Overview

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Review

Release Date: 07.15.2003
Platform: Xbox
Developer: BioWare Corp.
Publisher: LucasArts Entertainment Company

Reviewed by Samuel Altersitz on 7.26.2003

Review Rating: 9/10

User Rating: 8.15/10

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR from here on) is the newest Star Wars game from LucasArts Entertainment, developed by famed PC role-playing game developer, BioWare Corp. KotOR takes some of the best of PC RPG abilities and mixes them with a decidedly console RPG feel, for a game that is quite honestly, nearly perfect if you are a Star Wars fan; and still a very good RPG even if you aren't a Star Wars fan.

Before really going on with the review, a slight bit of Star Wars History is in order, because without it, the game makes no sense to non-fans.

KotOR takes place around four-thousand years before the events in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The Galactic Republic is in the middle of its third major war in a relatively short amount of time.

The Sith Empire, under the leadership of Exar Kun, had waged war upon the Republic and the Jedi Order for many years. Through a long and bloody struggle, Exar Kun was finally killed and the Sith Empire retreated beyond Republic space. This was known as both the Sith War and the Great Hyperspace War.

After the defeat of Exar Kun and the Sith, the Mandalorians began a new war with the Republic. The Mandalorian Wars were also long and bloody, but in the end the Republic was able to overcome the Mandalorians, and scattered them throughout the galaxy.

This was in part because of two Jedi, Revan and Malak. These Knights had defied the Jedi Council's decree that the Jedi would not get involved with the war, and went off to join the Republic against the Mandalorians. Other Jedi soon followed Revan and Malak's lead.

Revan and Malak disappeared with some of the Republic fleet, and most of the Jedi that followed them, shortly after the end of the Mandalorian Wars.

Two years later, while the Republic was still rebuilding, they returned; heading a massive battle fleet of hundreds of capitol class starships. Revan had assumed the title of Dark Lord of the Sith, Malak was his apprentice; and between them, they controlled an entirely new Sith Empire.

The Second Sith War had begun.

The Sith Empire quickly began to conquer worlds in the Outer Rim, and quickly pushed their way towards the Core Worlds. No matter how many Sith war ships were destroyed, the Sith seemingly had a never ending supply of them. And the ships were of an alien architecture never before seen by the Republic.

Two and a half years into the Second Sith War, Darth Revan was killed when a small Jedi strike force, led by a Padawan named Bastila, infiltrated his command ship. Bastila was able to control a power of the Force known as Battle Meditation. Through this, the Jedi were able to set a trap for Darth Revan and Malak; but Malak escaped and took the title of Dark Lord of the Sith for himself.

KotOR begins a year after the death of Darth Revan.

KotOR is BioWare's first console RPG. The basic rules for the game come from the rules found in the Star Wars Role Playing Game by Wizards of the Coast. The rules follow the same basic rules as Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition, also by Wizards of the Coast.

However, these rules are slightly modified for KotOR. Although the modifications are for playability, some of them don't work as well as they should. But I'll discuss that later.

BioWare has given players the opportunity to customize their characters right from the start in KotOR. Players can be either a Soldier, Scout, or Scoundrel, and can be male of female. There are then a good number of faces that players can put on their characters.

After choosing this step, players can choose a pre-made set of stats, skills, and feats, or they can choose their own. After that, the player's name is chosen, and the game begins.

This level of customization is pretty rare in console RPG games. Perhaps only in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, also on the Xbox, are there more customization options for players at the very beginning of the game.

Players will start out as first level in whatever class they have chosen. KotOR will give game play hints while the player gets his or her bearings, and will begin the game as the starship you are on is under attack from the Sith.

As players progress throughout the game they will be gain experience points (XP), like in other RPGs for both PC and consoles. When a character gains a level, players will have the opportunity to either select the increases themselves, or allow the computer to do it for them. This goes not only for the main character, but also for the other members of the party. Players can auto level up the main character and the others, or level them up manually.

A very nice thing to remember is that even if people aren't in your party, they get the XP of the others in your party. This allows you to keep every party member at roughly the same level, and means you don't have to worry about party member X being too weak for an area. Only one other character will be slightly ahead of the others, but only by a few hundred to a few thousand XP.

This also counts when someone joins your party for the first time. They will be allowed to level up to the level equal with the others in your party.

