KotoR

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 8:54 pm

or

Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic.

This game was amazing. It's like Morrowind, only prettier, smoother running and actually has a good story and combat system. The whole light side / dark side setting is kinda black and white, but it's fun to still have the chance to play the whole game differently... And it doesn't restrict you from playing in-between, a neutral kind of a character, who does shit for money but ain't a complete sadistic bitch.

The feeling you get when you slice a three-meter tall battle droid in half with your dual light sabers is simply golden. But I guess it takes a SW-fanboy to enjoy these kinds of things... eck.

Anyhow - this game's sweet. I recommend it to everyone who likes not-so-deep-RPGs.

CloudNineGT · Post by **CloudNineGT** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 9:12 pm

Um. Ok. Yeah it was good.

Menno · Post by **Menno** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 9:41 pm

I agree, I enjoyed KOTOR also. I know many may disagree with me, but I felt as if KOTOR got the evil path right like no other game I played before. While there is plenty of killing to do, there's also a lot of opportunities to just be a complete scumbag.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 9:41 pm

Morrowind fucking sucked hard and KotOR is a joke of an RPG.

BlackDog · Post by **BlackDog** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:47 pm

Either Spazmo is joking...or his claim of "good taste in gaming" is a lie.

I personally am loving KOTOR for PC. Killing that Rancor on the first planet in the sewers was hard as crap b/c I chose a weak class to start out. But stealing everybodies stuff was quite fun.

As for morrowind...it's pretty much an awesome RPG as well.

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:05 pm

BlackDog wrote:I personally am loving KOTOR for PC. Killing that Rancor on the first planet in the sewers was hard as crap b/c I chose a weak class to start out. But stealing everybodies stuff was quite fun.

dude, you know that corpse right in the archway before you enter the big open area where the rancor is facing the wall? Yeah well rifle through that corpse and you'll find a datapad. On that datapad it tells you (not verbatim) to put the scent in that pile of corpses in the middle of the room, this pile also has some explosives (or at least it should, a mine or grenade will work just fine) ... Plant the scent, watch the cut scene. Rancor dead. Keep an eye out for datapads, Bioware has a nasty habit of planting stuff you need to move ahead on bodies you normally wouldn't waste the time of day with.

Speaking of which, Spazmo is being hard on KoTOR because he has to stomach all the rim job reviews its been getting. Its an OK game, by no means is the world as versatile or interesting as Arcanum's. I thought the story was kind of hokey. There's a big plot twist, then after that you spend the next twenty minutes discussing how clever that plot twist was with your NPC companions. Kind of annoyed the hell out of me. Another thing that really pissed me off were all the cut scenes you were forced into. You'll be especially annoyed with this in the end game. Rather than take an approach like Halo where you could help out NPCs friendly to you and they would live take on a sentry mode, you basically sit 10 feet away from the fight and watch your "friends" die. Then you're released from the Cut Scene Death Grip and allowed to easily dispatch whatever baddies were culpable. Silly. Another big gripe I had was that the campaign was very linear and its really not so different light side/dark side. You do the same things, your outcome will be the same and really its so forced/obvious that it feels as silly as picking a "THIS DOOR FOR BAD ENDING/THIS DOOR FOR GOODIE TWO SHOES ENDING" and it pretty much is just like that when you get to the penultimate location.

Also annoying, your NPCs are always the same. One of the great things about games like Fallout, Arcanum, Etc. is that you can pick and choose who to bring along with you on your quest. In KOTOR you get a standard set of NPCs and most of your NPCs won't really fit your character if you're an evil mofo.

In fact, I'd say that its pretty lazy game design that at the end when you went bad you were forced to kill two of your npcs, chase off another two, and continue on with what was left. One of those slots occupied by a little droid who was only useful for 5 seconds of the game.

<center>********************SPOILERS AHEAD******************</center>

The Sith are ridiculously portrayed. It's like serial killers, pedophiles, and rapists got together and decided to start a country. So hopelessly inept that the power structure cannibalizes itself every time someone wants to get a promotion. To me it seems they would have realized the silliness of this and not made these battles for position deathmatches. Rather the Master once defeated would become an apprentice, or the apprentice would become a master and have his own apprentice. It would have been great if I would have had a truly evil path to take. Once on the Leviathan I could have spanked the shit out of Darth NomouthandImustScream (like I was doing until they inflicted hahahnoyoucantwincausethisisaconsolegameandifyoubeatthisbadguyyou'llbreakthegame style cut scenes on me) and made him take his place as an apprentice (NPC helper) again. Then I could have asked him to chop Carth in two and the WHINING WOULD FINALLY STOP OMG THANK YOU !!!!!!

