibility, roll dice.)

Graphics tuning can be an issue. But there are enough switches you can fiddle with to adjust to what your hardware will support. (This game eats a lot of CPU and needs a fast graphic card to refresh the shadows and other beautiful visual effect when characters are moving and/or the camera angle is spinning.)

From a computer graphics and game viewpoint I was really impressed with seeing the armor, weapons, and visors the characters were then wearing being incorporated into the cut sequence animations. It was another really cool detail.

I'm starting to think George Lucas should have not made movies out of Episodes 1, 2, & 3. (He should have left those as books - just like 7, 8, & 9) He *should* have made a couple movies out of the materials in *this* storyline.

Buyer Beware

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying that this game is extremely fun. I have a great time every time I turn it on, but then the bugs start! This game was obviously shipped in time to make the Xmas season, and it was not thoroughly tested. Go to the Technical Issues board on the Bioware website to see the issues.

I've run across at least three different bugs, from problems saving to graphics problems, that have severly hampered the playing of the game. There are still no fixes for these bugs. If Bioware and LucasArts release a new patch (currently at 1.01 as of this writing) to fix these issues, I will gladly raise the score to 5 stars.

Excellent game, don't let the RPG scare you.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Wow, I'm on my third play through of the game. It's amazing. A little different every time you play it. Sure alot of the main parts are the same, but the dialog really is effected by the choices you make in the game. It's very cool that you can choose to follow the light side and become a Jedi or give in to the dark side and rule the galaxy. My only complaint is the game's not long enough. I beat it the first time in less than 30 hours. But it's still great. The weapons take a little getting used to and there seems to be no way to obtain all the force powers for light or dark side, so you got to pick and choose carefully. Same goes with the abilities, you can't master everything. oh, and by far the best feature I've ever seen in the game, it can check for updates and download and install the most recent patch. I used this feature before I played the game for the first time and haven't had any problems with crashes or bugs. For anyone who does have problems I only have three pieces of advice: 1) Install the newest version of DirectX 2) Update your graphics drivers 3) Update your sound card drivers; and do so in that order. That tends to be the most common problem with PC games is people don't update their drivers.

Star Wars fans: Get this. Gamers: Get this.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: April 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

BioWare first proved their skill in creating computer roleplaying games when they released the original Baldur's Gate years ago. They have since refined their techniques, improving nearly every aspect of their games with each release.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (henceforth KOTOR) is the culmination of everything they've learned since their early days. KOTOR has a tightly focused story complemented by plenty of side quests along the way, and it is that very focus that, for some--self included--makes this game superior to the much-hailed Baldur's Gate 2. The story itself is an epic but cliched effort in true Star Wars fashion. It's predictable, but it it's not lacking in emotional power, and despite the fact that this game is set millenia before the Star Wars films, it feels more true to the spirit of the original trilogy than either of Lucas's prequels.

On the technical side of things, every line is voiced, as BioWare has constantly bragged. This is deceptive, however, as at least a third of the conversations are with aliens, and most aliens speak in their language--in other words, though their lines are voiced, it just sounds like gibberish, and I suspect there were just a number of generic sound files for alien lines. That said, the human voice-overs are excellent, the best I've ever heard in any game. Some are certainly better than others, but characters like Candor, Bastila, and the assassin droid stand out with nearly film-quality voice acting.

The game is based on a heavily modified version of the engine used in Neverwinter Nights, "Aurora". The graphics are adequate, but not remarkable in comparison to games like recently released shooters (Unreal Tournament 2004, for example). The real problem is that the Aurora engine is showing its age, and no matter how much they modify it, it's going to run like crap when they use models, textures, and effects of this quality. It's just not designed to support this number of polys, and you really need a great system to run this game. Or an X-Box. Heh.

The interface is clumsy in some ways, but better than its predecessor (Neverwinter Nights) in others. The inventory system is awful and obviously designed for a console, and the action queue is a little too limited for my tastes. The interface also suffers from the removal of the assignable hot keys that made Neverwinter Nights so easy to control. That said, some innovations, such as including the various attacks, force powers, and grenade throws as buttons over the selected target, are very welcome and convenient. The interface more than anything else shows that this game was designed for the X-Box, but it was still adapted well enough for the PC, and is overall pretty easy to handle (despite some minor frustrations).

There are few significant bugs, and patching the game gets rid of virtually all of them.

Having played through this game twice, once as a Light Side character and once as a Dark Side, I can highly recommend it to anyone who remotely enjoys Star Wars or computer games. It was named Game of the Year by many respectable publications, and for good reason. If your system can handle it, buy KOTOR. If your system can't, buy an X-Box and get KOTOR. In fact, this has the added bonus of getting you ready for BioWare's next great RPG: Jade Empire, an X-Box only title being released at the end of this year.

