Star Wars K.O.T.O.R.

Und was kommt nach der Xbox Flut?

Original von Marcel
Und was kommt nach der Xbox Flut?

Mmmh, auf Spiele wie Halo 2, BC, Doom III, Fable, Perfect Dark Zero, Ninja Gaiden, Half-Life 2, Deus Ex 2 freue ich mich tierisch. Für den Cube kommt nicht mehr viel raus, leider - und die PS2 dient mir eher als "Low Budget"-Konsole (ich habe ja viele ältere Hits verpasst) mit permanenter Softwareversorgung. Irgendwann mußte der Knoten in Sachen Xbox-Games ja mal platzen, oder?

Jo im Hinblick auf das Weihnachtsgeshäft läuft mir das Wasser im Mund zusammen!Play more sag ich nur :schwelg:

Das erste Review zu "Star Wars: KOTOR" ist da: sagenhafte 95%!

click

Ich schwelge in freudiger Erwartung....

95%%%%%%?????????????????????????????
Wow....sagenhaft! :kitt:

IGN Review: (ist vorbestellt :crush: )

Holt die Lesebrille raus:


July 14, 2003 - Lightsabers. Check
Wookies. Check.

Millennium Falcon-like spaceship. Check.

Compelling story. Check.

In covering those four bases, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is not only providing one of the very best interactive Star Wars experiences, but it's tapped into the very soul of the Star Wars universe that drew hundreds of millions of fans to the franchise in the first place. Developed by Bioware, Knights of the Old Republic is stronger with The Force than any George Lucas-powered movie that's come out in the last 20 years and lands on the Xbox as one of the very best titles the system has to offer.

There's tons of character development, a combat probability system and a giant inventory to manage, so I guess KOTOR gets clearance as a role-playing game. But as both an RPG and a Star Wars title, it strikes a marvelous balance of hardcore authenticity and accessibility for the uninitiated. Pen and paper players can check the log of dice rolls used to calculate the success rate of every trigger pull or lightsaber swing. Freddy Fanboy can geek out for hours at how well the Jawa language has been adapted for a videogame. And even the coolest of the cool hip kids will be able to see the appeal of swinging double lightsabers and choking fools from across the room.

It all begins with a rock solid story that really does begin a long long time

This is Star Wars

Normally setting a Star Wars game 4000 years before the events of the movies we all know, would be a recipe for mediocrity. How many times have we seen a LucasArts game where the adventure is set somewhere "just next door" to what we know from the films, so we're getting to see what Lando or Obi Wan does when he's not hanging out with the superstars of the galaxy like Vader, Leia or that Hoth medical droid. But you've got to hand it to Bioware for mimicking the entire feel of the first Star Wars movie but with original characters and an original storyline.

All of the standards and paradigms of the Star Wars universe --Jedi vs Sith, bureaucracy and politics-- are present in this game and both the gameplay and storyline work within those guidelines. You begin the game as a soldier who simply happens to be strong with The Force and throughout the game you're developing your skills as a Jedi, making decisions that not only affect your leanings to the Dark Side or the Light Side of the force but will also determine how your game's story unfolds. We could tell you exactly how the story for our created characters went and still not ruin the majority of your experience because stories branch and spread all over the place before coming back to a handful of very specific and critical crossroads, but it all fits within the Star Wars universe that we all know and love. We figured we'd just give you a few highlights.

Before you're done with KOTOR, you will:


train at the Jedi Academy which includes learning the Jedi Code and the meaning behind a lightsaber's color.
walk into a cantina on Tattoine where the bartender won't like you...and the bounty hunters won't like you either!
find somebody's lack of faith disturbing.
explore the forest world of Kashyyk and see what "Return of the Jedi" was supposed to look like if we'd had wookies instead of ewoks in treetop villages
face your former master again after all these years.
space-walk on the surface of a battleship
There are multiple side missions that will help expand your understanding of the story as well. So in Knights you may:


collect a few bounties that you've hunted down.
reunite a woman and her droid so they can resume their extremely unhealthy relationship.
fight alongside wookies in a fight for freedom.
try a murder case or two as a Jedi attorney.
get thrown in and escape from prison once or twice.
smuggle for the Star Wars mafia.

