Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

One of the first games I ever got for my Xbox, and I still treasure it today. In my opinion, I find this KoToR better than its sequel, although some may disagree.

The game is set four thousand years before the rise of the Empire (which basically allows the developers to play around with the storyline, as it won't have any effect on the movie timeline). The Sith Lord known as Darth Malak is searching the Galaxy restlessly for the Jedi called Bastila, a young Jedi with a gift. Unlike many, she has a powerful connection to the Force, a gift which allows her to influence the outcome of many battles, wars even, via her Battle Meditation power. You star as a soldier/scout/scoundrel (you choose) stationed onboard the Endar Spire, the same ship that Bastila is aboard. A sudden attack by the evil Sith prompts you to escape planetward, towards the world of Taris, where you must find Bastila immediately, lest the enemy capture her first.

This game receives my eight out of ten for several reasons: its excellent and breathtaking graphics, its original, involving gameplay style, its deep, intriguing plot, its strange, very different characters and its underlying premise of (once again) good versus evil. The other two marks were lost mainly because of its long but necessary prologue, to fill you in on the background of the game, and to get you accustomed to the controls, and how the game operates.

This is one RPG not to be sniffed at. Good or evil, hero or villain....you decide.

This game is incredible! The game is so big and you can choose to help people or kill them or make their lives miserable. You can decide to become the Dark Lord or you can turn to the light side and be a Jedi Master and save the galaxy. I have played it at least fifteen times and every time I have played I always discovered new ways to play the game. Although it is a Star Wars game it is almost completely different from the movies. You can interact with the people in your team and get involved into their story lines. Except an old man in your group. Well maybe you can and I haven't done that. It is a really big game. Although I thought a planet you have to travel to, Manaan, was pretty boring, the rest of the game was great. I was curios to find was that a space station you can go to at Yavin, was not in another copy of the game that two of my friends had. It sucks for them because in the game you build a lightsaber and can put crystals in it to make it more powerful and to have different colours. You could have yellow, or red, or green, or blue, or violet. But two other crystal colours you can buy near the end of the game are at that space station. But a really hard thing to do (for me) was to turn to the dark side. It was really sad to ruin these peoples lives (even though they probably deserved it). But, that is just me.

I've been a fan of Star Wars for many years, and I've played many of the franchise's games. Some of them provide excellent action ('Republic Commando', 'Jedi Academy'), but none of them are memorable in the way that 'Knights of the Old Republic' is. In fact, the only Star Wars game which I think approaches it in terms of quality is its sequel. The premise of 'KOTOR' is fairly simple: You play a soldier whose mission it is to stop a powerful Sith Lord, and in order to do so you have to find several components of an ancient map. It may sound like a cliché RPG, but on your travels you'll encounter so many interesting people, fascinating stories and incredible quests, you'll never want it to end. I know I didn't.

This game is awesome. I'd just like to get that off my chest.

Let me tell you why. Firstly, Bioware have produced the greatest storyline ever achieved in video game history. Who would've imagined a star wars game to have a storyline instead of non-stop stormtrooper shooting like all the others? The story is dark, deep and has more twists than a virgin's knickers. You will become so damn engrossed with the story that you will forget real life, and for that i don't blame you. With this game, it comes as a right.

Secondly, the gameplay is the best i've ever encountered. I could spend the whole day walking around and talking with npcs. The npcs are so detailed and every one has a background story, or a task that they would like you to perform. The fight sequences are brilliant, mixing turn-based action and strategy together to form a perfect mold. You have to prepare yourself before each fight and choose your moves carefully, which is reminiscent of final fantasy. Also, the fact that one decision could change your path from light to dark side is a power to behold. Every decision matters.

And lastly, the graphics are consistently gorgeous. For such a huge game you may think that the graphics department would be lacking, but Bioware are perfectionists, and thank god they are! For never in this game you will want to look away from the screen, the beauty of it will grab hold of you and refuse to let go.

This game is a masterpiece. It is the most significant game since Doom and the best game ever made! Explore 10/10

A great video game worthy of the Star Wars title, Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR for short) brought us an RPG (Role-Playing Game) of astronomical proportions. It starts almost four thousand years before the events portrayed in the movies, when the threat of the Sith is more obvious. In fact, there is a apparently invincible Sith armada trying to destroy the Old Republic, led by the Dark Lord Malak.

This game starts with a traditional text crawl, and then the traditional space scene. In this scene, we watch as a Republic ship is being attacked by a Sith fleet. The main character (that's you) is a passenger and crew member aboard this Republic cruiser. As soon as this scene ends you are thrust into the action as you attempt to defend your vessel.

But it will not be so, and you soon find yourself crash landing on a Sith-occupied planet called Taris. Now you must meet up with with other party members and find a ship, while avoiding the detection of the Sith Guards. It will not be easy, and you must risk your life many a time to escape this planet. But what path will you take? Do you aid the Undercity Villagers and help them find what they believe to be the "Promised Land", or do you sell their only hope to the local merchant? Do you give money to a man with a bounty on his head or do you kill him and collect the bounty yourself? In this game it is your choice, and each action affects your affiliation with the Force. If you choose to collect that bounty, your Force Meter is pushed down toward the Dark Side. But if you give him the credits your Force Meter rises toward Light Side.

And after many, many hours of play that one would expect from an RPG, one notices that this is no ordinary video game. Time was spent wisely, as the graphics, storyline, dialogue, combat system, etc. of this non-linear game are superb. This game is truly worthy of it's Game of the Year stature, and then some. Check it out! And when you are done with it, play it's sequel, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, another superb Star Wars game.