Review KotOR wubbed by PC.IGN

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

<a href="http://pc.ign.com">PC.IGN</a> has posted their <A href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/441/441810p1.html">most positive review</a> of <A href="http://www.swkotor.com">Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic</a>, giving it a hardy <b>9.0/10</b>. Here's a bit they liked:
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<blockquote>The minigames in KOTOR are a nice diversion if you ever get sick of roaming the galaxy as a badass Jedi and you're given an introduction to most of them early on. The card game Pazaak, swoop racing and turret battles are all integrated into the story, so you WILL have to learn them and be good, but I see them more as a way of fleshing out the Star Wars credibility that Knights of the Old Republic has in excess. </blockquote>
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Ugh. There was my big fear when I heard about mini-games, being forced in to playing them.
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Spotted this on <a href="http://swforums.bioware.com/">the KotOR forum</a>

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

There's tons of character development, a combat probability system and a giant inventory to manage, so I guess KOTOR gets clearance as a role-playing game.

:shock: Have the IGN reviewers lost their marbles and sunk to a GameFAQesque braindead mentality? What next - it gets clearance as an RPG because it has a map? Talking characters? ****'s sake. :evil:

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Another one:

KOTOR reaches a level deeper however by sometimes offering more or less experience points depending on how you accomplished a particular task. In the Sand People example above, keeping a cool head and more or less brown-nosing the chief will solve three of the challenges on your list of things to do in one shot and you'll get a ton of XPs. If you get hotheaded, you can still solve all three of your problems but you'll have to fight tooth and nail to do it and you won't be awarded a lump sum of XPs the same way. In this case, you actually end up getting roughly the same number of XPs doing it the evil way as the good way because you'll get XPs for all the enemies you'll be killing. You'll find this balance throughout the game. You'll get lump sum XPs for hacking into a facility's security system and activating a security to droid to walk around and exterminate enemies for you. If you don't hack the system, you'll still end up killing those same enemies yourself if you want to get through the level, so you're covered either way. Doing good or evil things and gaining experience are only half the payoff. The other half is spending those points to whoop ass.

Where is this deeper than things done in past games? Christ, is this guy for real?

 

[Volourn]

Well.. It is deeper than past games; but it is also less deeper than past games. It depends on which games youa re talking about.

As for mini games, from what I've seen, you don't have to play Pazaak (it's fun though); the racing game is a must; but shouldn't be difficult; and the space jockey one is supposedly easily; but I only tried it once and died. Now my game won't work trying to load up the cut scenese before then...

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Pfft. Planescape, Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum, even Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (ToB included) - hell, even *gasp* NWN. I'm sure there are others i'm forgetting. I just think its strange the reviewer stating that KoTOR goes deeper by doing this, when its been done already. Perhaps the 3D graphics give it a false depth?

 

[Volourn]

However, it goes deeper than TOEE, POR2, DS, MW, and on, and on, and on. See, like I said, it goes both ways.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

ToEE, AFAIR, gives you situations where you gain more or less XP according to what you do, like working for Temple priests or killing them (and their pets) outright.

 

[Volourn]

Yes, a handful of situations. WOWSERS! That's so deep it blows the mind.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

It doesn't blow the mind, but its indicative that the reviewer should probably go out and play more games.

 

[Whipporowill]

Well... it's linear and for a 3d game it's suprising that you cant even JUMP or anything like that. No height variations that I've seen as of yet - apart from sloping corridors - oddly enough.

Combat system has NOTHING on ToEE or Fallout. Pffrt!

 

[Trash]

Beards, all them beards!

Nitpicking that's what I say.....

Anyway I'm quite curious, do the people that are playing KOTOR here enjoying the game?
Cya,

Trash

 

[Volourn]

Well... Other than the bug that I had to backstab to overcome; yes I'm enjoying it very much. It does have some rpoblems ala the controls. The combat is growing on me though. And, the story, characters, and role-playing are very good though the last one doesn't seem to be on the FO level. Not too surprising there; though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Well... it's linear and for a 3d game it's suprising that you cant even JUMP or anything like that.

Can't jump? Then Force Jump is useless? (assuming it's in the game)

 

[Volourn]

Force Jump mis in the game as one of the Jedi classes get it. I haven't used it since I'm not a jedi so i don't know how it works. Just to clarify, the player can't choose to jump (no real need to); but the characters do jump.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Just to clarify, the player can't choose to jump (no real need to); but the characters do jump.