The original characters and story are interesting enough, but being in a Star Wars setting just makes them like family. You've got your beautiful and mysterious female Jedi who shares a special bond with you. There's the two soldiers, one Mandalorian and one Republic who don't see eye to eye on much but are always down for a scrap. You'll pick up an old Jedi master who's spent most of his life as a hermit but is still powerful with The Force. Star Wars fans will know there's only one way to get wookie to follow a human around and you get one in KOTOR along with his Twi'lek companion. There are even a couple of droids to be found in your crew. Your astromech is a beeping mechanical wiz while HK-47 (my personal favorite) is your psychopathic assassin droid who just happens to provide most of the game's comic relief. Dialogue with HK-47 was funny enough to cause many of us to laugh out loud on several occasions and, like all characters, his lines evolve the deeper you get into the game. If C3PO ever grew a sack --of nuts and bolts, heh-- he'd be HK-47. Likewise with all of your crew members in the game; they each borrow recognizable elements from characters in the original Star Wars trilogy. Throw in a major plot twist or two, there's no way you'll see the first one coming, and it's clear KOTOR is built to entertain both as a game and as another volume in the Star Wars library.
Gameplay

Knights of the Old Republic asks you to do two things really: a)guide the story through your conversations and decision making and b)utilize the hybrid turn-based combat system to whoop ass on whoever needs it. Both elements are extremely rich and very rewarding once you get into the game and understand what's going on.

There are thousands of lines of dialogue just waiting to be unleashed by the crafty conversationalist, but the truth is you're simply not meant to hear everything the first time through. Even before you become a Jedi you can be leaning towards the Dark or Light side of The Force through the things you say to people and decisions you make. Every NPC you interact with is unique so you never 100% sure how someone will react. A heroic, upstanding figure might be easily intimidated if you threaten them with violence just like a ruthless underworld figure might respond to your kind and encouraging words in unexpected ways. The hook in the game's dialogue is that you're presented with several opportunities to branch one way or another during a conversation. After initiating dialogue you may have five responses that may include rude, kind or neutral responses along with probes for more info. The NPC's response to your response may open up a handful of entirely new responses that you can then drop on him. So even in one conversation you can branch off and double back in terms of good and evil.

At times your conversations with NPCs actually lead you to make decisions to act one way or another. On Tattoine you have to solve a problem with Sand People. Standing before the chief, if you say the wrong thing a fight will breakout instantly, ending the conversation. The same can be said for the Twi'lek survivor of an underwater disaster. If you insult him before he finishes his story --you're given the option encourage or discourage his tale at several points during his speech-- he'll draw a weapon and it's on. Assuming you'll win the fight, you've just done an evil act. You earn single Dark Side or Light Side points once you've done enough evil or good things to earn one. These points are separate from experience points which are earned in the conventional RPG manner: accomplishing missions.

KOTOR reaches a level deeper however by sometimes offering more or less experience points depending on how you accomplished a particular task. In the Sand People example above, keeping a cool head and more or less brown-nosing the chief will solve three of the challenges on your list of things to do in one shot and you'll get a ton of XPs. If you get hotheaded, you can still all three of your problems but you'll have to fight tooth and nail to do it and you won't be awarded a lump sum of XPs the same way. In this case, you actually end up getting roughly the same number of XPs doing it the evil way as the good way because you'll get XPs for all the enemies you'll be killing. You'll find this balance throughout the game. You'll get lump sum XPs for hacking into a facility's security system and activating a security to droid to walk around and exterminate enemies for you. If you don't hack the system, you'll still end up killing those same enemies yourself if you want to get through the level, so you're covered either way. Doing good or evil things and gaining experience are only half the payoff. The other half is spending those points to whoop ass.

The combat system in KOTOR doesn't seem intuitive, but that's because it's fairly unique in its design and application. It's a turn-based system, but you're in control of when those turns are initiated to a certain extent. A typical sequence will work like this: you come around a corner with your two party members trailing behind and the game suddenly pauses and goes into combat mode. While paused you can rotate the camera around to survey the situation, swap out armor, weapons and accessories, select the target(s) you want to attack and input a sequence of four commands for each character. So you have 12 potential moves you can have loaded up before you unpause the game to unleash them. And moves doesn't just mean taking a shot with your blaster or swing with your sword or lightsaber. Throwing grenades, turning on your personal forcefield, Jedi powers, using medpacs, adrenaline boosters are all considered combat moves in this case. Now here's where it gets tricky. You don't have to input any moves at all when the game pauses automatically (in fact you can turn this auto pause off) and you can continue to enter new moves for your party members on the fly as their move queue empties. In fact, stacking up new moves in the middle of a fight is an extremely valuable skill about a third of the way through the game.

