Genre: RPG
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Lucas Arts
Released On: July 17, 2003
# of Players: 1
ERSB: Teen
Supports: Dl content, 480p, Dolby Digital
MSRP: $49.99
Also On: None
Website: www.bioware.com/games/knights_old_republic
Better Than: any other Star Wars game
When it comes to console gaming, Microsoft’s big black box is not known for commanding too many genres, and that especially holds true when it comes to RPG’s. Had you asked 100 gamers in the month of June 2003 which console comes to mind when the word “RPG” is tossed at them, likely 99% would have said either PS2 or Gamecube, with the remaining 1% that replied Xbox probably suffering from some form of head injury that only a doctor could mend. It is this gaping wound in the Xbox line-up that has deterred many gamers from dropping their hard earned dollars on Microsoft’s wonderful piece of hardware, as RPG’s have fast become a favorite among gamers. Fortunately for Xbox owners, Lucas Arts has found just the team for the job. Developed by BioWare, a development house formed by two medical school graduates (no joke) and responsible for some of the most beloved series of RPG’s the PC has ever seen, Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and based on the very same Dungeons and Dragons revision 3 rule set, Knights of the Old Republic has just the right tools for job. The doctor is most definitely in.
As one might imagine, an RPG based on something as deep and complex as Dungeons and Dragons is no typical movie-turned-video game affair. This game is very stat heavy. Every single aspect of your character is represented in numerical form, as are the various items you will find along the way; combat and even something as simple as talking to people along your journey will play very heavily off of these and other numbers. As with the pen and paper D&D games, there are many references to things such as rolling 20-sided dice, saving throws, DC’s and other RPG lingo that after 40 hours of play I can only begin to comprehend. But the beauty of it all is that the computer is calculating all of this data and crunching the numbers behind the scenes in real time, and it is very comforting to know that such thought and meticulous care has been invested into the game’s mechanics.
When you begin the game you are given the choice of one of three character types: soldier, scout, and scoundrel. For each character type you are also able to have either a male or female character, and from there you are given several faces to choose from to further customize your look.
"An RPG based on something as deep and complex as Dungeons and Dragons... it is very comforting to know that such thought and meticulous care has been invested into the game’s mechanics."
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The different character classes offer more than varying costumes however, as each one begins with different basic class abilities. For instance, choosing a soldier starts you off with a vitality rating of 10, the highest of all three classes, however as a tradeoff you will learn skills at a slower rate throughout the game. After you have chosen your character, it’s off to the attributes. Here you will have 30 points to distribute amongst various character defining traits such as strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Points in these areas help to define what type of a person your character is, and will play an important role in everything from combat to leveling up to how people react to what you say and do. Next you are going to be choosing skills, for which you will have 24 points to distribute among computer use, demolitions, stealth, awareness, persuasion, repair, security and treat injury. These stats are used in determining how you will go about solving various challenges throughout the game. Next you will need to choose from a list of feats, which are special abilities that will learn that will let you do things you otherwise could not, such as operate heavy firearms or effectively wield two weapons at the same time. Your character will begin the game with a couple feats already learned depending on character class, with one more given to you to choose from the list right away. Unless you’re a hardened RPG player, most of these stats and abilities are going to mean about as much to you as the nutrition information on the side of your cereal box, but luckily a quick press of the ‘Y’ button during any of these selections will automatically recommend something for you. Lastly you are given the option to choose a name for your character, and again you are given the option to choose a random name, which I did and it turned out pretty good. If you think all of this sounds a bit too complicated you are given the opportunity to generate a character completely at random and get right to the game; first time players might want to do just that.
Knights of the Old Republic (or KOTOR for short) takes place 4,000 years before the Star Wars movies in a time of great struggle between the Republic and the ever increasingly powerful (and evil) Sith army. You begin the game on a small Republic ship called the Endar Spire, a ship that is carrying some very precious cargo: Bastila, a gifted Jedi woman who might just be the Republic’s last hope in defeating the Sith. You are awakened out of your sleep to find that the Endar Spire has come under a surprise attack from a Sith fleet, and it isn’t long before you and the crew are forced to abandon ship. Your escape pod takes you to the nearby planet of Taris where your search for Bastila begins, and from there the story escalates into one of the most enjoyable Star Wars plots since Return of the Jedi. Throughout your adventure you will travel to various planets, meet strange alien beings and even become a Jedi yourself. But the question remains: will you follow the path that leads to the light side, or the dark?
