by:	April 18, 2004

Star Wars has been one of the most highly milked franchises over time, producing both fun and disappointing games. Unlike other Star Wars games, however, Knights of the Old Republic is an epic RPG-styled action-packed game, filled with surprises and many twists within its refreshing story. Developed by the highly proclaimed RPG developer BioWare Corp, the game features many RPG elements, a deep, open-ended story, and great voice acting. BioWare has done a great job keeping the Star Wars title into the game, making sure that neither Light nor Dark Jedi go to waste and that the power of The Force remains a key focus. Likewise, the game makes great usage of Light and Dark sides in the story, leading up to a deep and different ending for each side.

The beginning of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic allows you to customize your character. Selections allow for male or female characters, each with three different classes to choose from. The classes will remain with your character throughout the entire game, and the description of each class is listed so you can best choose the class you’d feel best with. After choosing the character sex and class, you’re able to choose a quick character (default template set) or a custom character - custom characters are best because you can define your character’s attributes, skills, and feats. After choosing your character’s settings, you’ll begin the game - after the traditional Star Wars opening story with scrolling text, of course.

Your selected character is a new recruit on the Endar Spire, a starship which just happens to be under attack by the Sith. Having little choice, you must venture forth and find a way to escape the falling ship. The level is straight-forward and is just a sample of what the game has to offer (it is a tutorial, after all). At first, the controls may seem very awkward. Luckily, you don’t have to master the controls at the beginning of the game - it will guide you. The L and R buttons toggle between objects and people (an “auto-lock” type system), the X button is a combo button for battling, A selects objects and performs commands, the right stick moves the camera and allows first-person viewing, the Black button changes the character you are controlling, White pauses the game, Back allows you to separate from your party temporarily ("solo mode"), and the D-Pad changes commands. The controls are quite basic once learned, but at the same quite complex at first. Learning the controls is the way to master the game. I believe they are quite easy now that I’ve learned them - not quirky at all.

Battling appears real-time by default, making the game fast-paced. Thankfully, the game can be slowed down if the pace is too fast. Changing targets or pressing the White button will allow you to “pause” (but still be able to select the next command) the battle. This is useful strategy when facing higher numbers of opponents. Since the game is generally fast-paced, characters must be quick to select their attack or the game will simply select the default attack. Once you have made your attack, whether you hit or miss, your opponent gets equal opportunity. This is because the battles are really turn-based. The reason that the game appears to be real-time is that it does not pause between turns by default. Once you have multiple people in your party, have learned Force powers, have a bunch of items you can use, etc., you may prefer that the game pause at the end of each turn. You can easily do so in the options menu, which gives you other "auto-pause" options as well so that you can customize gameplay to suit your taste.

After a time, you will have several people in your party (up to nine), but you can only take two of them with you at any given time. Fortunately, characters in your party will get experience points whether they're participating in battles or not. Like practically any RPG game, once a character reaches a certain amount of points, he or she will be allowed to “level up” and become more powerful. During the level up process, the character often gets to learn a new feat. Feats allow characters to perform better (for instance, a two-hand fighting feat would help your character if he or she used double blades) or enables new features (such as new attacks). Without a good number of feats, such as at the beginning of the game, your character seems weak. Not only is building up your character the way to go if you want to survive - it’s fun and customizable.