Your main hero, however, is normally going to be around one and a half levels ahead of the others for most of the game. The main hero seems to gain full experience, and the other party members gain slightly less. But, since players will control the main hero for most of the game, this is quite acceptable.

The main quest of KotOR is a journey in and of itself. Players will travel to multiple worlds, including Tatooine, Dantooine, and Kashyyyk (home planet of the Wookies), as well as a few others. Once players gain their starship, they will pretty much have unrestricted access to these worlds for most of the game.

Should players completely disregard any side quests, then they can potentially complete KotOR in around 25-30 hours. But, they won't be a very high level, and may have difficulty towards the end.

It's fortunate, then, that BioWare added a multitude of side quests to complete. Some of the side quests can be easily attained at any time, others will only become open when players have certain members in their party. The party member specific side quests are a very nice addition to the game. They really allow for an expansion of the other party members characters, so they aren't just cardboard cut-out characters thrown in there for the sake of being there.

In order to get these character specific side quests, players must talk to their other party members. It is only after players have heard certain information about each character that their side quests can be opened.

Players should be made aware, however, that their characters all max out at 20th level. For their main character, this is total character levels added together. Players will become Jedi character classes early in the game, and the Jedi levels are added to the previous class levels to get the total character level. For example, when I completed the game the first time, I was an 8th level Soldier/12th level Jedi Guardian, for a total character level of 20.

After attaining 20th level, characters do not gain any new levels, feats, attributes, or skills. They continue to gain XP, but it is pretty worthless.

Through out KotOR there will be a lot of combat. Most of this is character to character, but some combat will be in the form of controlling their starship's gun cannons and shooting down attacking Sith fighters.

The starship combat is completely in real time, and does not utilize any of the character's skills. Simply aim the targeting reticle at the enemy ships, and pull one of the Xbox controller's trigger buttons to fire the laser cannons.

The other combat parts, however, the ones with your party on land are in pseudo-real time. BioWare states that combat is in real time, but it really isn't if you understand how it works.

As I stated earlier, the Star Wars Role Playing Game (SWRPG) rules are the main basis for most of what happens in KotOR. The SWRPG uses what is known as the d20 System. This is the license that Wizards of the Coast has put out to allow for multiple games to utilize the D&D Third Edition rules, which are fairly easy to use.

This includes how combat is done.

Combat in the SWRPG is turn based. But BioWare has used some tricks to 'hide' the turn based actions, and make them appear to be real time in KotOR. This is done by 'hiding the dice rolls in the background'. This is a tactic that BioWare has used in previous D&D based games they have developed, including Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, both of which are for the PC. However, at least in Baldur's Gate, players could select to have the dice rolls appear on the screen during combat. In KotOR, they are hidden during combat, but can be selected to be seen by pressing the X button on the 'messages' screen in the start menu (they can only be seen in this menu, however, not during combat).

Once combat is initiated, the computer essentially takes control of everything. All attacks happen in three second intervals. When it is each character's turn to attack (every three seconds or so), the computer generates a random number between one and twenty in the background. All attack bonuses are then added to the final roll to determine if the characters hit or not.

The players don't see these rolls, however. All the player will notice is if they hit their enemies will lose some life until they are defeated.

The computer also generates these rolls for the attacking enemies/creatures during combat.

Players will normally not control a whole lot during combat, but they can issue commands that will then happen in subsequent actions.

This is really how BioWare makes it seem like the combat is happening in real time. Since the action seems non-stop, they can say it is in real time, without it being in real time. It works, to a degree, but to those who know the secret it's still turn based.

Players may also pause the combat in order to decide on which actions they want the characters to take. This is done by pressing the white button, and then using the directional pad to choose from a menu of combat options in the lower left hand side of the screen. From this menu players can choose to attack, use certain combat related feats, grenades, Force powers (on those characters with them), or to use healing or combat boosting items.

If players wish to que up a few different tasks, they may select the control they want to que with the X button and que up to 3 different commands. When the game is un-paused, these stacked commands will go off in the order in which they were selected over the next 9 seconds (or so) of combat.

There's plenty to choose from in KotOR, as far as weapons, armor, and other equipment goes. Some can help with certain skills, others can help in combat. The choice of how they are used is almost unlimited, really just limited to the skills/feats that players choose for each character. However, many items are not usable by Wookies, which kind of sucks, since early on players' groups will have a Wookie in the party.

