Don’t Mess With Taris!

Well Jeff, your challenge of eight weeks has been met in a mere eleven days. Today at 1:30PM, Knights of the Old Republic ate the bomb.

If any of you haven’t played this, you are missing out on one of the best RPG’s and one of the finest Star Wars games ever made. I’m blown away by the amount of content they were able to fit onto one disc, and that’s after only playing through as a light side jedi! There’s probably another third of the game I haven’t seen!

This is probably the most non-linear game I’ve ever played. I had to get used to the feeling that I was missing things or not doing things right. You can’t possibly do everything your first time through so some of your party members will hardly ever be used and many quests and opportunities will be lost in favor of other paths. Aside from choosing to be a light or dark side jedi, your initial class will also determine what choices you can make. Skill levels in computer use, repair, demolitions, and persuasion affect how and if you solve problems.

It’s refreshing to play a game that is targeted to adults. Some of the puzzles are Mensa level math formulas that cause fire to shoot out of your ears. There are lots of moral dilemmas with multiple outcomes depending on how you handle them. One of the biggest is near the end of the game when what you say can mean the difference between changing your opponent’s mind and making them an ally; or having to fight them to the death. Every conversation you have gives you the opportunity to be a Boy Scout or a dick. Choosing the right phrase can be tricky at times and sometimes what they want you to say seems random and can result in a frustrating trial and error of conversation threads to get the result you want. Still, the stories that unfold and the depth of character development given to every member of your party make the game feel like the greatest Star Wars mini-series ever made.

The most ingenius innovation is the fighting system. KOTOR has come up with a way to make D n’ D turn-based fighting exciting to watch. No more boring script reading (”Melee Attack - Success! -15 hp… “). Instead your fighters carry out their turns in real time with the ability to pause the action at any time and schedule activities for each member’s future turns. So what unfolds is an exciting battle with gun fights, sword play, and jedi acrobatics. It seems chaotic at first and you feel like a mere spectator, but once you get used to it, the strategy reveals itself.

My only complaint is that my copy, despite being new, was really buggy at times. Certain areas would choke up on me and I could hear the disc spinning over and over trying to find whatever it was missing. One time I switched a member of my party and the new member materialized on the other side of a locked door where a bunch of dark jedi killed her. Perhaps with Xbox live there was a patch for these problems, but since me not have, me suffer bugs. If Microsoft was a kind and generous company, they’d allow people to download patch content for free via Xbox live and make everything else subscription based. Since they’re not, I’m stuck with “Senor Skippy”.

Believe the hype about this game. It truly deserves all the accolades it has received. It succeeds as a great RPG, a great adventure game, and a great addition to the Star Wars legacy. It probably took me 70 hours to beat this mother (the save says 59 hours, but you know how that goes..) and I’m already looking forward to playing through again as a dark jedi. I can’t wait to bitch slap all those whiney poor people! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!