Of course, it's no surprise that a company like Bioware could pull off a great RPG - they've done it before. But with KOTOR, they took stat-based gameplay and wrapped it up in a dazzling visual package that did the next-gen Xbox - on which it first appeared - proud. They also implemented a real-time system that had numbers being crunched under the hood, but that ran smoothly, at times looking almost like a third-person action game. Driving it was an elegant interface that provided an impressive degree of control, allowing the player to queue commands and pull off great combat maneuvers. On top of it all was a compelling Star Wars story, set 1,000 years before the first movies, that allowed the player to solve problems in a number of ways and choose to follow a Dark or Light Path. End result: Lightsaber-swinging goodness all around, and one of the best games released on any platform all year.​