Players will have to equip characters as they see fit. Players will be able to see which weapons, armor, and other equipment the characters can be equipped with. Players must remember that each character has certain strengths and weaknesses. This includes weapon and armor proficiencies. These proficiencies are considered feats and can be selected when the characters are able to gain new feats due to their level advancement.

When we look at how KotOR looks... Well, let's just say there are some amazing graphics in this game, and some not so amazing.

Most of the worlds players will visit have extraordinary backgrounds. Planets like Dantooine have breath taking backgrounds, accentuated by very nice bump mapping and lighting effects. The grasslands of Dantooine are simply a sight to behold. I urge players to look at the backgrounds of such planets and see where BioWare has taken advantage of the graphical power that the Xbox has to offer.

Character models, however, aren't quite so detailed. You will see the same faces used over and over and over again; and this isn't just with the alien species. Many times each human will have the same face as the human before him or her. There are some humans who have unique faces, but many of them either join your party, or are enemies you must defeat.

However, there are some impressive lighting effects on character models as well. Armor will gleam and shine if the light hits it in the correct way, and character models do have a degree of self-shadowing when the light is hitting them in the correct way.

An odd thing to note, is that some of the alien races, like the Twi'leks and Selkath, have very shiny parts of their heads. The Selkath are an amphibious race, so this is to be expected, but constantly seeing a sheen or gloss on the Twi'leks head tails can get a bit weird.

In fact, it's safe to say that I think that KotOR has some of the most impressive lighting effects that I have ever seen. Whether it be from the sun or another massively encompassing light source, blaster shots, and even from lightsaber effects.

BioWare went all out with the sound, as well.

Every single character, even those nameless denizens of the planets players visit, has a voice. Obviously, most of the nameless people use the same voice, and only say a few different things, but it's nice to see that everyone in the game has a voice.

Of course, many of the aliens speak a non-human language, but the main character understands most languages in the game (there are only two times that he or she doesn't, but only for a few seconds each time).

The problem with the alien speech realy is that the aliens just say the same things over and over again, vocally. The translation is different on the bottom of the screen, but the Twi'leks (Bib Fortuna's race) all say the same phrases, vocally, over and over again; as do the Rodians (Greedo's race) , Andorians (walrus men), Durians (big headed aliens with red eyes seen in Star Wars in the Mos Eisely cantina), Ilthorians (Hammerhead), and even the races not identified through the movies (only a few).

After a while, it's simply easier to quickly read the text, and then skip to the next part of the conversation. Hearing the same things over and over gets to be quite annoying.

Also, certain times it seems that two different alien species are speaking the same language as their own. One person is supposed to be speaking Mandalorian, but sounds exactly like what the female Twi'leks sound like. There are a few other instances of this as well (some alien races seem to speak Rodian a lot, but these are more nameless denziens and not anyone important)

As for things like weapons and such, well the sound effects were ripped right from the movies. In other words, they are spot on perfect. Everything from a blaster shot to lightsabers swinging and connecting with each other sounds perfect.

The background music is also very nicely done, with some of it being taken from the movies, and other parts sounding as if they are based off of the movies' but not quite the same. Although, normally, the background music is very subdued to allow players to experience the sounds of the characters, vehicles, and combat going on around them.

Of course, what Star Wars game would be complete without some knowledge of the Force? KotOR allows for players to decide which side of the Force they will follow.

The way of the Jedi, the Light Side of the Force, is one option, as is the way of the Sith, the Dark Side. Players will be given opportunities to choose which path they will go down.

If players choose to do things for profit over the good of the galaxy, they will slip more towards the Dark Side. Should players act selflessly, and work towards making things better in the galaxy, then they will lean more towards the Light Side. Players may also try and stay more balanced, and neutral, if they so desire.

The way in which players will either be risen up, or fall, is mainly done through options given during communications with others in the game. Players may choose to be upstanding and righteous, or they may choose to try and corrupt those around them, or even just kill them outright in some cases.

As players play through the game, their decisions will grant them either Light Side Points or Dark Side Points. The player's main character will go through some changes, depending on the direction players want to go.

For example, the main character's portrait may physically change if one leans too far to the Dark Side. Their skin will become more pale and their pupils may seem to disappear. Their character's main portrait will also have a red background, and the character's stance in that portrait will appear to be one that is more aggressive and threatening.

When one leans towards the Light Side, physical changes don't appear as much, but the character's main portrait will be surrounded in blue and white, and their stance will take on a more serene or noble appearance.