Can't choose, but jump sometimes? What do you mean? During scripted events and cinematics if any?

 

[Volourn]

Combat animation. Like when you use power attack, the character will jump into the air to get more leverage on the attack. It's a sight to behold. As for the jedi force power jump; I can't say how that actually works in game...

 

[dipdipdip]

When you have a point invested in force jump, and you choose to do a regular attack on a distant enemy, your character will jump to that enemy, doing some damage.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

That reminds me of the jumping animation characters will do in ToEE when performing a critical attack. But not being able to jump... guess it depends. It existed in Morrowind because it was designed to make jumping be useful. If there isn't jumping in KoTOR, well, its bloody annoying, considering NWN already had the same problem, but if it hasn't got anything that would take advantage of jumping, then it might not be a problem.

 

[Volourn]

No points, or any advanatge to higher ground that I can see so it doesn't seem neccessary. Of course, like almost anything, it would add another dimension to the game.

Dip, that sounds pretty cool. Oh well, I am now a Sentinel so I'm out of luck there. heh.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

With Force Jump you can target an enemy that's just a speck in the distance and immediately jump to them adding extra damage to the attack. The one drawback to this is it leaves you by yourself until the other members in your party can catch up, so make sure you can take out what you target or that it won't overpower you too quickly.

Also, the only minigames that you have to do are the turret shooting, and swoop racing ONCE. And the one time you have to do the swoop racing is so easy it's nothing major. It just gives you a taste of what it's like. Turret shooting is not that hard either as long as you pay attention.

It's a good game, despite the fact that it's not 'deep' or had the roleplay of FO. I recommend it.

 

[Volourn]

Well.. I think it's deep; but yeah it's definbitely not on Fallout's level for pure role-playing. Fallout will probably be always number one for that.

That jump power is really something it seems.

 

[Voss]

I picked up the game. Its not bad at all. Very stable, which is good. Interaction with the NPCs is fairly good. Similar to, in some ways, but much better than the interaction with the henchmen in NWN. For one thing there are several ways of dealing with them. It has similarities to PST and Arcanum in that its seems like you can build them up or tear them down (though I don't know if it has real game effects).
I despise the main story arc NPC though. But in a good way- shes an uber bitch-goddess, the arrogant jedi that is so full of the Force, that you want to see dropped a peg (or 500). Very memorable though.

The combat is fairly uninspired though. Not passive exactly, just static- movement isn't a big part of combat, since its a constant either/or proposition- as long as you're moving you can't do anything else, and there isn't any real benefit to doing so - better to stay put and queue up options.

The big plot twist isn't...Its pretty much given away in the first cutscene, but I'm curious how it gets from point A to point B.

Fair amount of alternate solutions- I haven't snuck around too much. But I have hacked into security systems, rewired sentry drones and things of that nature ( though I'm hoping it doesn't become a standard- oh, computer terminal, overload power conduit, shut off turrets, then bat cleanup) We'll see. I'm still on the first planet, but so far its interesting.

On the force jump- haven't gotten to that point, but in some ways in doesn't seem a big deal since so far I've started so close to enemies (which may be due to the nature of the planet) that I get into melee before the start shooting 75% of the time anyway.

But so far, pretty good.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

The big plot twist isn't...Its pretty much given away in the first cutscene, but I'm curious how it gets from point A to point B.

Oh ye of little faith.

On the force jump- haven't gotten to that point, but in some ways in doesn't seem a big deal since so far I've started so close to enemies (which may be due to the nature of the planet) that I get into melee before the start shooting 75% of the time anyway.

Once you get to the next planet, you'll find yourself in wide open spaces spotting enemies from a good ways off. That's when the skill comes in handy.

 

[Voss]

Oh ye of little faith

Seeing things from a first person point of view isn't really subtle.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Oh ye of little faith

Seeing things from a first person point of view isn't really subtle.

The only way I can see getting the plot twist from the intro cutscene is if you know it from the start. Then again, you might be thinking the twist is something other than what it actually is. I don't wanna go into specifics here because it's a wickedly delicious twist that should not be ruined for anyone who plans on playing the game.