Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic

The Sand People were soon back and in greater numbers.

Star Wars! For some, the very sight of the introduction scrolling up the screen and into the distance will be incentive enough to buy this game. Simply put, you would be a fool to pass up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic; it draws heavily on the rich universe of Star Wars and creates a story that will enthral you from beginning to end.

The suns haven’t been shining on the Star Wars galaxy when it comes to games of late. The curse of licensed games has fallen heavily on LucasArts and most of the recent offerings have been below par. But, with the help of Bioware, the franchise has redeemed itself because everything about this product simply screams quality.

'I have a very bad feeling about this!'

Carth was in the front of the queue when they were giving out good-looks.

You start aboard the Republic ship Endar Spire. Immediately, you are thrown into the action when the Sith attack and board the vessel and you must flee to the planet below. From here you begin gathering and rescuing companions and become entangled in a story that will lead you from planet to planet and eventually to a climactic confrontation with the Dark Lord Darth Malak. I can’t tell you too much about what happens in the story and I advise you to try not to read too much about it or talk to too many people before you’ve had a chance to play it for yourself. Watching the story unfold around your actions is the most satisfying aspect of the game and you don’t want anybody to spoil it for you.

More stats than a managers presentation

Fetch doggy!

The d20 pen and paper role-playing game rule set (most recently seen in Neverwinter Nights) is running everything behind the scenes. Non-RPG fans can ignore it, auto-level their character up and treat the game as a straight adventure game though. RPG fans though, can get right into it and tweak and experiment with every stat and item found in the game. It is a rewarding level of detail.

Knights of the Old Republic is role-playing in every sense of the word. Not only do you choose your character and class at the beginning of the game, but you contribute to your character’s personality by every decision you make throughout the course of the game.

When starting a new game you can choose your character’s class as a soldier, scout or scoundrel. Each class plays very differently and there are so many ways to approach each situation in the game depending on your skills, that it would be worth trying them all to see which suits you best. For example, a room full of enemy soldiers lies ahead. You could burst in and kill them all, you could fix a broken combat droid that lies nearby and program it to attack them, you could hack into a computer terminal and overload the power in the room - electrocuting them all or you could simply sneak past them.

'Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they'

Now you will see the true power of the Dark Side!

This freedom of choice extends further than just solutions to obstacles in the game because once you start to gain your Jedi powers decisions that you make in conversation will affect whether you fall to the light or dark side. You are neither penalised nor rewarded for these actions, but they make the gameplay considerably more involving.

There is a lot of talking in Knights of the Old Republic and voice actors have been used to produce every single line of dialogue. This includes all the alien speech and although you will begin to notice repetition with the aliens, it doesn’t adversely affect the game. Sometimes you may find some of the conversations tedious, but this is nicely broken up with bits of very cinematic combat.

Be your own fight choreographer.

It's like fighting in a movie.

The combat is turn-based and automatically pauses when a new target presents itself. You can queue up to four actions at a time, from throwing a grenade, to shooting, to using the force or a lightsabre. You can keep pausing it to adjust your tactics and take stock of what’s happening or you can just let it run, furiously queuing up actions until all your enemies lie dead at your feet. The combat looks fabulous and some more ardent gamers have suggested that the lightsabre combat looks as good as anything in the movies. Combatants lock blades and leap around in a cinematically convincing manner.

'Thats no moon! Its a space station'

For The Republic!

Upon starting Knights, you may be inclined to feel that the graphics are nothing really special. There are mostly space ship and city interiors that, despite looking genuinely Star Wars, are nothing you haven’t seen before. But before you know it, you are thrown into deserts, forest worlds with giant trees, beautiful tropical scenery and it all suddenly shines. The character models are nicely detailed, but the citizens of the world less so. You will frequently speak with people who look alike, but it just doesn’t matter. When they are milling around in the wonderful scenery, with flocks of birds overhead, it all makes the world look alive. The only criticism would perhaps be that when the action gets too heavy, the game is prone to some fairly significant slowdown. But at moments like these, you will be having too much fun furiously trying to stay alive to worry about it, and that although the characters throw convincing shadows, your glowing lightsabres don’t seem to spread any light or cast any shadow.


The developers have worked with LucasArts to plunder their sound libraries, so all the sound is rewardingly Star Wars flavoured. Pressing the ‘Y’ button when you have a lightsabre in your hand causes you character to ignite the blade and twirl it about. This achieves nothing in the game but you will find yourself doing it again and again at idle moments, just because it looks and sounds so great.

John Williams would be proud

Great views abound.

The game also sports a grand original score that doesn’t simply reuse music from the films, although it wouldn’t be out of place if it were used in them. It’s a real treat and adds enormously to the feeling of playing a movie.

On top of all of this are several mini-games that make an interesting diversion from the usual flow of the game. There is Pazak, a card game that is sort of a collectible card game version of Blackjack. You will find players all over the game to play with and you can use it to supplement your income if you need to.

There is also Swoop racing, where you try and set the best times in a simple racing and dodging game and there is of course the section where you will be manning the gun turrets of your spaceship The Ebon Hawk, shooting down attacking Sith Fighters.

Have we praised enough?

There is a lot of talking in Knights of the Old Republic.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic has been the first game in a long time where I haven’t felt cheated by the hype. It’s a great game whether you are a fan of Star Wars or if you’re not. If you are a fan, it will leave you smiling from ear to ear and unable to tear yourself away from it for days. For non-fans, you will quickly find yourself re-evaluating your feelings. It’s got enough depth as a RPG to satisfy the most die hard stat-heads and it has enough pick-up-and-play appeal that anybody can quickly get to grips with. A truly, truly great game.