Knights of the Old Republic stands as one of the greatest RPG releases since Baldur's Gate 2, and one of the best games in recent years. BioWare holds their place as the king of the computer RPG crowd, and KOTOR is just further evidence of their mastery.

I hate Star Wars ... but I loved this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: April 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I picked this game up on the advice of Star Wars-loving friends who assured me that I too would adore this game. I don't like FPS games; I'm more a D&D RPG sort of person. Also, although the movies aren't bad, Star Wars games until now have been uniformly lame. So I was dubious, but they were right.
First, the storyline is great. Although it starts out very linear, you soon have a multitude of potential quests. You pick up several NPCs and they have quests and personalities as well. You have the option to play an evil Jedi and thus be able to use dark powers more easily. Your choices for good or evil actually affect the storyline.
Second, the game play allows some time for deliberation. Although the fights are real time, you can plan your moves two or three in advance. This allowed for fast game play without requiring that I master any particular arcane set of controls.
Finally, there are so many different quests to do and skills to acquire that you can actually play the game through twice without getting too bored. Since there aren't enough good RPGs out there to satisfy my appetite, I appreciate the chance to squeeze as much enjoyment as possible from the good ones. If you like RPGs and don't have this game yet, I would definitely advise you to get it.

Does Everything That Episodes I and II Didn't

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The acting is good. The storyline is interesting. There is character development. You won't come away from it feeling you threw your money away. And perhaps most importantly, you will want to experience it more than once (everyone ends up playing it at least twice, once for each of the two different endings). The game play is not 'non-linear' in the way that Morrowind is 'non-linear,' so don't expect to be able to go wherever, and do whatever you want immediately, there are limitations. The first two levels/areas are fairly limited in terms of where you can go and what order you can can finsh quests in, but after that you can visit any of the other 4 planets in whichever order you choose and should you leave, you can always return. Throughout the game you can usually choose to accomplish tasks, or not accomplish tasks, in a multitude of different orders and you almost always have at least three courses of action you can take, these generally break down into evil, neutral and good. And if you ever get bored or are low on funds, you can always play a game of cards. One of the games strongest aspects is the development of the main character (you). Your decisions as to the actions you take, or don't take, will impact your leaning to the light or dark sides. The story's outcome and the choices available to you towards the end of the game change depending on which side you are on, as do other character's reactions towards you, your abilities to use certain force powers, and even your physical appearance (if you are light side you appear normal, dark side, your character grows increasingly hunched-over, your skin gets paler, veins start to become very noticeable and your eyes will lose their pigmentation). This is not a hardcore RPG like Galaxies, Gothic, Everquest etc., nor is it a mindless hack-and-slash click-athon like Diablo and Dungeon Siege. Fights are always fast, leveling is relatively easy, there are not many stats to keep track of, and there is plenty of room for strategy. This game deserved every 'game of the year' award it got, and if you like games that require a bit of thinking and strategy and have compelling storylines, or you just like Star Wars, or both, you will enjoy this game immensely, those of you who only play FPS's and other reflex games should probably look elsewhere.

Dynamic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

For fans of Bioware games like Baldurs Gate, KOR will seem familiar, but greatly evolved. The game depends on a D&D engine for skill aquisition and level advancement, as well as 3rd edition rules for prestige characters. Like other bioware games, KOR involves a large central quest and a large number of side quests many of which players are offered based on the NPCs the choose and that are often optional. Bioware, to their credit, here evolves much of the old "run and fetch" type quests, giving them in some cases several solutions and possible endings. Dialogue is also majorly advanced from previous games, offering a wider range of options for end results.

Lovers of Star Wars (which I am not really, just a minor fan) will enjoy the chance to sight see through the Galaxy far, far, away, as well as getting to learn much more about the mythos of the Jedi and the history of the republic. To the games credit, I found this aspect both entertaining and quite engrossing. Many other reviewer have allready pointed out that the game is richer than either of the previous films, and I would certainly join in this chorus.

Game play in KOL flows well, though the complaints about the game being buggy are well founded. Patches help considerably, but I still found myself needing to quit and reload a few times when the game froze in dialogue mode. Players may think looking at the game that it is combat oriented, but in reality the game is far more roleplay driven. Hit and damage are determined by random generation modified by armor and skill modifiers. The game also does an excellent job presenting Jedi powers, which I fould to be one of the games most fun aspects. These powers are divided between light, dark, and general. The more "light" your Jedi character is, the more expensive in Manna "dark" powers are to use. I played through as a Light side character but look forward to playing again on the dark side.

In sumation, Knights of the Old Republic offers players a wonderful play experience and easily 50+ hours of play time.

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