The direction players take themselves also affects how well they can use certain Force Powers. When one leans towards the Light, then Light Side powers cost less to use, and Dark Side powers cost more. The opposite is also true.

For example: in my first game, I went very much to wards the Light. My curative Force Powers cost me 13 less Force Points to use. In my second game, I am extremely Dark Side, and my curative Force Powers cost me an extra 13 Force Points to use.

Some Force Powers are universal, and are not affected by alignment, others are affected more or less by alignment, depending on how Light or Dark Side the power is.

Players' alignment also affects the game in other ways.

Players will notice that they aren't as well received by people immediately if they lean towards the Dark Side. While they may find people more willing to listen to them if they lean towards the Light.

Some choices players will be given are pure Light Side, some pure Dark Side, and still others are just neutral.

The game also has at least two endings. One for the Light Side, and one for the Dark Side. I am unsure if there is a third ending for a more neutral character, but I'm sure a third time through the game can shed light on this matter (no pun intended).

How one plans on going through the game, is up to themselves.

Another thing that BioWare brought from their PC development roots is the ability to save at any time. This is a boon to all, and I urge players to take advantage of it, especially if they are trying for one side of the Force, and are unsure how the next communication may affect it. There is also an auto save sometimes when moving between maps.

There is another wonderful feature of being able to switch party members on the fly. This is disabled in certain areas, but on most maps players can switch to a party member they'll need. Bringing in a scoundrel, if you don't have one in your party at the time, to open locks is a very good example.

So with all the good about KotOR, why am I not giving it a perfect 10? Well, there are some reasons. Some of them will sound like nit picks, and some are, but when a game is this good, you have to pick nits to show that the game could have been just that much better. But, other reasons are not as nit picking as they seem at first. Some have to do with bugs and glitches (only a few), others have to do with changing some rules from the d20 System in such a way that KotOR suffers from the changes.

I've already mentioned two nit picks already.

The first being the lack of diversity in character models, especially character faces. I understand that Rodians, Ilthorians, Andorians, Durians, and Twi'leks all pretty much look alike (although one could argue that Twi'leks could be more diversified besides skin color); but the humans in the game? It honestly seems like there are about ten different human character model faces, not including the players' party members, that are used over and over and over again. When you literally see the exact same facial model on one person as the person before him/her, it gets to be quite annoying.

The other nit pick being the alien races simply repeating the same things over and over again. It gets to the point where it seems the aliens have a grand total of about 20 different words they use that mean everything. It is especially weird to see them say a few words, or even just one or two, and the voice takes 20 seconds to go through a whole list of phrases, just to say 'Goodbye'.

Then there's some glitches that can and do happen.

The game can freeze up on people, for example. So save often.

There are also times when characters will literally appear or disappear from the screen. This happens mainly when players run further than their party members to try and go to another area. The game will tell players to gather their party... And then the character(s) may simply pop into existence right next to the main character.

Some people may see this is a nit pick, and others won't; but the game loads a lot. It's not that the load times are long, it's just that they happen so often. Whenever players go into a new area, the game has to load. These areas can be apartments, or cantinas, or bases, it doesn't matter. In some cases one will simply walk into a cantina, talk to a Hutt for something quick, and then run back out. Or one will go to one part of a world, then have to run to the other side of the world, and back (even though it's only 3-4 screens). The amount of loading from these can seem to be forever.

BioWare is a PC developer, mainly. There's really no excuse for not trying to utilize the Xbox's hard disk drive for caching purposes. I'm not talking full installs, but at least the caching of certain areas, which can be easily done on the PC using the PC's hard drive. Theoretically, the same should be true on the Xbox.

At least cache the areas outside of the cantinas, or other areas where the players have only one way in or out, since players can't go out a different way than they came in.

It really takes away from the game when players can literally run from one end of the map to the other in a minute, load, do the same for the next map, load, etc.

This also brings us to the fact that even though KotOR has a lot of areas to go to, each individual map can seem quite small. Some of them are literally small enough at some points to run from the map before to the next map in just a few seconds.

An example is the very first planet players will be on, Taris. The planet is supposedly covered by a gigantic city, much like Couruscant. Yet, the areas of the city players will be in are fairly small. There are two upper city maps (not including apartments and cantinas), 1 lower city map (main lower city map only), and one under city map (again, main map only).