Knights of the Old Republic streamlines things as much as possible so you don't have to get too tied down in tedious activities if you don't want to. For example, you can control any member of your party at anytime and the other two do an excellent job of following behind and automatically engaging enemies and watching each other's backs during combat. When you interact with NPCs the conversation will always be between your created character and the NPC since you have to make all the decisions in the game. If you need to control only one character, say for a stealth mission where you turn invisible, you can engage solo mode and get your creep on. During most non-combat situations you can instantly swap in new party members and transit back and forth between your current location and your ship, the Ebon Hawk. Should you leave the Ebon Hawk's location on foot, the transit points are reset between the Hawk and wherever you are when you decide to instantly transport.
The Ebon Hawk is one of the most brilliant aspects of the game as well and not just because it's the design ancestor of the Millenium Falcon. The ship is your means of transport from planet to planet in the game and each travel sequence comes with a spiffy movie of your ship taking off, flying into hyperspace and landing. Upon docking, the Hawk is mini-level within itself where you can walk around and talk to your crew members to get information about them --and they all have problems that need to be solved-- and ask some of them to make stuff for you. Grenades, computer hacking spikes, medpacs, adrenal boosts and security spikes can all be had for free on board your ship to do with as you please, even sell. The only gripe we can come up with for the whole game really, is the fact that you can't manage your global inventory while your onboard the Ebon Hawk. You're in control of every single item of clothing gear and accessories your crew members have, but once your party has an item equipped it's out of the global inventory until you get it back. If you want to transfer a particular pistol or implant from one character not currently in your party to another, the tedious procedure of leaving the ship, selecting a character who has the item in question, taking the item away from them and giving it to the new character is a bit of a pain. A game that's otherwise brilliant should have a more sensible system than this.

The minigames in KOTOR are a nice diversion if you ever get sick of roaming the galaxy as a badass Jedi and you're given an introduction to most of them early on. The card game Pazaak, swoop racing and turret battles are all integrated into the story, so you WILL have to learn them and be good, but I see them more as a way of fleshing out the Star Wars credibility that Knights of the Old Republic has in excess.

Also, whatever the downloadable content happens to be, we'll all have another reason to thank Xbox Live for giving us the ability to upgrade an already marvelous game.

Graphics

Knights of the Old Republic has the look of an action title, not a console RPG. In fact, it'll end up having more in common, in terms of visuals, with this fall's Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy than you might expect. Detailed character models, the lip-synching and combat animations, and extremely impressive environmental effects are the game's strengths and overwhelm any problems it has with framerate. The camera system is very reliable and won't leave you in a lurch like the one found in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The locations in KOTOR are so beautifully rendered, you've got to think that George Lucas himself would want to pay a visit to Bioware to find out how they created such impressive digital mountains and buildings. You'll go from the murky Shadowlands on the surface of the forest-planet Kashyyk, to the bowels of a Sith battleship to the dusty dunes of good old Tatooine in this game and never does one environment look or feel like another. The grasses on Dantooine and Kashyyk bend and sway as you disturb them walking by, an effect that at one time was supposed to be the hallmark of an Xbox game. On Tattoine you'll be able to see little swirls of dust spin up into little whirlwinds and dissipate. Even when you reach the limits of areas you can explore and are looking out at the backdrop painting on, say, the ocean world of Manaan or rocky planet Korriban, that painting is so detailed that it looks like you could venture out across the rest of the planet if only this was an action game with a jump button. We end up getting the same effect in a Star Wars videogame that we get in the movies.

The real-time lighting in the game is a little sketchy, however, because you can get what appear to be real-time shadows when you're trudging across the Tatooine desert or space-walking like Buzz Aldrin, but when you spark up a lightsaber in a dark cave, you won't get any reflections of the cave's inner surfaces. Nonetheless the bloom lighting when you look up at the blazing suns on Tattooine is blindingly spectacular, and you'll really appreciate it when you move your character so that the suns are suddenly blocked out by a gigantic Sandcrawler.

