Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
by LucasArts Entertainment
|
Our Price: $29.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Video Games See more product details |
|---|
Video Game Reviews of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Customer Review: Don't be fooled by images
Summary: 5 Stars
This game is great...The best Star Wars game out there so far. One problem though. The images that are shown are not from this game. They are from a soon to be released online game called "The Old Republic". Customer Review: Is it the best RPG ever?
Summary: 4 Stars
Okay, it's not the best RPG ever. Actually, it's a little bit dull at times. Nevertheless, as a Star Wars fan, I had TONS of fun playing around in this seemingly endless storyline. However, it does get fatiguing after 40-50 hours of play. It's not like some RPGs where the story gets MORE interesting over time. This one just seems to take you from one part of the story to the next, and after a while the novelty starts to wear off, and you begin playing just to finish the game. If you've never played it - it's a STEAL for how much these are going for on Amazon. If you are a Star Wars fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.Customer Review: The Best of Bioware
Summary: 5 Stars
KOTOR is probably my favourite RPG of all time, and up there with my favourite games ever, period.
The reasons for this are many. It's got a great setting, a good script and characters, wonderful music and good pacing. There are bad parts, but really, they pale compared with those of other games, and even the sequel.
What's more, it's a game I can play even now, six years after it was released without problem.
Customer Review: Flawed But Still a Classic
Summary: 4 Stars
Let's get the bad out of the way.
* The art is nice and they put a lot of effort into making the environments immersive and Star Wars-esque but the graphics were nothing to get excited about, even a few years ago.
* The graphics would be easier to forgive if the game hadn't been so demanding for its time and continues to be buggy today. It's not a very smooth running game and I was a little turned off by the excess minimizing and maximizing between CG cut scenes, game engine cut scenes, and various types of actual gampeplay. I've got a modern gaming laptop and it still freezes and occasionally crashes to the desktop.
* The minigames really should have been optional. At best some of them will bore you. At worst, if you're not into action games at all you'll be very frustrated with having to get through them. They are pretty pathetic for an experienced gamer but they could have at least had a difficulty setting for the ones that are mandatory since they don't really match the genre.
* Generic Repair and Computer Skill options - There is only one interesting set of sidequest stuff built off of repair skills that I'm currently aware of. The rest is all about how many parts you use for these tasks. Unlike Security (lockpicking), Computer and Repair tasks have no difficulty ceiling. If you're willing to spend the money on parts (which ARE expensive early in the game), you can do all the available repair/computer tasks. This is cool at first, but once you've repaired one droid to go in and help you fight a bunch of enemies or simply gassed/electrocuted a bunch of 'em all at once, you've pretty much done it all. Grenades and crowd control force powers are much cheaper than parts.
==============================
The Good Stuff
* Excellent audio. Not many people realize just how much Star Wars is about sound effects and music but Bioware's sound engineer clearly was. It adds to the SW universe feel of the game while giving enough unique touches to remind you that it takes place millenia before the movies.
* Good Use/Abuse of D&D/D20 rules. It's a solid system that's fairly easy to understand. An option to get a deeper look at the mechanics would have been nice (maybe 2 styles of character sheet) but if you're familiar with these rules, you'll have a good idea of how to build your characters and make choices. If you're not, it doesn't take too long to get an idea of what's going on as far as what attributes do what and how many points you need to get bonuses. They also went fast and loose enough in all the right places to make it an interesting power-player's game.
* Good character building. At first I was a little underwhelmed by the character options but the mix of dual-class combinations actually becomes quite interesting if you get into it. After reading the FAQs I was amused by how few people seemed to realize just how insanely powerful scoundrels can become. Tip: They get the damage boost when attacking enemies who are stunned or flanked not just when you attack from stealth mode. Employ wolfpack tactics with Mission and use stunning options to put enemies down fast.
* Lengthy game where you're unlikely to see everything in a handful of playthroughs. It's not quite up to Fallout standards in this respect but there's a lot of diplomacy, stealth, and moral choice branching. Without a plan requiring extensive knowledge of the game, you'd probably have to play through it over five times to see everything.
* Nice balance struck in combat. You get as much out of combat as you want to I think. You'll probably run into trouble if you don't do any microing but you don't have to do much to get by. On the other hand you'll go through a lot fewer resources, take enemies down a lot more quickly, spend less time healing and get more unspent gear (grenades are much better taken than received) if you put some thought into it. I tend to prefer turn-based, but this is a sufficient pause-based RT system for me that basically plays like Baldur's in a 3D engine.
* Solid writing/dialogue. Few games nowadays put much effort into this. I was laughing so hard when I finally got to certain content related to everybody's favorite assassin-bot that I was nearly in tears and the characters and quest motivations are more interesting than your average fed-ex RPG.
Customer Review: Epic, beautiful, the best Star Wars game and story ever
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewing a game that is years old might seem pointless given that there no praises I can offer that others have not already written and likely more eloquently that I. However, this is the single greatest creation of the Star Wars universe, and I felt I owed it to the immense enjoyment this game provided me to review it, even many years after its release.
Replaying this game is like falling back into a relationship with an old lover... All the old emotions, the feelings, they all come back. Graceful, well written, re-playable to the extreme, KOTOR is quite simply the best Star Wars game ever made. The graphics may seem old, but the experience, the worlds, the voice acting, and the plot will not. KOTOR is on the short list of games that actually MOVED me. That changed the way I related to the world. The story is that well done.
If you've never played this game and you are reading this review, you OWE IT TO YOURSELF to buy a copy and play it. The game is brilliant.
It will run on Vista (even 64-bit) flawlessly with the release of SP1 (service pack 1). You might have to tweak a few things, but trust me, it is well worth it.
KOTOR II is also worth playing, but doesn't have the same quality as KOTOR. When will KOTOR III be released? No one seems to know. I hope it's soon.