Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic Review
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 9.5/10
Sound: 10/10
Replayablity: 9/10
Opinion: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10 (Outstanding)
The storyline is far more thrilling than any of the Star Wars moives I've ever seen.
Gameplay: 9
You play as your own character battling the Sith, 4,000 years ago before the formation of the New Republic, where Jedis and Sith are everywhere. After crash landing on the planet of Taris, you are to find a powerful Jedi that also crashed on the planet. The story then starts.
It is done like all other Lucasarts adventure games, wiht over 15,000 dialogues, the game feels more of a movie, combined with RPG butt kicking everyone else. The presentation of the game is stylish, starting with the scrolling text and Star Wars Theme music, giving a short explanation of what is going on. After the scrolling text, you would see a dream, or is it a vision, when you discover you are strong in the force. Then the first quest for you is to get off a Republic ship being attacked by Siths. There is where you play through the tutorial. The controls are alittle different, using Z & C instead of A & D for left and right. But you soon get use to it.
Bioware has done a good job writing the story and the game itself. After finding the Jedi and getting of Taris, you go for Jedi training and then is on your way to stop the Sith and finding the 'Star Forge'. Then you are given access to the Desert planet of Tatooine, the neutral planet of Manaan, the Wookie home planet of Edean (I'm not spoiling any story here) and the Sith populated planet of Korriban, with it's own Dark Jedi training facility. The game strongly follows on the principle: There is always another way to complete the quest. But it is not always safe or good to complete a quest in another way.
You get 9 party members throughout the entire game, but you can only bring 2 along at anytime. All the party members have their own past, which is for you to discover, or not. Having good relations with your party members affect the game, and they all have their side-quests, which are fun to do.
Since you are a Jedi in the game, be wary of conversation and quests you are about to do. Conversations affect your light and dark side rating, which also affect the game alot. Forcing people to agree (with Persuade or Choking them) leads to the dark side, while helping and choosing good dialogues leads to the light side. Some quests also have many ways to complete, some which are good, and some which are bad. KotOR (Knights of the Old Republic) also have a handful of humorous side quests for you to complete while you aren't going for the main quest. An example is to find and convince a suicidal driod to go back to his master. Or you could destroy it and lie to the master. All which have it's good and bad points.
The combat system may look simple, basically a hit or miss thing. It is acutally based on D&D rules, where the computer would roll a 20 side dice, taking the number and adding to your strengh, dexterity, and level, to determine how much damage would you inflict, or miss. Different kinds of attacks like Power attack or Critical Strike also affect the dice roll and damage inflicted.
With 200+ items to find, 50+ side-quests, 40+ weapons from blasters to lightsabers, and many others like force powers and feats, this is a short but extremely fun and deep RPG game. Even your choice of sex (male or female) affects the game greatly, and being good or evil also changes the entire game and it's ending.
Unfortunately, among all this, there is some instability issues. Like controls problems, 'Spinning camera of Doom', mouse clicking problems and more. Though these problems are minor and normally easy to fix (with a few slaming on the keyboard).
Graphics: 9.5
The graphics are splendid, but major slowdowns all over the place. FPS are at 7-17 in busy areas while goes to 20-50 in not so busy areas.
The NPCs and your members all look good, with occasional Twi'Leks, Rodians, Wookies, and other alien species. Lightsaber battles are very nice, that could make you drool.
Sound: 10
Original Star Wars music by John Williams, other techno and easy-listening music by some composer. Dialogues are like a movie, the aliens also sometimes talk in their native language and not Galatic Basic. Though it is sometimes hard (and somewhat funny) for an alien to talk for about 45 seconds just to say "Let's play Pazaak." Blaster sounds, lightsaber sounds all are originally from the movie, so if you are a Star Wars fan, you'll be right at home.
Replayablity: 9
There is so many ways to finish the game. You could finish as a Good male or female Jedi, or finish the game as an evil male or female Jedi, the plot at the end can go to alot of different paths. Different paths open up new missions, sidequests, conversations and events. So it is like a different game all over again.
Reviewer's Opinion: 10
There is no wonder why is the game highly praised when it's Xbox version came out earlier in 2003. The PC version have more sidequests, more stories and many more features. It's incredibily fun to play, even though of the slowdown and technical issues. Another fun thing to do is to quickly learn [Force Persuade] so you can go around persuading everyone in sight. But I tell you, it is difficult to be bad, your inner feelings all play with you, and you couldn't steal a valuable item from a widow beggar. Darn, I even paid her 700 credits and sent her off. I guess I'm bad being bad.
Also, there is just too many jokes thrown around. Here are some of my favorite:
HK-47: "It's just that you have all these squishy parts, master. How the constant sloshing doesn't drive you mad, I do not know."
You: "Neither do I, acutally..."
AND
When we are on Korriban, A Sith planet with it's own Sith Academy...
Sith Officer: "Do you know how many Sith there are on Korriban?"
Jolee: "Let me guess, twelve, no thirteeeeen!"
I hate Carth, I love Bastila, I confess! Death to 'Cartholoics'!