The characters in Knights, all 300 of them it seems, are all drawn and animated with plenty of believable detail and the game's story certainly wouldn't be as compelling if they weren't. Considering you can change the clothing, equipment and weapons of the nine characters that will eventually be in your squad and that these changes are instant, Bioware could've been inviting disaster if they hadn't known what they were doing. You can look at your television and appreciate the difference between Carth's personal blaster and a Heavy Mandalorian blaster that somebody might be carrying. We're still trying to figure out the subtle differences between a Jedi Robe, a Jedi Knight Robe and Jedi Master Robe, but we know they're there because the multiple kinds of armor and battlesuits all have differences that you can recognize.

It's when the characters in this role-playing game start moving and speaking, that all your Star Wars fantasies come true. All of the conversations are letterboxed cutscenes so you can see the text of the dialogue and your responses in the black bars above and below the picture. The fact that you can read, listen and see the character's mouth (if it has one) moving draws you into the experience of this Star Wars story because you see the wrinkles on a treacherous Twi'lek's face or the giant wookie looming over your character. If we had one nit to pick it's that using the game engine in the conversation scenes (the camera basically zooms in close) reveals a few shortcomings in the facial expression system but then again it certainly keeps things quick and seamless with loading times between action and dialogue.

Another gripe we have to point out is the limited number of faces in the game. You get 15 male and 15 female to choose from in creating your character, but we were flabbergasted to find some of the ones we didn't use, or at least variations thereof, in the game as NPCs. The character we created looked remarkably like a younger version of Jolee Bindo, a key character in the game. And this is even more noticeable when you start looking closely at the alien races. Now we know why Greedo kept popping up in the original Star Wars movie, they literally all look alike.


You won't get much of a thrill from the combat early on because using ranged weapons is your best bet in the beginning. But getting your hands on a lightsaber or two upon becoming a Jedi really opens things up. There are unique dueling animations that take into account the number of sabers involved in the fight and the proficiency of the combatants. A lightsaber fight against a Dark Jedi early in the game may look nothing like a fight against a Dark Jedi Master later on because both you and your enemy will be stronger by then. At first you're simply happy to see your Jedi whirling and slashing a saber by throwing multiple flurry attacks against an enemy. By the time you level up to a 15 or 16 Jedi, you'll be mixing in force powers in between lightsaber swings and enemies (even soldiers wielding conventional blades) will have better defense. This is how you'll get spectacular lightsaber clashes with all of that glowing energy and that crackling sound. But you'll actually see your character and enemy lunge and parry and end up with their blades crossed, each pushing into the other trying to get the advantage. It's all very quick and subtle but also very satisfying if you pay attention.
Sound

The performers in Knights of the Old Republic, as a group, might have delivered the best voice-acting we've ever heard in a videogame. They're all outstanding from top to bottom and consistently deliver heavy doses of personality and emotion that help make this such a compelling Star Wars story. And this isn't limited to the melodramatics either; there are some lines in KOTOR that are genuinely funny. Afterthoughts, comments made under the breath and all kinds of little details like that are used liberally throughout the game to convey meaning and wouldn't have been possible with low-budget voice talent. The sound effects themselves are a no-brainer as Bioware dipped into the same library of Star Wars sound effects that every developer from Raven to Factor 5 has used to bring their games to life. The surround sound is well applied in a game of this type and really punctuates the importance of a battle after you've been walking around talking for extended periods of time.

Everybody's got plenty to say in Knights. The only person who doesn't speak is your character. The voice acting talent on board for this game is impressive but once you get into the story, you will stop trying to remember who is being played by Ed Asner because all the dialogue, from all the characters, major and minor, is top notch. Whether it's a Sith soldier trying to goad you into a fight, a drunken mercenary trying to swoop on a couple of space chicks or a Jedi's disapproving mother, there's nothing canned or fake about the responses you get from these people. This goes for non-English (or Basic for the Star Nerds out there) speakers too. A wookie's voice goes from a whining whimper to a roar when he starts talking about something emotional, just like Chewbacca showed us back in the day. Droids beep and bloop but will make that robo-flatulation sound R2D2 used to make when they disagree with something. All the Rodians sound like Greedo, the Twi'lek's like Bib Fortuna and the Duros sound like those two guys talking at the same time and arguing with each other in the cantina in the original Episode IV. Exactly what you expect from a Star Wars game no?

