shots
| Knights of the Old Republic PC review | |
| developer | BioWare |
| publisher | Lucas Arts |
| author | Marcin |
| date | Jan. 27, 2004 |
| graphics |   |
| sound | |
| gameplay | |
| value | |
| reviewer's toast | |
| overall | |
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| pros: Tons of gameplay; multi-faceted characters; decisions feel world-impacting. | |
| cons: Slightly dated graphics; too small PC menu interface; few glitches. | |
Chromehounds
NA Review by Marcin
Oblivion-The First 3 Hours
PC Quicktake by walTer
Comic Quick Takes January 25, 2006
Feature by Mike
I've been fairly disinclined to try new role playing games lately; the repetitive combat, the overly linear story with little depth, the pointless minigames - all of these staples of RPGs had given me a retch reflex. But after hearing so much about Knights of the Old Republic I just had to give it a try, and I can honestly say I haven't gotten this involved in an RPG since Planescape: Torment. And that's pretty high praise.
Knights starts you off with a minimal of fuss - pick a name and one of three specializations (soldier, scout, scoundrel) and you're off. Off into the thick of battle as you wake on a Republic ship under attack from the recently risen Sith forces. Your reasons for being on the ship are hastily sketched in by an officer assigned to you, as you both try to escape the boarded and destructing ship. You barely make it to an escape pod and jettison safely, crashing on nearby Taris, where the story truly begins. Having saved little but the clothes on your back and a blaster, you start to find out what happened and why.
Such is the start of a story that spans seven worlds and 4 CDs worth of dialogue and narration, interspersed with cutscenes detailing what goes on elsehwere. I won't really delve into the story here as it'd be all too easy to give plot twists away, but all the Toasties who have played it agree that it easily surpasses both Episode I and II in drama, richness, coherence and flow. Since there are bound to be Lucas critics that claim that's not really saying much (me included), I'll just say the story is just fine, including paranoia, nobility, evil, schoolyard bullying, wanton destruction, planetary bombardments, assassinations, murder mysteries, secret identities and lots, lots more. Ok?
Moving on...
KotOR plays from a 3rd person perspective behind the currently selected character; you can have up to 3 characters in your party. You directly control the primary character, and the other two will follow, with mostly adequate pathfinding - instances of losing a party member are rare, although they do happen. All movement and conversations are in real-time, but this isn't the Morrowind type of RPG where you can explore freely - it's more like a Final Fantasy, where you travel in a pre-rendered environment; abilities such as jump, crawl, fly or swim are not needed, as you can get everywhere you need to by simply walking; and you'll do quite a bit of that. If you are unable to get somewhere, it either means you are not intended to do so, or you have not yet achieved a goal, such as bribing a guard or locating a keycard.
Conversations are entered by clicking on the person you wish to converse with - either the screen will change to cinematic, indicating a more involved conversation, or a speech bubble will popup over the person's head, accompanied by actual speech. Yes indeed, every single line of dialogue in the game is spoken, and spoken quite well - this in itself is an accomplishment. For conversing, you have your standard array of answers, augmented by your Charisma attribute and (should you happen to have Jedi powers) the Force of your Persuasion. KotOR's conversations flow quite well from one topic to another, and even the "Oops, I forgot what we were talking about, let's start over" response is implemented gracefully. Suffice to say, when persuasion fails (or you simply run out of patience), you may have to resort to fisticuffs!
Combat
The combat itself is turn-based, yet done so fluidly that it feels like real-time. First of all, the game will pause at every enemy sighting so you can assess your options. Each of your characters has at their disposal combat actions (like snipe, stun, critical hit or Force Lightning) and status-altering actions (like Heal, Force Shield or Force Speed - non-Jedi can use items instead) depending on their specialization and character development. You can queue up to 4 actions in a row for each character, and then unpause and see how the combat plays out. You can pause at anytime, so the game allows as much or as little micromanagement as you desire. However, if commands aren't given, the character will use the default behavior, so running on automatic is not really something you want to do. While you can assign simple scripts (attack / support / ranged attack), you will really want to keep an eye out on what your party is doing to avoid getting hurt - the friendly AI is just not all that.
The interface to do this consists of 3 action buttons over your targeted enemy's head - one button for attacks, one for Force or special powers, and one for offensive item use. The buttons are scrollable, allowing you to quickly view your available options. A similar system exists for status actions, except it's located in the lower right of the screen and consists of 4 buttons - Force Power, Heal Item, Defensive Item, Stim Pack. Again, these are all scrollable and list all the options the currently selected character has.
While these seven buttons may sound complicated, they take only a few minutes to figure out and use fluidly, although mastering attack strategy will of course take longer. As your characters grow in levels and you start encountering nastier and better-equipped opposition, you will learn that what has worked in prior engagements is no longer satisfactory. Fortunately, you do have nine characters from which to choose and try to match to your current circumstances, and plenty of skills, feats and powers to grow into.