While wandering around in the world your on-screen display is split up into several key areas. The upper-right corner of the screen will show a small area map with an arrow indicating which direction your character is facing in relation to North. The lower-right hand corner displays your party member’s pictures and vital stats (health, force power). The bottom of the screen is a box displaying icons of the various commands you can input at any given time, ranging from using your security skill to pick a lock to placing a mine to using a medkit. A simple press of the ‘D-pad’ left and right will cycle through each category, while pressing up and down will cycle through each option within that category. Pressing the ‘Black’ button will allow you to cycle through your party members (you can have up to 3 at a time), while pressing the ‘White’ button will pause the game allowing you to input commands and select various targets without having to worry about what is happening around you. Pressing the ‘Start’ button will bring up the game’s inventory, equipment, items, map, etc. screens for you to use at any time which you can cycle through with a press of the ‘L’ and ‘R’ buttons when in this menu mode. From the options screen you can adjust many settings, from on-screen subtitles, game difficulty (which can be changed at any point in the game) and even save your game at any point in time with no penalty– a very big plus indeed. From the items and equipment screens you can also read up on each and every piece of anything you come across, and each one has a brief and very thoughtful description of the history of that item and what it does. You might say that BioWare put as much attention into the game’s interface as they have put into the rest of the game, but that’s just the kind of polish that you will soon come to expect from this title.
Along your journey you will come across hundreds of people to talk to and items to interact with. To illustrate which person or item is currently selectable to you an on-screen cursor will be displayed highlighting what it is that might command your attention at the time.
"Every laser blast, light saber clash and Wookie growl will bring a tear to the eyes of fans and encourage players to turn the dial on the volume up just a little bit more than usual."
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A simple press of the ‘L’ and ‘R’ shoulder buttons will cycle through all of the points of interest within range of your character, and pressing the ‘A’ button will engage in the appropriate activity.For instance, highlighting a locker and pressing ‘A’ will bring up a list of items currently in that locker (all are yours for the taking), while highlighting a door and pressing ‘A’ will simply open the door. If the door is locked, you might want to try picking the lock by using your character’s security skill. Using the directional pad, press ‘Right’ once to highlight the security skill, and press ‘A’ to attempt to pick the lock. If you are successful the door will open, however if you are unsuccessful you will have to figure out another way to open the door. You might want to search for a computer panel to attempt to hack into the central security system and unlock the door that way if your computer skill is high enough, or you might find that your charisma and persuade stats are sufficient to convince someone nearby to open it for you. Or perhaps you might try switching to another party member and trying their hand at picking the lock, as their security skill might be higher than that of your main character. There are numerous ways to overcome any obstacle in your path, and choosing which one is right for you at the time is not only fun and challenging but also offers endless replayability.
Flying from planet to planet you will also come across hundreds of NPC’s (non-player characters) for you to talk to. Highlight a passerby and press the ‘A’ button. If you happen to choose one of the less important people they are likely to ramble on about something on their mind which doesn’t have much at all to do with the task at hand. Fortunately enough, these characters don’t stop your progress and you can simply walk away from them in mid sentence. If you happen to come across a more important character, you will begin a dialogue with them. At various points in the discussion you will be given the option of saying one of many different responses, each of which will have a direct impact on the remainder of the discussion, and ultimately the outcome of the entire game. Choose your words carefully, as you don’t want to upset someone that you might later need to ask for help. If this particular person happens to have a quest for you to fulfill, should you decide to accept the quest your in-game “quest journal” will be updated for you. Press the ‘Start’ button and cycle through the various menus until you get to the quest journal. This is where all active and completed quests are displayed, and as you progress through the game they will update automatically so you never have to try to remember who told you to go where and do what. This is a very handy feature, because often you will be in the process of completing one quest when you will run into another character that asks you to do something else. It is not uncommon for you to have ten or more active quests at a time, so the quest journal is a real godsend. And while this game will have you and the various characters you meet speaking volumes upon volumes of dialogue, every last word of it (save for your own character’s speech) is spoken aloud in some of the finest voice talent this side of an animated feature film. These people aren’t simply reading lines off of a piece of paper, there is real emotion behind every word, and it’s not hard to imagine the voice actors sitting behind the microphone in a studio at Skywalker Sound flailing their arms about and making odd faces as they act out their parts with the passion of a Shakespearian theater performer. And for added effect, early in the game a dialogue box will suggest that you turn off the game’s subtitles for a more cinematic feel, at which point I did and from then on each conversation throughout the game became more like watching a movie than simply playing a game. Not only do all of the English (or “Basic”) speaking characters speak their lines, but each individual species of alien you come across will also speak in very distinctive alien tongues which are very convincing and impossible to understand. Fortunately, for conversations with aliens, the subtitles remain on.
For every decision you make in the game your journey will branch off into a new direction, however certain key decisions will result in gaining “force points”, light side or dark side. If you tire of talking with someone and decide that you simply cannot take anymore of their incessant babblings, you are often given the option to kill them right there on the spot. While this will yield you whatever items they might happen to be carrying, this will also grant you a dark side point. However if you took the time to listen to what the character in question was telling you, and instead of killing them you decided to help them with their problem, this would instead earn you a light side point (and typically a reward too). Earning light side points certainly is the more difficult way to go through the game as it requires more patience and effort wandering around doing random tasks, but herein lies the simple genius of the system. See, the teachings in Star Wars tells us that following the path that leads to the light side is more difficult and requires much sacrifice, and the game follows that lesson perfectly; it’s quite brilliant. And as a final payoff, the player will be rewarded with a separate ending for whichever side they choose to ally themselves with – very cool.