The only sound more satisfying than the crackle and hum of a lightsaber starting up is the sound of two sabers lighting up. The sound effects in KOTOR are perfect. Beginning with the lightsabers and blasters, on to the roar of a ship's engines to the clanging of metal on metal when a blast door shuts, this game has the sounds of the franchise nailed. And that's all we have to say about that.

The music in the game is subtle but it's always there and is equally outstanding. Bioware's clever move to simply replicate the Episode IV-VI feel with new characters is reinforced with the themes we know from those movies. You'll hear the Imperial Death March even though it'll take Darth Vader 4000 more years to write it. Many of John William's themes are present as background music when you're shuffling around Tattoine or Dantooine. The original music in the game is brought to the forefront whenever you're travelling in the Ebon Hawk during a cutscene but it all fits in the larger program Bioware has given us: "This is Star Wars, but our version."

Closing Comments
Knights of the Old Republic is an outstanding game because it covers every single angle in terms of audience expectations. It's got enough Star Wars to satisfy the fans and enough pure fun to draw in people who normally wouldn't get into role-playing games. You'll see this on several Game of the Year nomination lists if not at the very top soon enough.
Put this up there with Halo, Splinter Cell and any other Xbox game that kept you up way too late or caused you to neglect your loved ones. It grabs you early on by giving your character some cool toys to play with and some familiar Star Wars critters to welcome you back and next thing you know you've got a space ship, a light saber, a wookie and a droid. With Knights of the Old Republic, the galaxy is yours, get out there and get some.

-- Aaron Boulding






links :: strategy guide faqs codes boards preview review news features

Ratings: Description:
out of 10 click here for ratings guide

10.0 Presentation
There's more real Star Warsedness in this game than in the last two movies combined. Great menu system has the best use of triggers we've seen in a while.

9.0 Graphics
A hiccup or two here or there, but for the most part, this is one of the prettiest Star Wars games on any system in any genre.

10.0 Sound
The sound effects are given but the voice-acting was so amazing, we think the standard has just been raised.

9.0 Gameplay
It moves like an action game, plays like nothing you've played before and makes role--playing exciting again.

10.0 Lasting Appeal
This will probably be the deepest single player experience available on Xbox when all is said and done. Wait there's going to be downloadable content too?

9.5 OVERALL:
(out of 10 / not an average)

Wow hätte nicht gedacht das KotoR SO ein Hammer wird....
Jetzt schon die 2te 95% Wertung!

Original von Marcel

Wow hätte nicht gedacht das KotoR SO ein Hammer wird....
Jetzt schon die 2te 95% Wertung!

Marcel, Bioware ist DIE RPG-Schmiede! Den IGN-Text mag ich zwar nicht lesen (bekomme das Spiel ja eh nächste Woche), aber die Wertung ist phänomenal.

Damit

Eh , da ich nicht wusste , dass das Game von Bioware kommt , habe ich den Titel abgeschrieben da ja Starwars drauf steht , aber jetzt !! Kauf ich das Teil .

Ehm ist das eigentlich exklusiv ?

Jep

Boaarhh 95%!
Ich kanns noch nicht glauben!

Frisch , jetzt noch ohne Bug dann dürfte es wirklich kein schlechtes Spiel sein .

Ist schon so gut wie vorbestellt.

Ich mag normalerweise keine RPG´s , auch weil ich mit dem Fantasy-Genre nicht so viel anfangen kann. Setz das ganze aber ins Star Wars Universum und du hörst mich Vaders Death March tönen vor lauter Vorfreude.


Ups, Doppelpost.

Bin nicht unbedingt der Star Wars Freak, aber irgendwie reizt mich das Spiel auch ziemlich und Rpgs mag ich eh. Dann bin ich ja mal gespannt auf die ersten Impressionen.

Gamespot gibt 9.1 Punkte !

Hier das Review:

Canadian developer BioWare is well known for producing high-quality role-playing games, thanks to its successful Baldur's Gate series, and offers up what is in many ways its finest such game to date in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. LucasArts wisely delegated the task of producing a deep and involving Star Wars-themed RPG to BioWare, which has done a remarkable job of making Knights live up to the Star Wars name. In fact, Knights arguably lives up to the Star Wars name better than any other Star Wars property in years, including the last two theatrical films. The game's greatest accomplishment is its focused yet open-ended plot progression, which gives you the freedom to play as either a morally good or evil character, or shades in between. The struggle between good and evil is of course central to Star Wars and manifests itself extremely well throughout this outstanding game. For good measure, Knights features hours and hours of top-notch voice-over (all the dialogue is spoken), so you'll certainly be impressed by how different characters respond differently to you but also by the sheer size of the game.


