SW:KOTOR-the Force is strong with this one

[YoshiM]

I picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the Xbox yesterday (got a good deal trading in a Cube game as there's some trade special going on at EB). Sat down and played it for about two hours. While I've barely made a fingerprint on the game, I can say without a doubt this game is going to be good. Very good. Some of you may know that with me games have to hook me pretty early to keep my attention. KOTOR has a pretty big hook and I'm lovin' the pain. Anyhoo: the goodz-

Knights of the Old Republic takes place 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire so this is fairly fresh territory with no existing loved characters. The Republic is beat to hell after emerging from a big war with the Mandalorians and the Sith have taken this opportunity to strike. On board a ship on the Outer Rim, your character was signed on as a last minute addition to the team by the Jedi Knights. As you doze in your bunk, your ship is attacked by an onslaught of Sith fighters (in a spectacular cinema display) and this is where the game officially starts.

The game play is solid thus far. I'm not a big fan of the FF/PS "select attack and watch guy waggle weapon" style of combat anymore but KOTOR is like controlable cinema that can be set to turn based or you can pause combat on the fly. You can either just go real time and select your actions automatically or you can assign a string of actions using the X button that your character will do in the order the actions were picked. Very handy, very slick, and there's no break in the action unless you want it. Beyond combat there's a lot of exploring and NPC interaction. Some NPCs will just say something canned (like any RPG) but others will bring up a discussion tree where you can reply with different attitudes. Yes how you respond will affect the rest of the game as the game tracks your affiliation with the Force. Speak with a mean streak you get Dark Side Points (and the person may not help you), speak politely and you can get Light Side Points). Needless to say, there's a LOT of dialog but the voice acting is just awesome.

So far my male Scout, Mason Dakota, has fought in an arena at a Cantina for profit, helped some poor sucker with a bounty hunter problem (and gave him money to pay his bounty), went to a Sith officer's party and stole a Sith uniform (after the chick who was interested in me and the rest of the party underestimated the ale and passed out). It's a different approach to an RPG but if you are a Star Wars fan this is way better than 75% of the drek that Lucasarts has crapped out over the last few years and you at least owe yourself a look at this fantastically crafted game.

[ianoid]

This title has been touted by many pre-release. Nice review, BTW.

So what specifically is the combat like? I'm a big fan of the Baldur's Gate (gauntletesque) action- anything like that? I'm not a big fan of turn based fighting. Except when I'm in a bar brawl personally.

[YoshiM]

Thanks. After I get deeper into the game I'll probably post a more lengthy and more indepth review.

Combat is command based, not twitch-action based. When your character sees an enemy, time freezes. At this point you can assign commands (like for my character I can Attack, Rapid Fire/Flurry [ranged and melee respectively], toss a grenade [if I have one] or use an item). Press the X button to assign a command to a queue and your character will do them in the order of selection. The press the White button to start combat. You can also press the A button to engage combat but the A button is to partake in "immediate" actions with whatever is selected in your Command Menu and that command will negate all programmed moves (so if you had Flurry, Attack, and Medkit in your queue and then after you PC did the Flurry you quick hit A while the Grenade is select, your PC will chuck the grenade and not do the Attack or Medkit). You can switch to the rest of the party by using the Black button, though I haven't quite figured out how to get the party to do what I want (there is a setting for party AI, but I haven't had enough combat to see if I need to adjust this).

Now once combat is engaged you see everyone move into position and start fighting or shooting. During this time you can move in real time and I think that just pauses your queue and once you stand still it will resume (I could be wrong). You can continue to add to your queue in real time by selecting a command with the D pad and press X to assign. If you want to be more tactical, just hit the White button to pause the action and then do what you want (except movement, which unpauses the action).

Visually the action just flows. Your character, depending on the command you made, will move appropriately: slicing, slashing, parrying, feinting, blasting, ducking, etc. You can rotate the camera to check things out without interrupting fights. It's pretty satisfying to watch. You can switch on a turn base mode, but for me the real-time works pretty well so far.

Oh, I forgot to mention about visuals: it lives up to the hype. Character models look great, metal reflects. I swear any cinema you see, including the big battle at the beginning of the game, has to be using the game engine. So the graphics you see in the commercials, unless I hear otherwise, has to be the real deal. Color me very impressed.

[dave2236]

Yeah, nice revies the game sounds good. After Star Wars Galaxies turned out to be what I wasn't looking for, I was thinking about getting this game. I guess next week when I get some time, I'll have to pick one up.

thanks for the info

[maxlords]

I just got it today and it's AWESOME. Not only is it easy to play, but it actually makes sense (the combat and rule and stuff are all D&D based) and everything can be turned on and off to your preference! Story and voice acting are cool (but the music is iffy...it's skipped on me a couple times in 2 hours of play). I like it tho...well worth picking up!

[calthaer]

Did they ever say whether or not this thing would be coming out for the PC?

When combat's going, can you set it to auto-pause the game at various intervals (i.e. - in Baldur's Gate you could set it to auto-pause when your character's weapon broke, or when they had killed one guy and didn't have a target, and I think there were like 2 or 3 other conditions you could check off)?