Oddball Update

Disclaimer: I am not a Star Wars fan. But neither am I someone who hates Star Wars. I simply don’t have that much interest in the series. I’ve seen the original trilogy, as well as Episode I—and did not like the latter enough to see Episode II, although I suppose I’ll rent it someday and have a Star Wars party or something. But the point of my telling you this is that you don’t need to be somebody who dresses up like Darth Maul to enjoy the gaming experience that Knights of the Old Republic will bring to your Xbox.

After hearing rave reviews, I rented KOTOR a couple weeks ago and gave it a few hours’ play. Four hours, to be exact. Those four hours were enough to tell me that I needed to buy this game. While I am not a Star Wars fanatic, I understand enough of the lore to make sense of the universe. Not like much of that is really needed. Simply have a basic understanding of who the Sith are and what a Jedi is, and you’re pretty much good to go.

KOTOR is an RPG (role-playing game) created by BioWare, developers of the PC-based RPG Neverwinter Nights. The game works in much the same way, but you’re set in the Star Wars universe—more specifically, some amount of time before the events chronicled in Episode I of the film series. You have robust character-creation tools at your disposal, and much like NWN, you can completely outfit your player’s skill set, traits, and appearance.

One of the most interesting dynamics in KOTOR is your character’s Light/Dark rating. As a Jedi, there are two distinct paths you can take while developing your skills—the light side, tread by such folks as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, or the dark side, favorite of Darth Maul and Darth Vader. Your Light/Dark rating depends upon the paths you take in the game, how you interact with characters, the types of missions you take, and the methods you use to complete those missions. Each side has specific side-quests, meaning that you haven’t seen all there is to the game unless you play through it at least twice—once as a Light Jedi, and once as a Dark Jedi. This makes for an experience quite a bit more dynamic than your typical console game.

The game chronicles your character’s exploits on his or her road to becoming a Jedi Master in the Old Republic, who are bitter enemies with the Sith. In fact, when you begin the game, you find youself on a Republic starfighter that is currently being blown to bits by Sith warships. Managing to escape from the ship with a single other crew member, the two of you crash-land an escape pod on the planet Taris and begin searching for an important Jedi leader who was also aboard the ship—and who now has been captured by the enemy.

The game world of KOTOR is huge. Aside from the main quests, there’s all kinds of stuff you can do. Most of it eventually ties into the main story at least in some way, although there are a few side-missions that exist purely for entertainment value or for the points, experience, and other goodies they can earn you. There’s plenty of places to explore and you’ll spend lots of time doing it. I was really impressed with the depth of your surroundings.

Graphically, the game is very well done, but it’s not the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen. There’s no support for 16:9 televisions, so owners of such sets will have to use a stretch mode, which of course makes things look slightly elongated. It’s also quite apparent that the game could benefit strongly from some liberal use of full-screen anti-aliasing, but judging by the occasional frame stutter, it’s quite clear that the Xbox hardware simply could not handle that kind of luxury eye-candy. Fortunately for us PC owners, a PC-native version of KOTOR is due out this fall. I’m gonna crank up the FSAA and AF on my Radeon 9800 Pro and watch this puppy really shine.

Given that this is an RPG, there’s a lot of dialogue involved, and every single last line of it has been voice-acted. And it’s all very well-done, too. This isn’t the hackneyed, English-dubbed-anime style crap like you heard in Resident Evil. Some of the voices are goofy, but then, so were some of the voices in the actual Star Wars trilogy, were they not? The goofiness seems intentional, rather than accidental. Plus there’s plenty of interesting alien languages to be heard (subtitled of course), even the traditional howling/whining/barking/whatever of the Wookiees. Kashyykian, perhaps?

You’ll get to fight Sith, aliens, droids, and all kinds of other crap with a myriad of weapons. This is where the game really shines. There’s a bevy of blaster pistols and rifles, and you can actually build up your two-handed weapon skill so that you can go akimbo with blasters a la Han Solo. But the game’s engine seems designed in particular to show off swordplay, which makes perfect sense, obviously—as the traditional weapon of a Jedi is, of course, a glorified sword known as the lightsabre. Unfortunately, you’ll have to play through several game hours, building up your skills and experience, before you can even call yourself a Jedi or use a lightsabre. Before that happens, you’ll have the opportunity to use a handful of more traditional swords that are almost as fun to watch.

Speaking of which, the combat system in KOTOR is done really well. Rather than the boring insipidness of battles in Neverwinter Knights, in which the game was very obviously turn-based to the point where long and awkward pauses would routinely be seen between character attacks, KOTOR handles combat in a fashion that’s much more pleasing to the eye. If you and an NPC are both wielding swords (or lightsabres) and engage in combat, the two characters will execute a continual, dance-like series of jabs, swings and parries, keeping the action alive in between each actual attack roll. It affords a much more natural look and feel to combat situations which is welcome.

KOTOR is further well-rounded by a series of supporting details that were done just right. Even though this is a console title, the Xbox’s huge hard drive is put to good use, meaning you can save or load your game anywhere at any time. There’s a huge host of character customization options available to you, and leveling up is handled in a very efficient and easy-to-understand manner. The only thing that bothered me a little was the inventory screen, which is laid out in such a way that it’s tough to get a real good “total picture” of all the items you’re carrying. But this doesn’t affect gameplay much, so long as you don’t forget you have something that could be potentially useful. Switching between characters is wonderfully easy, too—just push the black button. You can cycle through any of your party characters at any time, and you can even swap out members of your party for others who are waiting for you back at the apartment (or ship, or wherever).

Since I’ve not progressed too far into KOTOR yet (I don’t even have a damn lightsabre), I won’t attempt to dive into much more detail about it. But I’m quite pleased with the game’s overall design, and the way it plays is absolutely fantastic. Even if you’re like me, someone with just a casual familiarity with Star Wars, you’ll probably love the RPG action and the continuing storyline. Well, you’d probably have to be a fan of sci-fi in general first, but that’s about the only prerequisite I can forsee.

One more thing about the console vs. PC topic: This is yet another game which will definitely be a superior package on a Windows box than on an Xbox, or at least a properly-appointed Windows box. This is because many enthusiast computers are outfitted with far better hardware than the non-upgradeable Xbox console, a rift which only widens each and every day the Xbox exists. Therein lies the inherent problem with consoles: Once they are produced, they ain’t gettin’ any better. And so eventually no more software will be produced for them, and you’ll have to buy a new $300-$400 unit in a couple more years. This sad fact makes me chuckle every time console gamers ask me how I can stand to spend so much money on PC gaming. The reality is that both camps spend money—PC gamers just spend it a little at a time, on one part at a time, keeping their rigs in tip-top shape all of the time.

That’s all for now. If you’ve got an Xbox, Knights of the Old Republic gets a “definite buy” rating from me. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool PC gamer (and I don’t blame you), pick up the PC version in the fall and don’t look back.

Categorized as Games/Console, Games