As a prelude to my actual review, I would like to say that it is a hobby of mine to review games, and therefore, it is a bit ironic that I never officially reviewed my favorite game of all time.  Until now of course. 

 Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great games out there…two of my favorite games of last generation were Goldeneye 64, and Smash Mario Brothers 64…never did get to play Final Fantasy 7…(never got into Ocarina of time, but I’m hoping to pick it up again.)  And this generation has seen some fantastic games as well, from the revolutionary Resident Evil 4, to Halo, Metal Gear Solid 3, and even Final Fantasy 10…  However my favorite game of all time is, without a doubt, Kotor, also known as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. 

 What I feel needs to be stated is that, although I am a Star Wars fan, I am no fanatic…  Meaning, Kotor is not my favorite game just because it has the Star Wars license slapped onto it.  As a fan of the films, I’ve played a lot of Star Wars games throughout my years in gaming. 

 The fact is, from the atrocious Star Wars Obi Wan, to the disaster known as Star Wars Clone Wars, to the borefest we refer to as Star Wars Shadows of the Empire, some of my least favorite games, despite the licenses they carry, are Star Wars games.

 So, when I first heard of knights of the old republic, all I really thought was; “cool, I hope it doesn’t suck.”  In reality, I wasn’t expecting much.  So during the summer of it’s release, I was looking through my local Hollywood video when my eyes fell upon the game.  Immediately, I seized it, and took it out as a rental.  Several years later, I have just finished writing the “foreword” of sorts of my review of that very game…

 A game’s story is really, for the most part, why I play it through.  Some of the games that critics and regular gamers alike hold in extremely high esteem, I just can’t get into very easily, because the story doesn’t suck me in and keep me interested. 

 Games ranging from Ninja Gaiden, to Halo, to Resident Evil 4, have all spent large amounts of time simply laying around gathering dust, because I got bored with them for being to slow when it comes to evolving their plotlines…or in Halo’s/Halo 2’s case…barely having one at all…

 Kotor took me on a ride that I’ll never forget.  From the very beginning, I was introduced to interesting characters, multiple ways to accomplish objectives, and even the choice to be good or evil…  All from the very beginning of the game.  There were no long, boring tutorials.  Within 5-10 minutes of creating a character, I was already duking it out with the Sith.

 Another thing that pleasantly surprised me, was the combat.  In a word, I love the system.  Why, some people like to ask.  Wouldn’t you rather have direct control of your character?  My answer is always no, because in Kotor, the combat actually looks cinematic. 

All the star wars games I have ever played, can’t seem to capture the look and feel of a lightsaber duel, but within minutes of putting in the game I was enjoying in-game duels, albeit with swords instead of lightsabers, that actually looked cool.  I would watch as my characters dodged enemy blaster fire, and parried and blocked an enemy’s sword strikes, delighted at how smooth and movie like the combat looked.

 Admittedly, towards the end of the game, the combat got a little stale, because of the lack of more diverse and varying combat animations, but that’s where the story came in.  This is the only game I literally could not put down.  From the action packed first level to the climactic encounter with the final boss, the story continued to evolve and kept my interest. 

 The characters of Kotor are a big part of this.  Unlike in other games that I’d played, these characters had conversations with me, and would react accordingly, depending on my choice of words, and even my actions.  They would get into arguments with one another, and even with my character, and of the party of characters you would eventually acquire, each of them even had their own mini-storylines which could be explored at will. 

 And when you weren’t involved in a heated combat situation, or conversing with your party of characters, the overarching main story would continue to evolve.  From the very beginning, your goals were clear, but as the story progressed, the goals changed accordingly with your progress in the game, and eventually your daring soldier, crafty scoundrel, or wily scout would come to follow the path of the Jedi…or even the Sith.

 A search for a missing Jedi eventually led to becoming a Jedi, and becoming a Jedi led to the discovery of something that threatened the existence of the republic.  All of a sudden, all the stories you heard from characters in the game world started making sense…

 And then, just when you think you know everything, when you are so close to completing your objectives, the game throws a major curveball your way, and reveals a plot twist that although vaguely hinted at, nobody ever seems to expect.  With that momentous revelation, your resolve is strengthened, and you plow through the remaining portion of the game, down to the final battle. 

 In the midst of a giant space battle, in classic star wars tradition, you land in the belly of the Dark Lord’s flagship, and fight a seemingly limitless onslaught of soldiers and Sith until finally reaching the Dark Lord himself, and finally, all those hours of game play, of  building up your character, all that your character has gone through, it all comes down to that moment, that fateful encounter, the real duel of the fates. 

 That is the beauty of Kotor.  It takes you on an unforgettable journey.  A classic story of good and evil, but with so many interesting subtleties, many of them political, social, moral/ethical, etc.  So that when you stand before the final boss, you really feel like you’ve accomplished something, like you have been through a lot, like you deserve to be there.  

 The story line of Kotor is, in my opinion, on par with any and all of the Star Wars movies, and therefore, it gets a 10 in this category. 

 The sound is authentic to star wars, blasters and lightsabers sound like their movie counterparts, and all in all everything sounds like it should.  The music isn’t from the movies, but it works well for the most part, and makes certain boss battles and encounters all the more epic.  A 9 for sound.

 The gameplay has a great amount of depth, and allows you to make the type of character you want, and specialize in the types of skills and weapons that you want.  Battles in general are cinematic and are a pleasure to play through.  Although by the end of the game, the slight lack of more diverse and varied combat animations becomes apparent, it hardly detracts from the overall experience.  A 9 for gameplay. 

 The graphics of kotor, are probably as a whole the weakest part.  Everything from the characters to the environments looks fairly good, but there is definitely room for improvement.  Kotor is by no means the graphical powerhouse of this generation, and it doesn’t pretend to be. 

 The most impressive parts of the game graphically are the cutscenes, and while done very well for the most part, again, there is a noticeable difference in production values when comparing this game to others.  A 7 for graphics.

 What about the games value?  Well, I myself, although never buying it, the amount of late fees I owed for keeping the game for about a month and a half longer than I was supposed to certainly added up, but it was worth every penny.  This game, and games like it, are the reason why I play video games in the first place.  This is the kind of a game I would buy a system over.  A 10 for value.  I can see anybody who goes into this game with an open mind coming out impressed with it, at the very least.

 Reviwer’s tilt…you guessed it, a 10.  This is without a doubt my favorite game of all time, and will remain so for a good long time, I think.  It’s a game with a great story, great gameplay, great characters, and great music.  It even dares to introduce some real life issues into the fray, and gets you to do some thinking, not just mindless killing.  Not something that can be said about all games.  Cough Halo cough. 

 So that’s that.  My favorite game of all time.  And now you know, more or less why.  This review was somewhat non-traditional, but I figured I wanted to do something different for this game.  If you have any comments, feel free to post, and if you haven’t played Kotor, do yourself a favor, and give it a chance.  Overall score, 9.2/10.