Knights takes place thousands of years before the Star Wars films, but you'll recognize a lot of the technology.

The Xbox needed another great RPG--one that was more accessible than last year's great but sometimes-bewildering Morrowind--and it's finally here. Those who've played BioWare's computer RPGs--either the Baldur's Gate series or last year's Neverwinter Nights--will recognize the influence of those games on Knights of the Old Republic. In fact, the main difference between the gameplay of Knights and BioWare's previous games is superficial. This one is played from a third-person perspective and thus resembles a 3D action adventure game rather than one of BioWare's older isometric RPGs.

Other than that, gameplay is similar. You create a main character and then explore many different areas, interact with many different characters, settle many different disputes, solve many different puzzles, and engage in plenty of combat. Combat appears to be real-time but actually uses a turn-based system "under the hood" just like Neverwinter Nights, which means your character's statistics and attributes (and your strategy) make all the difference, and your personal reflexes and hand-eye coordination have no bearing on the outcome. Most importantly, Knights is very different from the typical console RPG in that you'll always be an active participant in the storyline, rather than a passive observer. You don't just read, watch, and listen to a lot of text, cutscenes, and dialogue--your character is constantly invited and required to make difficult decisions, and that's ultimately the most entertaining, impressive, and rewarding aspect of the game.


You'll meet a wide variety of interesting characters in the game, a number of whom will join you in your journey.

Knights of the Old Republic actually takes place thousands of years before Star Wars Episode I, though you'll still see many of the same sorts of alien creatures and technology in the game that you probably associate with Star Wars. The story begins in the midst of a power struggle between the Republic and the Sith, an evil imperial power that's encroaching on Republic space. Your character seems to be just another Republic trooper, and at the beginning of the game, you manage to avoid certain death as your spaceship is attacked and destroyed. Your escape pod lands on a world that's been put under quarantine by the Sith, so your first order of business is to find a means of escape, and also to find out what happened to Bastila, a gifted young Jedi who is key to the Republic's war efforts and who also managed to flee your doomed ship. Later, you'll be charged with uncovering the secrets of an ancient relic called the star forge, apparently the key to the Sith's seemingly limitless supply of weaponry.

You'll end up visiting a number of key Star Wars locations, including the wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk and the desert planet Tatooine, in what's by all means an adventure of epic proportions. The game's main storyline isn't remarkable and eventually boils down to squaring off against your standard bad guy, and the main plot twists along the way don't really seem plausible. But you'll encounter so many great little subplots and characters along the way that this really won't matter. You'll investigate murders, become a bounty hunter, resolve cultural disputes, find a cure for a deadly disease, take sides or play both sides against each other in various ambiguous conflicts, and find out how life really treats both citizens of the Republic and followers of the Sith. There's just a lot to see and do in this game, and it'll last you a good 40 hours or so from start to finish, yet you'll never see all that the game has to offer if you finish it only once.

It may seem strange, but Knights of the Old Republic actually uses a slightly simplified version of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules both for combat and for character generation. So despite the obviously different setting, fans of BioWare's D&D-themed games will be in relatively familiar territory here. Your main character starts off as a male or female soldier, scout, or scoundrel. These three basic classes roughly correspond to D&D's fighter, ranger, and rogue. The soldier is straightforward but very strong and begins with proficiency with various types of weapons and armor and gains the most vitality points per experience level. The scout is slightly less tough than the soldier but gains more skill points per level, allowing him or her to do such things as repair droids, pick locks, and disarm land mines. The scoundrel is physically the weakest class but can disappear from sight using special cloaking devices and can then inflict great damage if he or she catches a foe unaware. The scoundrel is also best suited to talking his or her way out of situations where the other character classes might have to resort to violence. Your choice of gender also has a bearing on some of the situations.


Will you choose the light or the dark side?

