Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Also Known As: SW: KotOR, KotOR
Genre: Action RPG
Platform(s): X-Box/PC
Allegiance: BioWare/Lucas Arts
Vintage: 2003
Rating: T
Intelligence Agency Report by: Dave K
You are a member of the Endar Spire, a ship which has been destroyed by the Sith leaving you stranded on Taris. With only one fellow crew member to help you, you must rescue the Jedi Bastila and escape the planet to stop the Sith threat.

Weapons Expert Report by: Dave K
Story/Premise
Gameplay
Impact
Visual
Audio
10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
9.50
Overall 9.75
(not an average)
Version Reviewed: X-Box I am a huge Star Wars fan so when I first saw Knights of the Old Republic (known here on in as KotOR) I wanted it. What amazed me the most about KotOR is how it used the D20 system from the incredibly popular Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper RPG. You never see any of the dice rolls on the screen, only the results of them. However, considering the complexity of the D20 system, BioWare has adapted it extremely well to a console game. The controls of the game is an incredibly touchy subject, it’s very hard to argue that they’re difficult but it takes a fair amount of time to adapt to the game and unless you are quite knowledgeable in how the D20 system works your character may suck. Moving around and such is pretty easy and the combat system is generally just “target and attack,” similar to that in any of the recent Zelda games. Some people may complain that there is no way a person can miss with a blaster that badly or that it’s impossible for someone to live after they’ve been attacked by a lightsaber without any missing limbs.While it may have some detracting factors to it, they can be easily be overlooked and really if you were to die from the first scratch you’d be dead way too often anyway. 

KotOR also has some of the greatest audio work I have ever seen in a videogame. The cast has some names that you might recognize such as Ed Asner, Jennifer Sloan, Raphael Sbarge and Kevin Michael Richardson. The game can become like watching a well acted movie if you turn off the subtitles and just listen to what the people have to say (although you may not know what the aliens say). However, most of the alien speech is the same lines regurgitated many times over, which in my opinion does injustice to Star Wars where languages were much better thought up. Only the Wookie speak seems right in this game. For the most part sound effects are amazingly real. The only sound effect I found to be annoying was the sound of your laser cannons in any of the dogfights. Overall however the sound is excellent and has only been paralleled by a few games. 

However the greatest factor in the game is the incredible storyline. There are so many different possibilities for your character to take and each has an effect upon the outcome of the game in some way. For instance you can choose to kill a merchant and collect the bounty on him, or pay the money he owes to help him. Each way has its advantages: one way pushes you towards the dark side but gains credits, the other pushes you towards the light side but loses you credits. Remaining neutral in the game is incredibly difficult and you often have to pick one side over the other. However in short there are just so many different choices you can make and so many side quests that to finish this game and all the side quests could take several weeks. 

If you’re a fan of Star Wars, or a fan of D&D or just a fan of the X-Box you must play Knights of the Old Republic. If you dislike one or any combinations of those then maybe you want to stay away or perhaps just give it a try at a friend’s house. Overall, KotOR is one of the greatest games ever made.