Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

The Good
This is a game that has it all: a great story about love, hate and deception, a fantastic cast of characters, a well-written, well acted out dialogue, interesting locations and satisfying weapons and equipment. If you're a fan of the Star Wars universe and want to play an involving RPG then look no further, this is your dream come true. But even if you're just looking for a great RPG you're not going to be disappointed. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic delivers. It even has somewhat pretty graphics!

The Bad
Unfortunately this game is full of bugs. No show stoppers, but irritating little ones like sometimes your characters stats gets stuck after being reduced by a dark jedi. No fun. Other times one of your characters just stops moving in mid-combat and just stands there and takes a beating. No fun either. And if you play the game for a few hours on end it is bound to eventually crash. Not at all fun. And lastly the controls.. who was the genious that thought up the mouse-look function of KotOR?! It's a game in true 3D but you're only allowed to look left and right (if you want to move at the same time)!

The Bottom Line
This game is so much fun it hurts. Really, it does. You just don't want it to end, but after around 30-40 hours it will. Its strongest point is definitely the story. it has twists and turns you just can't foresee and all the great side quests and sub missions really make you come back over and over again. A neat feature is that you can play both sides of the coin: you choose for yourself if you want to be a light jedi or a dark jedi. Lots of replayability in this one!

The Good
Graphically quite splendid and early on, as you start to gain proficiency with the force, you feel as though there are unlimited possibilities for character development. The Star Wars universe is beautifully "pre-created" and you don't doubt for a second that this is the prehistory of the whole saga. I loved the Tatooine segment especially, dripping with atmosphere. Sadly though this is where the gloss starts to lose some of its lustre.

The Bad
The dreadful crushing linearity which was very well disguised until you played a little way in. The light/dark options were pretty much cosmetic until the very end. I was beastly to absolutely everyone and my crew still stood by me..even as I went on the rampage, killing, lying and stealing. The combat was arbitrary and the feeling of control was totally missing. Constant pausing to reissue orders became a chore. Fights just became one big scramble. I could have let everyone go auto and still have won every fight. Also I really didn't feel that any of my levelling up choices made much of a difference to the game at all. There was always someone to bail me out..whatever happened. As I got further into the game the limited vista became more apparent...sure there were plenty of sub-missions but they were basically the same four or five ideas rehashed again and again. Dull and repetitive are the words that spring to mind. I nearly forgot the awful, awful awful, "everyone levels up automatically" thing. What happened to the idea of working for advancement? What's the point in offering rewards for character advancement when the rest of the characters just get it automatically anyway? The final nail in the coffin was how easy the game became..BEFORE I was even half way through.

The Bottom Line
A very clever job of camouflage. A sub-standard game dressed in "the kings new clothes". I feel like the little boy in the crowd, my finger points and everyone around glares at me. Initially fun but not very taxing and ultimately disappointing. Everything that makes RPGs great has been abandoned here for window dressing..

The Good
First, the graphics are pretty good. People will move their lips while talking, the terrain is nicely detailed etc. Next, the amount of interaction is pretty food. You'll always have a ton of dialouge choices when you talk to characters, (which will have a signifigant effect on your force alignment and how other characters act). Next, there is a ton of weapons, armor, grenades etc. that you can get.

The Bad
Well first, this thing is a total memory hog. It takes up 4 Gigabytes which is more than 20% of my hard drive! Next, the game is very buggy. Sometimes it can lock up, others it will get a player "caught" on a wall. (Although patches have helped). Sometimes, using the force to persuade people is kinda boring. You just click on it and if you are good enough, you succeed. If your character doesn't have the required stats, you don't succeed. This lack of skill based gameplay for parts of the game is somewhat disappointing. Next, this games runs quite slow unless you have at least 1.4 GHZ processor Which I don't have:( Finally, combat is somewhat lackluster. You just arm your weapon and tell him to attack (although admitadly, there are moves you can do that change the stats of your attacks) and he'll attack the same way 50 times in a row (or however long). They all seem to have only a couple animations for attacking. Finally, the planets can seem a bit disappointing. You can explore through a whole planet in a little less than several hours. The fact that every planet has 1 city and everything around it is barren wasteland is kinda disappointing.

The Bottom Line
This is a pretty good game, but don't believe the hype. It's not a game that will change your life.