The combat mechanics are also as well thought out as the rest of the game. When you are confronted with an enemy, the game will automatically enter into pause mode (the same one you would trigger pressing the ‘White’ button at any time) and highlight the nearest enemy with a red cursor. At this point in time you are given several options. You can press the ‘White’ button and attempt to avoid the enemy entirely, or you can choose to throw a grenade, or you can simply enter into combat by pressing the ‘A’ button. You can also cycle through all of your characters before engaging in the fight and issue each party member a separate command to perform simultaneously when you un-pause the action. The battles play out in real time, in that you aren’t taking turns with the enemy choosing what to do but instead making decisions on the fly while chaos ensues on the screen in the form of light saber battles and blaster fire. At any point during the fight you can position your character using the left-analog joystick just as you would move them when walking around a town, and then resume battle by pressing the ‘A’ button again. If it looks like you might need some extra time to plan out your attack, simply press the ‘White’ button at any time again to pause the action and issue more commands. Also during a battle you can cycle through your targets using the ‘R’ and ‘L’ shoulder buttons just as you would at any other point in the game, and when you do so the game automatically pauses for you again. If you press the ‘D-pad’ left or right to select a medkit or a grenade to throw, the game will pause again. It’s quite handy to have the game auto-pause in this manner, though it is easily disabled (for any action) in the game’s Options menu giving you the ability to tailor the battles to your liking. At first the combat system seems very automatic and out of control, but it soon becomes evident that there is some real strategy to be learned here. Some encounters will have you scratching your head and require you to rethink your battle plan completely, requiring you to change equipment and weapons over and over until you find just the right combination to squeak by. Most importantly however, the battles are just plain fun and most of the time incredible to watch, especially the light saber battles. It had been said before the game’s release that light saber duels would be every bit as spectacular as those at the end of The Phantom Menace, and I am pleased to say that they truly live up to the hype. Completing a battle will allow you to search the remains of your enemies to find items and credits (money), and you will gain experience as well so that your character will eventually level-up and gain new abilities, skills, force powers, etc. And trust me, you’re going to need them. However if you find that you’ve reached a point in the game that’s just a bit too tough you can easily adjust the game’s difficulty at any time on the options menu.
Visually KOTOR gets the job done nicely, though it is easily the weakest aspect of the title. The character models are each very distinct and some quite detailed, but awkward facial animations tend to detract a bit from the cinematic experience mentioned earlier. Each of the various worlds you will visit is lush and detailed:
"KOTOR exhibits the kind of refinement and careful craftsmanship typically reserved for expensive luxury vehicles and Swiss watches."
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flocks of birds will fly through the sky, grass will blow in the wind, water will shimmer and shine under the blazing sun (which can be so bright at times that you’ll want to squint your eyes). Sadly however, the system chugs a bit in the frame-rate department. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s not consistent and can dip into the ranges of ugliness from time to time, especially during heated battles with lots of grenades, a time when frame-rates are more important than any other. The sound effects in the game though are just pure Star Wars. Every laser blast, Light Saber clash and Wookie growl will bring a tear to the eyes of fans and encourage players to turn the dial on the volume up just a little bit more than usual. The music is absolutely incredible, and is also pure Star Wars. Completely orchestrated, some songs borrow from familiar tunes while others are entirely new, and all fit perfectly right into place and help to create the very same type of atmosphere and mood that the movies are so well known for.
I simply cannot praise this game enough, it has not only rekindled my interest in RPG’s but has also made me a Star Wars fan all over again. KOTOR exhibits the kind of refinement and careful craftsmanship typically reserved for expensive luxury vehicles and Swiss watches. From start to finish you will be drawn into one of the greatest Star Wars stories ever told, and with multiple endings you’ll want to play through the game at least twice. In fact, KOTOR marks the first time I have ever played a game through for the first time in anticipation of the second time I get to play through, not only to see what happens when I choose to follow the dark path as opposed to the light but also because the game is just that good. And if that’s not enough it also supports downloadable content over Xbox Live, so there’s no telling what might be in store for us in the future. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a work of art, and to call it the best Star Wars game is a vast understatement. Calling it the best game on the Xbox is bold, but certainly not out of the question. But to call this game best RPG of all time? Quite possibly, yes; the force is strong with this one.
The Good
+ A gripping story that changes depending on how you play the game.
+ Incredible sound effects, music and voice acting.
+ More replayability than the rest of your game library combined! The Bad
- Graphics aren’t the best on Xbox.
- Loading time can get excessive.
The Stupid
? Anyone who passes this game up.
*GamersMark.com reviewed this game with a copy of the title purchased from retail.