It's not spoiling anything to point out that you eventually gain access to Jedi powers. In turn, there are three different Jedi classes available, which emphasize either the Jedi's prowess with a lightsaber or his or her Force powers--or a balance of the two. Force powers are basically like magic spells, allowing you to do such things as stun opponents, knock them down, and choke them, as well as heal yourself and use the Force to persuade characters to see things your way. Some powers are inherently light-inclined, while others are dark-inclined, and though Jedi characters may gain access to any Force power as they gain experience levels, powers that match a Jedi's moral alignment can be used at a lower cost in Force points (which steadily recharge, allowing you to use your powers continuously).

The game does a fine job of letting you customize your character and his or her companions. Nine different characters will join you over the course of the adventure, and you'll be able to travel with up to two of them at a time. Most every character has an interesting story to tell that unfolds as you converse with him, her, or it over the course of the game, though some are developed better than others. The most entertaining of the bunch is probably HK-47, who's like a homicidal and slightly insubordinate C-3PO. As you and the others gain levels, you develop your abilities by choosing from a wide variety of skills (repair, stealth, persuasion, and so on) and combat feats (critical strike, two-weapon fighting, toughness, and so on).

Ultimately, the 3rd Edition rule system works quite well for the game and makes for an experience that seems consistent with the Star Wars mythos, namely that Jedi are extremely powerful, and conventional weapons are practically useless against their lightsabers and their Force powers. However, a few things don't quite make sense, such as how your strength statistic (as opposed to your dexterity) is tied to your proficiency with a lightsaber, and how ranged weapons generally seem too weak, offering practically no advantages over melee weapons since it's easy to close the distance with a gun-toting opponent. Also, much like in 3rd Edition D&D, fighter-type characters in Knights of the Old Republic can become overpowered to the point where they're virtually unstoppable. If you focus on building up such a character, you'll find that most of the combat in the game will be rather easy at the default difficulty setting, though you can crank it up to make your enemies stronger.


Blasters, grenades, and melee weapons are available--but nothing beats a good old double-bladed lightsaber.

Combat looks dynamic, and at a glance, you could mistake Knights of the Old Republic for an action game. You'll see characters firing away with their blasters, while those armed with melee weapons such as lightsabers will perform a variety of close-combat moves. Characters dueling with such weapons will block and feint, looking for openings in their opponents' defenses. It's all clearly inspired by the dramatic lightsaber battle at the end of Episode I and also resembles the outstanding lightsaber battles in last year's shooter, Jedi Knight II.

Despite appearances, though, the combat is really just a series of statistical checks, just like D&D. Your character's "to hit" rating, determined by his or her class, level, and weapon, is added to a random 1-20 dice roll and compared against the opponent's defense rating. If the to-hit roll is greater, you connect and deal damage. Your characters will automatically attack any foes nearby until either you or they are all dead, so in some cases, you end up simply watching the fight unfold. You'll only need to intervene to use healing kits or stimulants that boost your combat abilities, as well as Force powers and such, or maybe to prioritize targets. You can pause the action at any time and easily queue up specific orders for all your characters, but you can usually get away with just looking after your main character and will rarely need to micromanage things (your party members will lag behind once in a while as you're running around, but it's not a big deal). Generally, the combat is exciting to watch and paced nice and fast. You needn't worry if one of your characters falls in battle--he or she will simply get up once the fighting is over, though you're tossed back to the title screen if your entire party goes down.

The combat and the dialogue are the two main elements of Knights of the Old Republic. Other than those activities, you'll find yourself running from place to place, but you'll have little interaction with the environment other than being able to open footlockers and other objects containing goodies. You can sometimes hack into certain computer systems, but this is all done in text and isn't very interesting. Loading times between areas can feel a little long, especially when you have to backtrack--fortunately there's an option to instantly return to your hideout or ship if you're not in a dangerous area. Some of the environments are pretty big, but most aren't, and a mapping system clearly shows where you can and can't go and what the points of interest are in each area. There's also a very clear record of all the quests you have pending (and all the quests you've completed). As such, you'll probably never get lost in the game, though at the same time, you might feel a bit confined by where you can and can't go. Fortunately, the game opens up later on, allowing you to freely travel between planets and accomplish numerous tasks in whichever order you please.


Hours of expertly done voice-over help make character interaction incredibly engaging throughout Knights of the Old Republic.

Knights of the Old Republic also contains several minigames: You can gamble by playing a fairly entertaining card game that's similar to poker, you can compete in simple drag races on swoop bikes, and you can man the turrets of a spaceship to shoot down enemy fighters from a first-person perspective. These are all simple diversions, however.

