LucasArts Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Knights of the Old Republic must...

Strengths: Lush, epic locations, impressive combat scenes, open ended and varied gameplay, wonderful story

Weakness: First 1/5th of game played with no lightsabers, some minor graphic glitches.

Knights of the Old Republic must make George Lucas spin in his sleep. With one extraordinary game, Bioware has perfectly captured the feel of Star Wars and done more for the mythology of the Force than all three of his prequels. The gameplay is masked as a simple RPG, where you take control of a random republic soldier and maneuver him/her through a civil war between the Jedi and the Sith. Along...
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Knights of the Old Republic must make George Lucas spin in his sleep. With one extraordinary game, Bioware has perfectly captured the feel of Star Wars and done more for the mythology of the Force than all three of his prequels.

The gameplay is masked as a simple RPG, where you take control of a random republic soldier and maneuver him/her through a civil war between the Jedi and the Sith. Along this trip, your character will develop force abilities, gain allies, fight with lightsabers, and choose whether to be the savior of the galaxy or it's ultimate death. The beauty of this story is the staggering depth and complexity to it. The Force is treated with awe and reverence, the characters are rich and developed, and the ability to actively mold your character's outcome opens a whole new level of involvement. And to top it off, midichlorians aren't mentioned once.

This attention to detail applies to the combat system as well. The game uses a modified Dungeon and Dragons role playing system to determine the outcomes of battles. The only evidence of this is a short pause in the game while a character is waiting their 'turn'. Aside from this, the battles are fast, furious, and loaded with options. Once your Jedi advances far enough and is traveling with two other lightsaber equipped buddies, there is no limit to the devastation they can unleash. Watching three powerful Jedi's rip through a dozen enemies in half a minute is an impressive sight, and never gets old.

Graphics: The graphic engine of Knights is impressive without being overly flashy. The environments are huge and beautiful to look at, but looking closely reveals a limited bank of somewhat bland textures. The character models are well done, and the body animations look great (it's clear the The Phantom Menace influenced the Jedi moves here). However, the facial animation isn't quite fluid enough to convey the nuances of the characters moods. The weapon effects are a mixed bag. Laser bolts look pretty ridiculous, but these are so overshadowed by the lightsaber effects that you hardly notice. Explosions ripple the air, and some of the other particle effects are well done.

Sound: This game is one of the best demo's of PC sound released. Digging into the Skywalker sound archives has given this game's audio a richness and punch that isn't seen often. Ships rumble by, environments are alive with background noises, and the lightsabers are capable of rattling the room. In a nice change of pace, the usual John Williams music samples have been replaced by an original score that pays wonderful homage to him without ripping him off.

Problems: Not everything is golden, however. The game can be pretty choppy at times, especially in some of the larger environments. Occasionally, random glitches will show up, sometimes being bad enough to crash the game.

In all, though, this game is a gem. It single handedly revives the magic of Star Wars that had been crushed by years of weak games and three glitzy but dramatically inert movies. If Lucas does make any more Star Wars films, he would be advised to hire the scriptwriters for Knights of the Old Republic, since they have the enthusiasm he seems to have lost.

By dentj - Jul 1, 2005

Knights of the Old Republic is...

Strengths: Graphics, Story, Game Play, Control, Charaters, Length and just about everything else in the game. Not Jedi Knight II.

Weakness: Not a FPS, but a glorious RPG. Not Jedi Knight II.

Knights of the Old Republic is incredible. I played through it in 70+ hours. Every time I started to feel like I was getting comfortable with what I was doing this game threw me a curve ball and made things interesting agian. The story in KotR is beyond words. There is so much to discover, so many twists and turns, some predictable, some surreal. The dialog is supurb, cut-scenes are well placed...
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Knights of the Old Republic is incredible. I played through it in 70+ hours. Every time I started to feel like I was getting comfortable with what I was doing this game threw me a curve ball and made things interesting agian.

The story in KotR is beyond words. There is so much to discover, so many twists and turns, some predictable, some surreal.

The dialog is supurb, cut-scenes are well placed and animations are truely high quality.
The graphics are breath taking, worthy of many a screen shot, ocean beaches and stary skies.

Character control can be a little tricky at first. Also getting used to battle takes a second, it's not computer controled, it's an RPG, you get to pick your actions, but you have to wait your turn.

I could go on and on.

I absolutly loved this game from start to finish.

By Bubbasmythe - Feb 16, 2004

I really think this game is one of...

Strengths: Very nice dialog, intuitive control design. Very action oriented and a great storyline

Weakness: Some frame rate problems,repetitive tasks

I really think this game is one of the best turn based Role playing games I have ever played. Since I am such a star wars geek I was extra tough on this game. I really enjoyed the amount of original content included in this game. An absolute classic. And it is Cheap now so if I were you I would definitely get it.

By Wynterkaos - Jan 8, 2005

Loved this game... i like the idea...

Strengths: One of the best Starwar games i've played. a very long and in depth game that leaves you feeling satisfied. combat is turned based, but feels real time.

Weakness: Big game takes up 4 gigs, can be a system hog... this depends on you system.

Loved this game... i like the idea about a game set before the starwars movies. This game is the only game that took me forty plus hours to finish, that i emiditly started to replay it.

By oherror - Dec 15, 2003

Game reviews are always...

Strengths: Great graphics, one of, if not the best storylines in any game, awesome gameplay, extremely addictive.

Weakness: High system requirements(AthlonXP 2000+ @ 1647Mhz w/512MB PC2100 DDR and GForce3 runs a little chunky, but still looks ok to play), and almost TOO addictive.

Game reviews are always subjective. I mean, if you dont like that type of game, your probably not going to like ANY game of that type, period. This, i guess, is like final fantasy on steroid, with an actual story. Extremly immersive game, I can't even start playing it if I have anything important to do during the day. Otherwise, I wonder where 8 hours went. You can play first person as any...
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Game reviews are always subjective. I mean, if you dont like that type of game, your probably not going to like ANY game of that type, period. This, i guess, is like final fantasy on steroid, with an actual story. Extremly immersive game, I can't even start playing it if I have anything important to do during the day. Otherwise, I wonder where 8 hours went. You can play first person as any charecter (robot, wookie, etc...), build your charecter up with a D&D like interface (strength, intellegence, etc...) and upgrade your weapons, make your robot into a 'deathbot' and pretty much interact with anything in the game. Basically, this is the best game I have ever played. It is also a reason as to why I will be buying a 9800Pro Radeon card soon :) If you like games of this type, you can't go wrong.

By sardukar78 - Jan 11, 2004