Lasereth

I thought the plot was brilliant. It's better than any of the Star Wars movies so far, and throughout the game I kept wanting to know what was going to happen, or why something just happened. Explaining "how" starships came to be, how the galaxy is mapped, and different aspects of the Star Wars universe is simply awesome. By playing the game and finding the Star Maps, a different part of the Star Wars universe is uncovered. I loved the plot. It was original (well, minus the bad guy), and that counts as a lot in today's games.


KOTOR had difficulty settings. If you thought it was too easy, then crank the difficulty up! There were some easy puzzles in the game, but the few puzzles that were in the game were at least somewhat challenging. None of them were pre-school level. Some of them were downright thought-provoking. Quests in a game like KOTOR aren't made to "figure out," they're made to be completed in order to gain light or darkside points. The few quests that the player did have to "figure out" were challenging. The Sunry Murder Trial comes to mind; you had to think like a lawyer, not a citizen, not even a friend. None of the quests in the game were boring, even if they weren't there to "figure out." They added to the story and to the quality of the game.

I agree! The developers said they wanted to add a little bit of variety but didn't want to invest too much time and resources into it. The swoop bike drag-race game could have been really, really deep, but I can see how much resources that would have taken. I didn't play Pazaak even once in the game.

This is the same in nearly every RPG ever made on a console or PC! Battle consist of fighting the enemy. Weaken them up, make your party stronger, and then attack and heal as necessary. Asking for more depth would be asking for a real-time strategy game. KOTOR is an RPG, not a strategy game. I found the other party members decent. They weren't perfect, but they attacked when an enemy was near, and they healed when their health was low. Ya can't ask for much more!

Lack of weapon variety? Every single weapon in the game looked completely different. An Ion pistol looked different from a Blaster Pistol, and a Vibro Sword looked different from a Longsword. Each armor piece in the game looked completely different, and items had different skins as well. This game has more weapon and armor variety than 90% of the RPGs on the market! How many people in the movies do you see carrying around Staffs of Healing or Monk Claws? No, everyone has a blaster or a lightsaber. Saying that the spell graphic variety is limited isn't reasonable. There aren't spells in the game, there are force powers. Force powers look like they're supposed to in Star Wars. BioWare kept faithful to the franchise, ya can't complain about that!

The XBox version features the best graphics scene on any RPG on console. Hell, it competes for best graphics in any game. The framerate could use an improvement, but the fact that it looks so damned good compensates for it. The game can't be criticized simply because it lags on your computer -- there are numerous issues that plague PC versions of games simply because no single PC is the same. The developers had to port the game over to an OS that is made to handle thousands of types of hardware! There are gonna be driver issues, hardware incompatibility issues, etc. The visuals on the XBox version are incredible. The PC version's graphics can only be used as a fault if every single PC in the world was the same and the graphics were unimpressive on all of them.

I simply can't see what you mean here. The worlds are amazing; simply going to one and seeing it is cool enough for the entire game. Being able to change your lightsaber any way you want it, being able to dual wield weapons, having three Jedi in your party, having two droids...there's simply an overwhelming amount of cool stuff in the game. There are some damn cool items like you said as well. If I would describe this game with one word, it would be "cool."

Yes, the game is linear, but any gamer will tell ya that some of the best RPGs out there are the linear ones (Final Fantasy). If you look in every nook, then none of the treasures are hidden! If you don't find them then I suppose they're hidden treasures. Looking at it that way, no RPG has hidden treasures, only items waiting to be found.

If you think the items are useless, KOTOR has the option to let you leave the items behind. I'd rather have an abundance of items that aren't always used than a lack of items in the game. In the beginning, the swords and blasters are key items to your survival. Later on, your party uses them as well. People like Zalbaar who are melee fighters but not Jedi use the swords big time. Carth and Canderous use blasters the entire game. Those items aren't useless! Even if they do suck, you can leave them behind, so there's not an over-abundance of them unless you pick up every one.

Sorry to argue so much, but I have to defend my favorite game of the year.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert