Nakor’s Rucksack

Synopsis

KOTOR starts off amazing and seemingly brings the Star Wars universe to life. However, it loses steam through the mid-game, and ultimately disappoints at the end.

Platform

Windows XP

Rating

7/10

The Good

• It’s a Star Wars RPG, and it takes place in a time period unexplored by books or movies. But, it’s undeinably Star Wars, and it’s fairly immersive.
• Each available party member has a personality, a distinct background story, and a side quest to explore. In fact, I found this to be the best part of the game.
• There are several customizable weapons and armor. Although there aren’t too many choices to be made, it’s still a cool idea.
• There are vastly different looking planets and environments to explore. This is another highpoint of the game.
• Can play as “good” or “evil” (well, sortof).
• Lots of nifty gadgets and weapons to collect. Ultimately, most of them are rather useless, but it’s still fun when you find something new.
• Combat is fun to watch (when you’re not pulling your hair out over your companions’ stupidity). The animations and special effects are all very pretty.
• Although most quests fall in the “kill foozle” or “fed-ex” category, some are genuinely innovative.
• The card game is kind of fun.
• Did I mention it’s Star Wars?

The Bad

• It uses the D20 system, which is limited to simplistic character development and combat-heavy statistics.
• No native widescreen support. I was able to run at 1680×1050 by using a hack from http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/ but this was not ideal.
• The UI is very simplistic, obviously ported directly from its console origins. This interferes with almost every aspect of the game, but most importantly, it makes combat very frustrating because…
• The party AI during combat is atrocious. In theory, you can pause the action and direct characters to perform specific actions during combat. In practice, they start acting (stupidly) on their own as soon as you turn your back on them. This will be the cause of much frustration in the game, trust me.
• You are limited to 3 controllable characters at once. There is no reason given for this. Obviously given the bad interface and AI, you wouldn’t WANT more PCs to control at any given time, but it still makes no sense. Although you can (most of the time) switch party members at will, it limits the feeling of having a real party. Also, I felt bad because the majority of the characters spent almost the entire adventure sitting on their butts.
• Some side quests only appear when certain members are in your active party at a certain place, and there are no clues when you are missing these quests. I suppose one could argue that it encourages “replay”, but honestly not all of the available PCs are that useful.
• No voice for the main character (you). This is quite jarring during conversations, because everyone else has a voice (even aliens have their own languages), but when it’s your turn to “speak”, you simply select text from numbered options and remain mute.
• The choices between good or evil are never ambiguous, and they are largely cosmetic. There are certain feats reserved for light or dark side characters, but ultimately it makes no difference in the game.
• “Might makes right” is pretty much the only way to play. Those hoping to play a stealthy or diplomatic game will be very disappointed. You will have to kill a LOT of people and creatures in this game, even if you take the so-called light path.
• The biggest problem with the game is the pacing. After the “Intro” chapter, you are given a very important quest, and told that time is of the essence. However, to accomplish this quest, you must perform some of the most inane side quests. It makes you wonder if saving the galaxy is really all that important when you’re tasked with finding someone’s lost dog. Also, while performing these quests, the main plotline is essentially “frozen”. This is due to the amount of “freedom” that you have in the order of accomplishing these quests. I can’t help but wonder if maybe the game would have been a lot more engaging if they had made it more linear and used that to keep the plot rolling.
• Totally unbelievable plot twist. It’s embarassing.

Summary

KOTOR could have been a stupendous game if it had been “hatched” on the PC and if more consideration was given to the mid and end-game. As it stands, it will grab you from the start, and you’ll have some fun for a while. By the time the game starts chugging, you start to realize that this all important urgent quest is anything but, and the main plot gets somewhat lost for a while. Unfortunately, once the plot gets rolling again, there are few bright spots towards the end. When I finished, I felt relieved, and that’s not a good way to leave your players. I certainly did not feel compelled to play it again.