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[Slyfox]

Previous review: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
http://forum.blackintel.org/general-discussion/slyfox-reviews-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-to-the-past/

Next review: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
http://forum.blackintel.org/general-discussion/slyfox-reviews-star-wars-knight-of-the-old-republic-ii-the-sith-lords/



Hey guys, this is part one of a trilogy of reviews based on the KotOR games. This one focuses on the first one, which came out in 2003 on Xbox and a few months later on PC. It was published by LucasArts and developed by the well known BioWare.

This game is set in the Star Wars universe, roughly 4000 years before episode one. It's unique, and yet looks like Star Wars... Uniquely Star Wars! Anyway, it's a singleplayer RPG with heavy story elements, and many choices to choose from, altering the story to some degree as you go along. Anyway, enough of this jumble, let me try to get a tad more organized here...

The explorable universe. You start the first several hours in a fairly linear set of events on one exploding ship and two planets, but then you are free to go to the other planets in any order you wish, until you near the end, where the more or less linear events suck you back in. There are many NPCs to meet and items to loot and even beautiful vistas to see. Basically, the world you are in is perfect, and you feel the need to go everywhere to witness/get everything you can. Also, there is hardly any backtracking. And the Star Wars feel is there. Nothing wrong I'd say.

Graphics. Awesome. When the game came out, it had cutting edge graphics, which still are pleasing to the eye even today. Characters in 3D, good looking textures, superior animations. The characters, visually, animate as if it were for real. Really, no complaints here.

Gameplay. It's an RPG, but for every action you select (during combat), every NPC reacts accordingly. You swing your lightsaber, and the enemies will parry (or sometimes at least try, but fail and get hit) your blows and your friends will dodge enemy fire, etc. The combat looks as if it belongs to a full fledged action game, but it's totally RPG underneath the roots. Tons of items to buy and loot, and are all fun to try out. Competent companion system too. And NPC interaction, superb. Dialogue choices affect a lot. No words can express the awesome gameplay.

Music is very good too. Composed by Jeremy Soule (who, among other things, made the music for The Elder Scrolls), the music retains the Star Wars feel, and often times is quite beautiful and calm. No complaints there, it's very nice to listen to.

There is so much more I want to say, arrrgh...

By the way, this is my all time favourite game. Ever. It's amazing, and also available on Steam!

Score when it came out: 100%

Current Score: 90%


Part two comes out sometimes soon. And please forgive my unprofessionalism (such as that word). Not to mention that I feel this is my worst review. Ah well.

[Ati]

Quite enjoyed reading the review, KotOR 1 was a fantastic game indeed, and is also among my favourite RPGs.
A must-play to any Star Wars fan who haven't tried it yet.
Jeremy Soule composed the music for it? Now that's a fact I didn't know.

The 2nd KotOR game was a good one as well, though it didn't really live up to the 1st one IMO
(I only recommend to play it with the restored content mod though, else there are lots of missing content, like cutscenes, animations, and things like that).

Sorry, I went a bit off-topic here, anyway, looking forward to part 2.  

[Slyfox]

Thanks Ati. 

And KotOR 2 will be part 2.

[Ati]

I know, that's why I'm looking forward to it.

[Gwynzer]

kotor2 with our without content patch?

[Slyfox]

Without the content patch. With the extra content, you can't consider it canon anymore (although it could have been, stupid LucasArts meddling again). Part 3 and a bit in part 2 will be more focused on story, hence my decision.