Overall its not a bad game, but its by no means as great as everyone's making it out to be. Really, more than anything, this game is riding on its potential. Everyone sees what kind of potential this game had and they give it a great review based on that. Maybe I'm just a pessimist but I agree with spazmo, this game is a failure as an RPG. It plays more like a console adventure game.

BlackDog · Post by **BlackDog** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:26 pm

i wasted all my money on 10 mines, set it up to solo with no group, and proceeded to cloak myself and lay a row of 10 mines in a line. then shoot him and led him straight thru them all. I guess thats sorta cheating, but I got his ass.

The Gaijin · Post by **The Gaijin** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 1:45 am

Haha, not very subtle, but damn sure effective.

The game's not bad...but I really hate class systems, where your skills are basically designated by a silly archetype. I liked the Fallout "pick three you really like, put points anywhere else without impunity" style of play. But I wish evil/good wasn't so generic and cut and dry. Not a bad game though, fun to look at and fun to play.

Mandalorian FaLLouT GoD · Sat Feb 07, 2004 1:46 am

Spazmo wrote:Morrowind fucking sucked hard and KotOR is a joke of an RPG.

i agree with spazmo. morrowind sucked nutsack. you cant even kill civilians at the start for gear. the combat fucking blows; ive never played a game with a shittier combat setup and the environment was uninvolving yet pretty.
overall morrowind sucked more balls than subhuman at a gaybar.

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 2:33 am

you thought morrowind's combat sucked? TRY GOTHIC 2 :puke:

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 2:49 am

Evil is KotOR is pretty weak, even from the start. You should know it's weak when you threaten to rob someone, and your NPCs jump in and tell the guy you're going to rob to run away. So, they run away, leaving you with nothing but a dark point. You can't chase the guy down and rob him. You can't rebuke or kill your NPCs for telling the guy to run.

Even better is after you get the DARK SIDE MASTERY, yet you allow some Sith Academy Students to mock you openly and you can't do anything about it - IN A PLACE THAT SUPPOSEDLY ENCOURAGES YOU TO MURDER YOUR COMPETITION. WTF?

How come you can't encourage the fallen Jedi to join you as a dark side member? You have to basically turn her to the light side in order for her to join when she's already dark side.. Why? I'm dark side, she's dark side.. So what the hell? Oh, I know, because the story later on calls for her to be light side.. That's crap.

Killian is 100% correct about the whole light side/darkside ending. You can be evil through the whole game, and then make one choice at the end that gives the good ending. The opposite is also true.

PaladinHeart · Post by **PaladinHeart** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 2:58 am

You mean nobody likes to fire an arrow, hit an enemy, and it not do damage due to your accuracy with said weapon? :gasp:

Heh, I thought it was funny how your skills don't go up if you miss. Yet you can't build something up if you can never be accurate with it.

Its an OK game though. The quests are tedious though and the story is lacking. I like it more for the gameplay. You can just go off and do whatever you want (except for killing civs, like someone stated). KOTOR and Morrowind could learn a few things from each other. I thought KOTOR was going to be this huge adventure where you could go anywhere and do anything you wanted. Something like Morrowind but better (you know, the style of KOTOR but with a world as big as morrowind, or bigger).

Core Puzzle · Post by **Core Puzzle** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 3:05 am

I thought Morrowind was fairly entertaining for a couple of weeks, it was just impossible for me to keep up interest. Combat was too simple, and the game revolved around fighting. It's bound to bore you at some point.

Saint Proverbius wrote:You can be evil through the whole game, and then make one choice at the end that gives the good ending. The opposite is also true.

Isn't that a Bioware trademark by now?

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 3:37 am

My problems with KotOR:

They make a real effort to give you choices and such. There's a bunch of quests where what you do has a real effect on the outcome of things. The problem is that none of these quests at all affect the outcome of the game. And when it comes to story-central quests, there's only really one way to do them.
The combat is just shit. Not only is it the usual real time with pause crap BioWare likes to euphemise into turn based, it's completely unbalanced. Light or dark, it doesn't matter. All you need is the force wave power. It'll destroy anything except for a rare few monsters who are immune to it--you can get those with either destroy droid or just the near infinite grenades the game gives you. Terrible combat. Even without force wave to completely unbalance things, it'd still be way too fucking easy. There's virtually zero challenge in KotOR combat.
The interface is generally terrible. It feels like it should be played with a gamepad. KotOR is a terrible port.
The alien dialog is truly a trial. It seems to take an alien thirty seconds to say something like "Hello, welcome to my store!"
This game is fucking huge. Not in terms of content--though I'll admit it's not all that short--but rather in terms of the space on my hard drive it gobbles up. KotOR uses up three and a half gigabytes--plus savegames, which aren't exactly tiny. This is a bit of a nitpick, but I still don't like it, especially since my HD is kinda smallish.
The party members are all stupid whiny shits. Carth is a complete waste of time as all he does is bitch about his family and how ruff n tuff and mistrusting he is. He effectively becomes nothing but a burden as soon as the jedi characters make him obsolete as backup in combat, especially since he has no useful skills to offer. The rest of the party members are equally annoying as they all seem to have some boring life story shit to tell you. The worst by far, though, is Bastila. Ideally designed as a love interest and "moral compass" for the PC, she comes off simply as a preachy, uppity, arrogant bitch. I found her useful as a party member but just a total pain in the ass to have around as soon as she opened her yap for another whine session.
The puzzles are often just dumb. Most of them are over quickly due to BioWare's continued love affair with the journal. Fun fact: in all of BioWare's games, there is always a journal, datapad or other kind of written record of exactly how to get past a given trap, puzzle, special monster, etc. Anyways, the puzzles in KotOR are often just dumb. In the Sith temple on Korriban, there's that thing with the towers and energy levels that just makes no sense--not as a puzzle, but as a thing to have in a thousands of years old tomb. Totally nonsensical. And the less said about the deadly and devious "walk in an H" puzzle on that last planet, the better.
Possibly my biggest gripe with KotOR is how nothing you do matters. You can be as much of a rotten bastard or goody two shoes as you want and it won't make a damn difference beyond whether you glow white or red. The only actual plot defining choice you make in the game comes an hour or two before the end of the game. That's just crap.

Essentially, KotOR feels to me like BioWare's first attempt at a real RPG--an attempt they only made because a Star Wars jedi game can't get away with not providing some kind of evil path, no matter how cheaply done it is. KotOR shows that BioWare is capable of doing it right--many quests present in the game show reasonably well done multiple paths. Now if BioWare could only apply that to their whole game, they could make something great. Sadly, while they continue to be of the completely ridiculous school of thought that non linear paths = exponentially more design work, they'll never make anything really great.

Core Puzzle wrote:Isn't that a BioWare trademark by now?

Nah. Most BioWare games don't even give you a choice at all.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:42 am

Damn good points there, especially the one about the ending... Right now I'm playing a dark side female (1st game was light side male) and I often notice how the dialogue is *exactly* the same, only that when you choose the evil responses you get dark side points. Oh, and because I'm a cheap bastard I save damn often, so the part where you get to rob someone but your NPCs intervene... I just quick-loaded, ditched my buddies and robbed the bastard

Money, money, money--

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 2:03 pm

Kashluk wrote:Damn good points there, especially the one about the ending... Right now I'm playing a dark side female (1st game was light side male) and I often notice how the dialogue is *exactly* the same, only that when you choose the evil responses you get dark side points. Oh, and because I'm a cheap bastard I save damn often, so the part where you get to rob someone but your NPCs intervene... I just quick-loaded, ditched my buddies and robbed the bastard Money, money, money--

Yeah, you can do all the evil lines of dialogue with Carth or any other NPC, and the damned dialogue is EXACTLY the same. It's like they don't even acknowledge you telling them to leave the group if they don't like your evil ways and stuff.

I really, really hate the fact that light sabers and blasters are so gimped because everyone under the sun has really powerful swords which can block and deflect light sabers.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 7:00 pm

I guess it had to be balanced if the developers wanted *anyone* to play a melee char other than lightsaber-wielding one. Funny though, how there's no mention of this ls-resistant "cortosis wave" material in the Star Wars movie series, which is set 4000 years l a t e r !

The Gaijin · Post by **The Gaijin** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:45 pm

That's because George Lucas is a lying, stupid, money-grubbing asshole who rewrites his canon at the drop of a hat so long as whatever's rewritten "sounds cool."

PaladinHeart · Post by **PaladinHeart** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:56 pm

Perhaps the material was so popular and got so widespread that it eventually was mined out. Then after 4000 years (a very long time indeed), the material is nearly nonexistent. Just look at lightsabres. They are almost as nonexistent as jedis. (Based on my knowledge from the movies -- I haven't played the jedi games that much). I know that the prequel movies seem to have an abundance of lightsabres but the original three movies made it a point to show that lightsabres are rare. Even the emperor didn't have one! (although I doubt he needed one)

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 11:35 pm

Well.. there sure are damn lots of dark and light side jedi jumping around in KotoR. There's no place where you can hide from them and they die like flies along the way - even had so many overleft lightsabers I had to sell some of them. Either the "current" jedi (the ones on SW 4, 5 & 6) are better or the old-time non-jedi warriors were better, because I had no trouble taking on three dark jedi apprentice with my blaster pistol

Duck and Cover

KotoR

KotoR

RE

RE