Review Gamer's Hell loves (to spoil) KotOR

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

<A href="http://www.gamershell.com/">Gamer's Hell</a> has posted their <A href="http://www.gamershell.com/reviews_StarWarsKOTORReview.shtml">review</a> of <A href="http://www.swkotor.com">Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic</a>, giving it a <b>9.3/10</b>. During the course of this thing, the reviewer <b>pretty much spoils the plot twist in the game</b>, so only go to read it if you don't mind <b>huge spoilers</b>. So, I guess <b>PROFESSHUNAL = SPOILERZ</b> these days. Anyway, clip:
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<blockquote>And if there?s one thing the game doesn?t lack it?s sub-quests. To get more powerful it?s important to gather as much experience and money as possible. You can usually find some way to spend whatever money you have, because the retailers always seem to have some armor or rifle that costs more money than you?re carrying. Upgrading usually doesn?t make the hugest difference in battle, but it obviously helps. To get money and experience you?ll want to do sub-quests, and while some may have you chase and assassinate villains other may have you do mini-games. These mini-games can be racing, card games, or other things. These are all nice diversions.</blockquote>
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Too bad the worst two of the minigames are forced on you during the game.
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PS. This time, the apostrophes turning in to question marks aren't my fault. That's the way the article looks.
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Spotted this at <A href="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</a>

 

[Volourn]

Those apostophres are annoyong. I'm not gonna bother reading the article.

Swoop races aren't bad. I don't hate them, anyways. Space Terrets literally sucks. *sigh* Just so they can say they had space battles. Pazaak is pretty fun; but the npcs sure get "lucky" a lot.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

The only minigame that is forced on you is the shooting in space. You have to do ONE instance of the swoop racing, and it's so easy. All you have to do is get a really crappy time your first run, and then the second run's time to beat will be a joke. Then after that, you are done with it. You can avoid alot of the shooting sequences through reloads, but I never had a problem with them on the Xbox.

And as far as the review goes, well, the guys a moron.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Well it's always good to read a review after you finished the game to make sure you got a good game,

THANKS GAMERS HELL.

 

[Transcendent One]

Another very interesting feature is that you can choose whether you want to be a good guy or a bad guy, and have the plot progress and end depending on that

These reviews are really starting to become carbon copies of one another.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Especially when that's not true, since the plot is basically the same for both, but the way it's presented isn't entirely terrible. KotOR does handle good/evil a LOT better than their previous titles.

 

[Kortalh]

Despite what many people at RPG Codex seem to think, I found KotOR to be one of the best RPGs I've played in quite some time. And this is coming from a guy that absolutely hates the pause-based combat of the Infinity Engine games, and doesn't even like Star Wars very much.

My biggest praise for the game is that, aside from one or two minor events, every incident of combat was justified. Many games have a tendancy to say "Go kill the monsters over there" without giving your character much of a reason to do so - especially if you're evil. In KotOR, however, I don't remember going into any combat area where I would have had no motivation to do so.

My only real complaint was that I absolutely hated the turret fights. I don't know if it's different for X-Box or not, but for PC it moved so slowly that it was almost impossible to hit anything. And with no way to adjust the speed (without changing your system mouse preferences) it's a little rediculous. Nothing ticks me off more than when you loose a game not because you lack the skill, but because the controls suck.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Well, the deal is, alot of the people here were leary about the game despite all the good things I would bring up about it. But I couldn't really blame them considering Bio's rep as of late. Now that alot of them have had a chance to try it, they are basically posting good comments about the game. Sure, there are complaints still, but not everyone in this world is gonna like something about a game that another person likes, as well as the fact that the game, while good, is far from perfect. I think the general consensus around here now is that it's a decent game and the best rpg Bio's released in awhile. I think the whole bottom line about the game, and the part that really matters, is the fact that it's FUN. And it is.

As for the turret shooting, it runs smooth as silk on the Xbox and I'm kinda saddened to hear all the complaints about the PC version of it. Hopefully they will fix it with an upcoming patch, or possibly give you the ability to shut them off completely.

 

[Volourn]

Kortalh, use the "WASD" keys for the turrets. They help; though it still sucks.

Otaku, you mean BIO's rep that it is the bestc rpg devloper currently/ oo... You emant the view that they suck which is held by amaybe a handful of people? Sorry, the majority isn't always right; but then again, the minority rarely is as well.

And, oh, the turrets suck no matter how you slice it. I bet they were only added strictly to appease those SW junkies who wanted to experience everything SW. *puke*

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Otaku, you mean BIO's rep that it is the bestc rpg devloper currently/ oo... You emant the view that they suck which is held by amaybe a handful of people? Sorry, the majority isn't always right; but then again, the minority rarely is as well.

No. I meant their rep to not deliver what was promised. There were so many features promised about NWN that I was so looking forward to that just didn't make it. And don't even get me started about what was promised about the OC that just didn't make it. I have nothing against BIO and I do happen to like NWN, but I don't think it's the greatest RPG ever or revolutionized RPGs as we know them. I was merely pointing out that they seem to not have a good rep with the people around here and that's why everyone was leary about KOTOR from the start.

As for the turret shooting, yeah, it's definitely something they could have left out. On the Xbox version it's so easy it's not even funny. I think I saw my 'health meter' move a half an inch once and that was about it.

 

[Kortalh]

Hmm... didn't even think to use WSAD for the turret. I used it for running around, and I even opted to play the majority of the game with the keyboard rather than the mouse, just because that's how it was built to be played, more or less. With the turrets, in order to turn it 90-degrees, I have to move my mouse all the way across my mousepad about 8 times.

I just thought of another thing that really annoyed me... Nearly every time I got into combat, the framerate would get extremely choppy. If I paused it, it would work perfectly. I tried all the suggestions on the Bioware forums, but nothing seemed to happen. *shrug* Hopefully a patch'll come out that fixes it.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I found that you can use the arrow keys for swoop racer and turret control but you can't use them for movement in the game. What's up with that?

 

[kumquatq3]

I found that you can use the arrow keys for swoop racer and turret control but you can't use them for movement in the game. What's up with that?

If you use the mouse when the turret game starts and start firing right away, you can often pick off most of the fighters really quick. They all come from one side pretty muched group together. You always start facing them to.

 

[Volourn]

Otaku, I've never said NWN OC was the best crpg ever; but as a total package I feel it's up there. Heck, it's the first multiplayer PC game I bother to play; plus it's also the only game I've played consistently for over a year (no, not the OC, silly!).

Yeah, the OC did not live up to the hype. However, it DID live up to the promises. Why do i say that/ Because, almost every weakness in it could have been figured out through the actual info they released pre-release. If only you listen to hype up press releases then I could see how one could figue out that the OC wasn't gonna be the 'best ever". For instance, joinable npcs weren't even gonna be a part of it at all at first until the fans made it clear they wanted 'em. Soemtimes, I think BIO listens to their fans too much. As for KOTOR, heck, I was leery about it too as I'm not a big fan of the SW universe (though I think the movies are ok); but all the raving lunatics of the x-box version helped change my view. :D

To each their own. Now, on to the Star Forge!!!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Earth to Volourn: NWN sucked, the first RPG that Bio released is KOTOR. It's far from being great but it's not bad for the first try

 

[Volourn]

*yawn* You gotta do better than that. :twisted:

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

NWN didn't suck, but it wasn't great either. Multiplayer can be a blast if done right and quite a few of the fanmade scenarios are pretty damn good. I just recently uninstalled it, after if being on my hard drive for over a year, because I needed room for some other games I wanted to play. But that doesn't mean I've given up on it.

Internally, Bioware has problems, yes. BUT, they do release decent titles. Note that I said decent and not revolutionary or great. I've enjoyed their releases, but there are plenty out there I consider better. I was mostly disappointed with the NWN OC and could not even bring myself to finish it. It just got tedious and boring.

 

[Volourn]

BIO has internal problems? WOWSERS! Last i checked, internally, they do fine. Hmm... What kind of gosip are ya tryin' to spread?

 

[Psilon]

I think he may be talking about the internals of the engines.

 

[Volourn]

At least that would *make* some sense since one can at least make an opinion and/.or argument about the various engines' having weaknesses; but definitely BIO has no "internal" company problems unless something is occuring I don't know about...

 

[Psilon]

My sentiment exactly; from all appearances BioWare's a fairly healthy corporation. If they were pulling an Interplay we'd be seeing a lot more staff turnover.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Sorry, I did not mean the company themselves. That was a faux pas on my part. I did mean as far as their game engines go. NWN as not the most stable of game engines and still isn't even after all the patches. With all the time they spent on the game, it should have been better right out of the gate.

Even KOTOR has problems. BUT, to me, the only problems I see in that game are the port over problems. I never once had problems with the XBOX version except for one glaring bug that showed up on the Leviathan. If you used Mission and she was cloaked, and then it went to the cutscene where the characters are talking and Mission is there, when it came time for Carth to respond to something she said, it would hang because she was cloaked and Carth couldn't see her. If you waited long enough, the dice would roll in Carth's favor and he would see her and then react, but it was a pain in the ass because sometimes it could take upwards of twenty minutes! :shock:

 

[Volourn]

NWN isn't stable? wweird.. It's the most stable PC game I've ever owned. And, it was stable enough to be used for KOTOR, and for even updating the graphics for HOTU which is only an expansion.

Oh well.. to each their own.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

When my henchman, who is told to use distance weapons, runs forward to meet their death almost EVERYTIME we encounter enemies, I call that a bit unstable in the AI department. Even after the mutlitude of patches this is still a problem. There are others I can list as well, but I'm not even gonna bother. The game is still not the most stable of games out there and the AI needs severe help.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

NWN isn't stable? wweird.. It's the most stable PC game I've ever owned. And, it was stable enough to be used for KOTOR, and for even updating the graphics for HOTU which is only an expansion.

Oh well.. to each their own.

Wasn't that computer of yours which had terrible graphical experiences with ToEE? In contrast, mine had almost none with ToEE, yet kept having problems with NWN. I think this is the case of computers adapting to their owner's feelings, and influencing them based on that. I disliked NWN a lot, and the problems i had with it made it worse. OTOH, you liked NWN and didn't had many problems, if you had them at all, which now contributes to you liking it more.