No weekend summary. Beside the below entry, nothing much happened.
Chilled with Alan alot, we did some stuff, hung out, went to dave and busters, chilled, ate, did some more stuff, he played games using what should be mainstream broadband (don't understand people with 56k), and I played alot of Knights of the Old Republic.
Yes, that was a great run on sentence!
So this blog will just be a video game review:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
KotOR is probably the first real RPG to grace the Xbox. Yes, there have been one or two other RPGs, but KotOR sets the bar so high that it will be talked about for quite some time. I dare say contender for Xbox game of the year.
Knights was made by Bioware Corp. The same company that brings you Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Knights. It plays very much like the other Forgotten Realms based games, and since this Star War's rpg is based off of the D20 system, many dungeons and dragons fans will feel right at home.
The graphics are stunning. Not much more to say then that. The sound is also wonderful. Every character besides the main character has been done in voice, meaning if you aren't a fan of reading (why the hell are you on my blog then?) then you can just listen to everyone. It's almost like a movie. Even the sounds of blasters and lightsabers are authentic.
The controls during combat need a little work, it may be better on x-box's little wussy S controller, but since I'm not a little wussy, I can't say for sure. You are allowed to switch between all three of your characters whenever you like, but in the heat of battle, pushing the right button to pause, unpause, initiate an action or switch characters can become a little confusing. Maybe it's just me having a panic attack, but i've been stumbling through it with no signs of gaining more familiarity.
You may want to explore through KotOR's auto-pausing options for the sake of having more control during combat. I personally trust in AI to do what's right, but sometimes a little micromanaging goes a long way.
The storyline is addictive, which each event drawing you in like a fly to the glow of a lightsaber. There is a semi-linear flow, though you have the ability to follow the good, light side ways, or be a dick and follow the dark side. Each has it's own merit, and in this author's opinion, it seems the light side has more long term benefits and the dark side has more immediate benefits. Turning down a shopkeep's reward may get you lowered prices at her shop, but threatening her to give you more of a reward may get you some additional money or items, but the shopkeeper may raise her price or all together refuse to sell you anything.
The characters are rich and you will at times have trouble choosing two teammates out of the nine total. In terms of the story, with certain characters you will get more interesting fluff as characters react to a situation. It makes for a unique gaming experience. For example, if someone is trying to convince you to do something extremely evil, a good character may interject her opinion and tell you how wrong it would be.
There are a couple things missing from the game which would make things better. First off, at shops, there is no quick way to go through your inventory to check your stocks. I often find myself guessing as to how many grenades or medkits I may need. There is also no way to cycle through every character's equiped equipment at a buy screen, which would assist in figuring out what new weapons and armor a person may need to buy. Even out of the shop, you're only able to cycle through equipment of characters you currently have in your team.
A multiplayer support function would be nice. Bioware has had these in their PC games, and with x-box's ability to host 4 controllers, some kind of split screen multiplayer action would be interesting. Granted there are times when the main character is solo, but it's worked in other games like Secret of Mana.
And that brings me to my last protest. I think the adventuring party should be four people. In a game where there are 9 support characters, it would be nice to use a third of them at a time. It's a compliment for me to say this too: the characters are so well developed and dynamic that you just want to play with all of them!
Alright, that's enough of that. Back to my newest addiction.
Chilled with Alan alot, we did some stuff, hung out, went to dave and busters, chilled, ate, did some more stuff, he played games using what should be mainstream broadband (don't understand people with 56k), and I played alot of Knights of the Old Republic.
Yes, that was a great run on sentence!
So this blog will just be a video game review:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
KotOR is probably the first real RPG to grace the Xbox. Yes, there have been one or two other RPGs, but KotOR sets the bar so high that it will be talked about for quite some time. I dare say contender for Xbox game of the year.
Knights was made by Bioware Corp. The same company that brings you Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Knights. It plays very much like the other Forgotten Realms based games, and since this Star War's rpg is based off of the D20 system, many dungeons and dragons fans will feel right at home.
The graphics are stunning. Not much more to say then that. The sound is also wonderful. Every character besides the main character has been done in voice, meaning if you aren't a fan of reading (why the hell are you on my blog then?) then you can just listen to everyone. It's almost like a movie. Even the sounds of blasters and lightsabers are authentic.
The controls during combat need a little work, it may be better on x-box's little wussy S controller, but since I'm not a little wussy, I can't say for sure. You are allowed to switch between all three of your characters whenever you like, but in the heat of battle, pushing the right button to pause, unpause, initiate an action or switch characters can become a little confusing. Maybe it's just me having a panic attack, but i've been stumbling through it with no signs of gaining more familiarity.
You may want to explore through KotOR's auto-pausing options for the sake of having more control during combat. I personally trust in AI to do what's right, but sometimes a little micromanaging goes a long way.
The storyline is addictive, which each event drawing you in like a fly to the glow of a lightsaber. There is a semi-linear flow, though you have the ability to follow the good, light side ways, or be a dick and follow the dark side. Each has it's own merit, and in this author's opinion, it seems the light side has more long term benefits and the dark side has more immediate benefits. Turning down a shopkeep's reward may get you lowered prices at her shop, but threatening her to give you more of a reward may get you some additional money or items, but the shopkeeper may raise her price or all together refuse to sell you anything.
The characters are rich and you will at times have trouble choosing two teammates out of the nine total. In terms of the story, with certain characters you will get more interesting fluff as characters react to a situation. It makes for a unique gaming experience. For example, if someone is trying to convince you to do something extremely evil, a good character may interject her opinion and tell you how wrong it would be.
There are a couple things missing from the game which would make things better. First off, at shops, there is no quick way to go through your inventory to check your stocks. I often find myself guessing as to how many grenades or medkits I may need. There is also no way to cycle through every character's equiped equipment at a buy screen, which would assist in figuring out what new weapons and armor a person may need to buy. Even out of the shop, you're only able to cycle through equipment of characters you currently have in your team.
A multiplayer support function would be nice. Bioware has had these in their PC games, and with x-box's ability to host 4 controllers, some kind of split screen multiplayer action would be interesting. Granted there are times when the main character is solo, but it's worked in other games like Secret of Mana.
And that brings me to my last protest. I think the adventuring party should be four people. In a game where there are 9 support characters, it would be nice to use a third of them at a time. It's a compliment for me to say this too: the characters are so well developed and dynamic that you just want to play with all of them!
Alright, that's enough of that. Back to my newest addiction.
posted by Allen M @ 7/28/2003 04:53:00 AM
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