Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Review (PC)

Knights of the Old Republic captures just about every quintessential element of a perfect role-playing game. Like past great RPGs (see FFVII), KOTOR has the ability to bring you into the world they have created and really make you feel like you are the character you play, and the choices you will make throughout the story are really based on what you would do in real life. You start the game with very little information; you are a character who has awoken on a ship that has come under attack, on board is a Jedi who you and your first partner, Carth, must save. From there you enter into the world of KOTOR. You must choose your character before starting the game from a variety of species and professions, each with its own advantages. Choose from a scoundrel, a scout or a soldier. As the story progresses, you will discover your force adapt (one who is keyed into the force) abilities, and are accepted to train as a Jedi knight. Again, you are faced with choices: what kind of Jedi will you become? A mediator? A fighter? Will you follow the path of the Light, or succumb to lure of the Dark side? All the classic Star Wars elements you could hope for. Let's face it, no one wants to play a Star Wars game and be ANYTHING but a Jedi (as my editor Steven points out 'too bad for those musicians in SWG, huh?'). Character progression in the game is classic RPG; earn experience points by defeating enemies and completing the hundreds of quests in the game. One interesting aspect playing a Jedi is the choices you make, and how those choices will affect your alignment to the light of dark sides of the force. This will in turn affect your force powers and inherent force abilities. There are also great side-games included, such as Pazak cards and swoop-bike racing.

Throughout the game, you will encounter and acquire many different party members: including three Jedi, a Wookie, two Robots, a human Republican Guard and a Mandelorian soldier. Each character has unique abilities and advantages, and there is a wealth of equipment and add-ons that suit each one. In keeping with RPG mentality, there are many 'super weapons' for each character that can only be found by completing certain quests or tasks. As well, each character can manufacture specific items for you to use in the game, so don't forget to speak to your teammates often, and as you gain levels. It's hard not to play the game with a party made up of all Jedi, but I suggest you try and balance your party between force users and gun-toting maniacs. A welcome feature to the game is that party members will level-up automatically, so if you haven't used a character in a while, you don't have to worry about them being stuck at lower level than the rest.

Graphically, this game is one of the best around. The detail is amazing in the backgrounds, and the environments are huge. Each level contains indoor and outdoor environments, and the game's graphic engine (which is not based on Neverwinter
Nights) takes full advantage of higher-end graphics cards and DX 9 to give battles an especially good look. Special effects are really well done, explosions look great, and faster machines can opt for many blurring and particle effects that help to visualize many of the force powers in action.

Music is exactly what we would expect from a Star Wars title - that is, John Williamsesque. While the score was not written by John Williams, Jeremy Soule has done a commendable job recreating the feel of the classic movie soundtracks. The environmental audio is also given special attention, such as the echoes in the voices in some environments, a nice touch that most developers wouldn't think to include. Surround sound is supported, but I don't have the ability to test it out. All the characters have voice dialogue, which may account for the 4-disc size of this game. It's a great thing to hear the voices of your characters and even the NPC's you encounter, with very little overlap in the alien dialogue.

Gameplay is the best part of this game mainly because it is so easy to jump into. Even if you have never played an RPG before, this game will have you up and running in less than 5 minutes. Everything you need to know is explained in the first level: how to move, fight, go solo or stealth, and how to use your menus. It's easy to control the game, it's right click to move and steer the character with your mouse. Fighting is also simple, as you can select the character you want to fight; and queue up the moves. The game options also allow you to slow down the action to get a grip on how to fight. You can force the game to pause after every round of fighting, and even hold when you encounter enemies to get your ducks in a row. For the sake of reviewing this game, I played on easy mode in order to get as far as possible. While I haven't finished the game, I am on the last level, which leads me to one of my very few criticism of the game. It goes from very easy to very hard very fast. With most RPGs, really hard enemies you encounter always have a weakness you can exploit. With the final level of KOTOR, this is not exactly the case. While your characters levels and abilities should be high, able to dispatch most of the enemies you encounter quickly, the sheer amount of baddies coming at you is a little discouraging. In a final attempt to hold you back, Malik throws every Sith warrior and robo-guard he has against you. And let me tell you, it is a lot! Another great aspect of playing KOTOR on the PC is that many of the problems Xbox users experienced have been resolved, and continue to be worked out by patching. This week, Bioware released the first patch for the PC version, eliminating a few crash and memory leak issues. The Bioware forum is a great place to keep on top of issues that you may encounter in the game, and upcoming fixes.

My only other complaint has to be the lack of multiplayer. I believe that this game could infinitely benefit from a solid multiplayer side, like Neverwinter Nights. Players could be able to join into parties to complete game missions, or missions of gamers' creation. Adding something like that would be huge, giving every Star Wars dork... I mean, fan, the opportunity to write his own Jedi saga. Think of the possibilities (on second thought, maybe the multiplayer wasn't included for fear that servers all over the world would explode at the influx of player-made levels and quests for the game). My prediction: there will be an add-on or expansion in the next 6-12 months that will incorporate multiplayer with a map editor and quest builder.

In short, this game is a hands-down choice for many for game of the year. It's hard to see why not, it has everything a game should have, and more. The story, the graphics, the sounds all work so well together to create a seamless environment of Star War fun, that you'd be hard pressed to find anything you didn't love after playing it just once. And no whiny Jedi either! The Skywalkers won't be around for another 1000 years! KOTOR is in stores now.

Our Final ScoreExcellent

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