As mentioned, character interaction really is the best thing about Knights of the Old Republic. There's a lot of dialogue in the game, all in full speech, and if you listen to all of it rather than read it (you can turn subtitles off), the game will probably last hours longer than it could otherwise. The dialogue is well done, and many of the game's characters are well defined. Most all of the numerous subquests in the game are suitably justified and present you with more than one viable solution. You'll constantly be able to choose between good and not-so-good solutions--early on, for instance, you can rescue a man who's being hassled by bounty hunters. Do you then offer to pay the dues he owes so that the poor man may live without fear, or do you threaten to mug him for his last remaining credits?

Knights lets you play as a really nasty character if you so choose, and that's certainly part of the fun. It's also an interesting aspect of gameplay, considering a big part of the theme is how Jedi constantly run the risk of falling to the dark side--indeed, you'll probably often be tempted to see what happens if you pick the evil dialogue options rather than the good ones, if only because most RPGs simply don't let you make these types of decisions. Certain key points in the game will play out very differently depending on the decisions you make, creating lots of replay value. LucasArts also promises that downloadable content in the form of new weapons and other items will be made available via Xbox Live later this year.

The graphics in Knights of the Old Republic aren't the game's strong suit. Some important aspects of the visuals are handled very well--specifically, the lightsaber combat looks dead-on, though you won't see any forearms getting chopped off or anything. Effective use of bump mapping and environment mapping can be seen on some of the aliens and their shiny armor or slick, oily skins. Many of the environments also look quite good, though some of the others are plain and lacking in detail. Character models are relatively simple, and their lip-synching and facial expressions don't always look quite right. You'll also notice that some character models will repeat often throughout the game--you'll encounter a number of different characters who all share the same face. The frame rate of Knights of the Old Republic also doesn't hold up, and it can frequently bog down in combat or whenever a lot of characters are around. Furthermore, the occasional cutscenes using the game's 3D engine tend to look downright crude, which is disappointing considering how impressive some of the game's production values are. Knights is a good-looking game overall, but it's easy to find fault in its visuals when the other aspects of the game are so well done.


Knights is both an outstanding RPG in its own right and an excellent tribute to the Star Wars source material.

Some of the audio is what you'd expect from a Star Wars game, though Knights deserves credit for featuring a mostly original (yet very subdued) soundtrack, which is a nice change of pace from the ubiquitous John Williams score. But the high quality and sheer quantity of the voice acting are exceptional. Alien characters even speak in convincing alien languages, though you'll pick up on the fact that the alien voice-over actually repeats often. Overall, though, the professional voice cast does an excellent job with the material, delivering believable performances, and this really enriches the gameplay experience. Not only does Knights of the Old Republic have some of the most voice-over of any game to date, but it also has some of the best.

It's apparent from playing Knights of the Old Republic that a remarkable amount of effort, work, and talent went into this game. It's one of the only Star Wars games to truly make you feel at times as though you're a key player in and a part of this unique and beloved sci-fi setting. You'll get to do all the sorts of stuff that you've seen and enjoyed in the Star Wars movies, and you'll get to emulate any of your favorite characters' personalities and actions over the course of the game. You'll also experience a much more morally complex version of Star Wars than what you get from the movies. Along the way, you'll find a few aspects of the game that you'll wish were better, but that's mostly because the vast majority of Knights of the Old Republic is so exceptionally good. You don't need to be a fan of Star Wars or of RPGs to appreciate all the impressive qualities of this game--but if you are, all the better.

Jetzt steht für mich auch 100 %ig fest, dass es gekauft wird (aber erst die PAL )!

@ ray


Das is bei mir schon lange festgestanden dass ich s mir hol


Die dunkle Seite der MAcht ruft mich wieder .... :crush: :crush:


Kann man da jetzt auch ein Lord der Sith werden??? Weis da jemand scho was??

Das Spiel scheint DAS Highlight schlechthin geworden zu sein, der Durchschnitt bei Gamerankings liegt bei sagenhaften 94%. Ich bin heiß auf das Spiel, yeah!

Unglaublich!
94% im Durchschnitt dass hat nicht mal Halo bekommen....... :schwelg:

Original von Marcel
94% im Durchschnitt dass hat nicht mal Halo bekommen...

Halo hat 95 % im Durchschnitt