Aspires to capture that star wars feeling without much needed depth
User Rating: 7.2 | Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic PC
Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic is a RPG that is set around 4000 years before the first episode of the Star Wars lore that has been released as a theatrical release. It has been released for XBox for nearly six months earilier with many accolades, and it has finaly seen the light of day on the PC platform. As insightful readers already know, this game is almost identical to that of the XBox version, save for an incremental interface change. The game has a batch of additional high-powered items that are dispensed by a new npc situated in a new area (it is rather odd how Bioware includes 'new' materials all centered around one specific 'new' place that I would not elaborate further for the fear of spoiler), but these additions are superficial and being planned to be distributed to the XBox version via Live downloads. Knights of the Old Repbulic is a RPG that is based on a derivative formula from the D&D rules. From the quasi-turn based battle mechanic to the development of characters (via skills, feats, powers, and attributes) the game bears the unmistakable mark of it conforming to the rules. The rules are obviously altered to suit a CRPG setting and was incorporated to remain intact under the interface. Therefore, the rules do not come off as being daunting, rather fairly easy to understand and grasp. It also adds the advantage of rewarding those who carefully plan their characters in advance. However, does the rule support the gameplay well? Battle elements rely on real-time interpretation of turn based system that actively engages the characters involved. A traveling party consists of three characters, and in battle only one of them is under your control. Although there is a queue for reserving a number of commands, it is limited to four actions, not to mention that it excludes a simple movement command. This flaw is exacerbated by the poor a.i. of other members of the party, who acquire arbitrary targets and use questionable skills, all thanks to overly simplified 'scripts'. Furthermore, the battle mechanics suffer from the lack of any 'quick' slots and other amenities that were seen in games like Neverwinter Nights. All this amounts to some frustrating moments during battles, where one has to resort to hectic maneuver just to place the party members in right formation and not benefit from the strategical element afforded by the turn based system. Inventory management is a chore, too. Partly owing from its XBox cousin, the developers overlooked the crammed and archaic inventory management when a new interface was designed for the PC version. The game presents too much of a hassle in order to move items in containers where one has to select a single item for transfer before opening the container to transfer another one. A simple change of allowing more than one item to be moved by means of 'tagging' them would have resolved this. Such problems with the interface plague many aspects of the gameplay. The game allows certain keys to be mapped, but not others. Also the movement occurs not with mouse, but with a keyboard. Characters move only by running. This only proves how the game was designed with XBox as its common denominator and not enough has been done to acommodate the PC users with as much thought and care. The Odyssey engine the game is based upon is versatile in displaying various locales, and sometimes impressive in portraying character models and animations. However, it is terribly inefficient. The engine cannot run well even on high end machines, especially when equipped with an ATI card. There is also a graphical feature that is only limited to nVidia cards, and a serious incompatibility issue with Radeon 9600 cards and certainly older motherboards. This is disappointing given how Bioware had ample time to develop the game and make the transition of the game optimized for the PC platform. Another gripe involves from the game always displaying some kind of warning when trying to do mundane or practical tasks, such as buying items that are priced higher than 250 credits or trying to attempt solo mode. As for the story of the game, and how much the gameplay features role-playing aspect, there are certainly a lot of tasks and a few twists to be had. The first world is a fairly linear fare, that hearkens the first dungeon of Bioware's Baldur's Gate 2. Soon after the game opens up for the party to travel to any of the five planets in any order they would prefer, although some locales are better off traveled in the later parts of the game. Within the planets themselves, however, the missions devolve into same linear adventures that are devoid of variety. However, they themselves are fairly innovative and with occasional serving of minigames, maintain the level of entertainment quite well. The plot of the game is quite good, involving betrayals and secrecy, but rather ludicrous in how it unfolds, with heavy borrowing of plot themes from Bioware's other games, such as Neverwinter Nights. Overall, the plot is interesting and does not get bogged down with too much detail at the end. Also it makes the game's pace quite brisk and keeps the level of tension fairly high. The problem in its roleplaying aspect is that the dark side and light side are portrayed as being absolute extreme of each other. Although playing either as evil or good character in the Force is one of the merits that the game draws quite heavily upon, some of the responses that a character has to make in order to attain the rating are sometimes so outlandish. One does not certainly expect to be a psychotic sociopath just to aspire to the dark side. But I digress and commend the developers for pulling the whole good and evil roleplaying together within the star wars universe and making it work to a degree. By the way, the ending leaves a lot to be desired, which is not saying much since Bioware has been known for its often anti-climactic and underwhelming endings. NPCs are colorful and well developed; if there is anything to play the game again excepting the obvious opportunies presented by other base or Jedi classes, it would be trying to interact differently with the NPCs and completing their individual quests that relate to their agenda, maybe netting different conclusions. The sound of the game is done well; and I was pleasantly surprised by the wealth of voicework that was done to lend the game very cinematic flair. Of course, the alien voices repeat almost always, even to the point of applying the same voice bite across races, as if Mandalorians speak the same language as Twi'leks. When the alien and other npc models recycle, it further conspires against your sense of disbelief, but it is a fairly trivial complaint. The music uses from the pool of standard Star Wars bombastic anthems as well as the ones composed from ubiquitous Jeremy Soule. A bit of what seems to be NWN music remixed into the game does not seem so bad after all. The game would last you more than forty hours in all, given that all quests are attempted and all of its rather lengthy, overbearing movies are viewed. This amount of playing time is mostly unheard of in the recent game released, which is rather unfortunate. Although the game is fairly linear, choosing other classes to play through and acquiring other builds with respective powers or strengths would merit a second time of playing. So is this game a good one? If one is a Star Wars fan, it is a good RPG just for how completely it remains faithful to the franchise's themes. On the merits of gameplay and roleplaying, it is pretty standard. No particular aspect of the game stands out to deliver an overall memorable gaming experience. The technical aspect of its engine and the interface that certainly has not adapted fully to the inherent characteristic of the PC platform make what is a decent roleplaying adventure a bit stilted and frustrating to enjoy. Nontheless, it is a good game, and one of the best to come by in the PC RPG genre; indicates just how lean the year has been. 