At least players can quickly get back to their hideout/ship on most maps by pressing the X button on the map screen in the start menu. However, this, again has a lot of loading to go through, especially since players arrive outside of their hideout/ship when this option is used, and then must load up the hideout/ship if they wish to enter it. Players may then use the option to return to where they were previously, if they so wish, and all the loading that comes with it.

In certain areas, this function is disabled, as it should be.

The biggest fault, however, comes in BioWare's use of creative license when using the d20 system from the SWRPG.

Many things are the same. XP for each levels; multi-classes counting as total character levels (main character only); raising attributes at level 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20; the gaining of feats and bonus feats at certain levels; and the modifiers for attributes, and class levels.

However, some things have been changed that really hurt the way progression of levels works in KotOR, especially in relation to what your characters can learn; both the main character and the others.

The way BioWare worked skill progression in KotOR is horrid. Players pretty much get raped when it comes to skill points, especially if the player chooses a soldier or Jedi Guardian for their classes.

In the SWRPG, the soldier and Jedi Guardian classes get skill points as follows:

Level 1-- (4 + Intelligence Modifier) x 4
Level 2-- 4 + Intelligence Modifier
Level 3-- 4 + Intelligence Modifier
Etc.

The other classes should have 6 + Intelligence Modifier or 8 + Intelligence Modifier skill points per level.

Since the main character is also human, the main character (and all other characters who are human) would gain an additional 4 skill points at first level, and 1 extra skill point per level. At least the version of the SWRPG that I have (it has been revised since my version, but the starting skill points for each class, and the per level addition, have not changed in the revisions).

So for human characters with a +/- 0 modifier for intelligence, they should still get 5 skill points per level as soldiers or Jedi Guardians.

In KotOR soldiers and Jedi Guardians get 1 skill point per level, but start out with slightly more at first level.

BioWare took some liberty in removing things like the 4 skill points and adding in the Intelligence Modifier each level for each character's progression. The Intelligence modifier seems to not have any bearing at all in how many skill points a character gets.

Other classes get more skill points per level, but not their SWRPG skill points per level.

This lack of skill points can really hinder players' main character. Even by going with another class (other than soldier or Jedi Guardian), players will still not be able to adequately raise certain skills needed fast enough.

Another removal is the Base Attack Bonus (BAB) for characters. While KotOR does follow it, somewhat, it does not follow it the way the SWRPG does. The BAB increases the likelihood of attacks hitting, and count along with any additional modifiers to hit (such as Strength modifiers for hand to hand attacks and Dexterity modifiers for ranged attacks).

In the SWRPG, classes gain a BAB at certain levels. The two fastest being soldiers and Jedi Guardians. The soldier and Jedi Guardian classes gain a +1 BAB per level.

Once a character reaches a +6 BAB, they gain a second attack per round, with a +1 modifier. When that second BAB reaches +6, then they get a third attack, and when the third attack's BAB reaches +6 they gain a fourth attack.

The older BAB modifiers also continue to rise, until a character of soldier or Jedi Guardian class would have 4 attacks per round with BABs of +20/+15/+10/+5 at level 20 (single classes only, not multi-class like the main character becomes).

Other classes gain their Base Attack Bonuses at different levels, but still follow the additional attack when a BAB reaches +6.

While KotOR does do the normal single attack BAB modifiers, it does not follow the extra attack parts of the BAB modifiers. This seriously hurts players in some areas, especially when besieged by multiple Dark Jedi; while not affecting all that much in most areas.

Of course, the plus side is that enemies are also affected by this lack of BAB multiple attack use.

The creative license BioWare used in KotOR with the SWRPG d20 System makes it seem almost like they picked and chose what they wanted to use, while not really caring if it might make things harder on the players in the end.

Obviously some things are easier to deal with, like only having vitality points and not worrying about wound points as well (that would be too much to worry about), but the re-working of skills and BAB is simply not helpful in the least.

In the end, though, KotOR is the best Star Wars game to come out in quite a while. It is also a great RPG. And, something which doesn't happen often, it also happens to be a great Xbox game, overall.

No Star Wars fan should deny themselves the opportunity to at least try this game. It will be out on the PC soon, for those without an Xbox, but I fear the specs for the PC version might be higher than most normal people have.

In my own opinion, this game is a better reason to own an Xbox than Halo, but that's because of just how much you can do in the game, and how much each quest can affect your character and the rest of the galaxy within the game.

Box art