Review Thunderbolt adores KOTOR

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: BioWare; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

<a href=http://www.thunderbolt.be>Thunderbolt</a>, a site that's apparently run "By Gamers For Gamers", has posted an overly exciting and equally stupid <a href=http://www.thunderbolt.be/reviews/viewreview.php?rid=447>review</a> of <a href=http://www.bioware.com/games/knights_old_republic>KotOR</a> giving it whooping <b>10/10</b> for being one of the finest games in years.
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<blockquote>Whether you’re on the Dark side or the Light side, you’re going to end up doing lots of fighting. Judging from screenshots, the combat seems to be action-based, much like the Jedi Knight series. However, it’s actually the turn-based Dungeons & Dragons based combat that is present in many other PC games. This means that your stats and an invisible 20-sided dice how much damage you dish out, your evasion rate, and so on.
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The different paths you can take are undoubtedly KOTOR’s strongest feature. As fans of the movies know, it can be very easy to be swayed to the Dark Side, and the game captures this perfectly. Honestly, why would you pay 2000 credits for a droid when you can simply threaten the seller and get it for free? There are plenty of sidequests that help determine whether you’re on the Light or Dark side, and all of them are entertaining, and in some cases, thought-provoking. You’ll learn this halfway through the game when the brilliant plot twist is revealed and you become conflicted on what to do next. I sure won’t spoil that twist here, so you can thank me later</blockquote>Thought-provoking? That's definitely a new one.
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[Spazmo]

Okay--hang on. The, ah, "brilliance" of the KOTOR plot twist aside, how in the crap does it make you question what you're going to do next? Let's assume you do decide to drop your current path and jettison all the light or dark points you've accumulated--does it really change the path you take anyways? Good or evil, you still hit planet #4 and then the Star Forge so there's no real question anyways. You just have a bunch of snuggly wuggly moments where your party tells you they don't care about the BEEG SEKRIT and then you keep on doing what you were doing anyways.

The way the plot twist is delivered is fucking stupid, too. Essentially, there's a battle with Malak on board his own ship. Now, I was totally kicking his ass thanks to liberal applications of force wave. But of course, the game's plot assumed I was just barely winning and thus kicks in the cutscene where Bastila sacrifices herself... what? I was spanking that wet teabag of a sith lord and Bastila has to rush to my aid? I could have won the whole game then and there with just another two or three force waves. Funninly enough, when you meet Malak again later on, he's inexplicably about ten times tougher (he's immune to force wave in the final battle, see). What would have made sense would be to present the player with a Malak as tough as the one in the final battle on board Malak's ship. In that case, the player actually would just barely be beating Malak and really would need Bastila for a rescue.

Of course, really good design wouldn't include a plot chokepoint like that anyways, but that's another issue.

 

[DrattedTin]

Sweet jesus, how can they maintain a straight face at the same time as they call it a review and say "based on the screenshots..."?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I have to go with Spazmo about the turning point battle thing. In both games, I was beating Malak's ass up and down that starship's belly. I was clocking the hell out of him with both a heavy melee character, just using melee - and with a dark side jedi power focused character using force choke. I had barely taken much damage both times, and Malak's health was between 10% and 20%. There was no reason for Bastilla to step in and lock me out of the fight, because I was in no danger of losing at all. If she wanted to do something important, she should have just buffed or healed that ten percent of my health that Malak removed.

That was pretty silly on the designers' part having an event like that.

 

[Voss]

What got me the most about that battle on the ship, is the first time he disengaged, I thought he was running away. Then I followed him through the maze of corridors, and kicked his ass *again*. Then Bastilla steps in.
Its as bad as the 'Run, Luke, Run' when theres all of two stormtroopers left.
And the final battle wasn't a big deal either. I had enough energy shields that his efforts to hurt me were completely futile.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Stuff like that is just downright irritating. I hate being interrupted while doing anything and sequences like these really take the cake. That sequence would have been so much better had they made Darth Malak immortal at the time, and explained that he was deriving his powers from the StarForge, thus making him immune - forcing you to reach the heart of the matter and destroy his source of energy before you could fight him. That would have made sense, and Bastila jumping to your rescue would have made sense, too, because you wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell against "Amped Malak".

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Or something as simple as him just taking Bastila hostage to cover his retreat, which wouldn't even require any lame ass stunts like immunity. Grab her, put a knife to her throat, and say that if you follow him, he'll kill her - and he slams the bulkhead door down in front of you.

 

[Lasakon]

They should have allowed you to beat the game right then and there. You sonudly defeat him become a hero and be none the wiser that you were really """. It would have made for a more interesting plot premise for a sequel.

 

[mr. lamat]

one shall be the number of times i have to fight the endboss and the number of times i have to fight the endboss shall be one.

i understood making malak2 uber, they ran out of ideas... but i could never understand why wearing a gasmask negated his mind-affecting force powers.

 

[DemonKing]

Its as bad as the 'Run, Luke, Run' when theres all of two stormtroopers left.

To be fair to Obi Wan the 2 stormtroopers left in the hanger were probably not the only 2 stormtroopers left on the deathstar...

...of course on the other hand, aside from the first battle in episode IV, the stormtroopers seemed completely incapable of hitting anything smaller than a moon. :wink: