Rating: 
Summary: Exciting start to finish
Review: Pros: Just the right difficulty, easy to keep the game moving
Cons: Stability was occasionally a problem but PC performance brings PC problems.A great story line and flashy graphics are a Lucas Arts standard, but what really impressed me was turn based combat with just the right amount of complexity. Spend a few moments planning your combats instead of learning a clumsy action interface for hours, and your done. Worst comes to worst you can read the full numerical details of the combat (I only needed to do this twice) and you can find what your character is lacking and move on. Not that this game is easy, but it was just the right amount of difficulty. Who wants to write notes for days and days about who you met and what quest you are currently completing? It sure is not me. I love the active quest log feature where the details of who where and what you agreed to and a non-spoiler hint on where you can find them. There is even a completed quest log, if you skip through a conversation too quickly and missed what happened, you can read the quest log instead of going back to a save. The organization in this game allows you to keep the momentum moving foreword.
Rating:
Summary: Nerdtastic
Review: All you people who say the Jedi are too weak and that it doesn't fit in with the world the George Lucas created, to you I have only this to say: your nerdiness clouds your judgement. OF COURSE the had to make the Jedi weaker. The game wouldn't be fun at all if your characters were all powerful. I mean seriously, just because it's not EXACTLY like the movies doesn't mean it's necessarily BAD. I've never even PLAYED the game, but you reviews just irked me. LET THIS BE A WARNING TO POTENTIAL BUYERS! DON'T LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE!!
Rating: 
Summary: Lucas roars into the early 90's.
Review: This game might have been acceptable in the early 90's.
But it is painfully out of date.
The graphic are clunky and inefficient.
Inventory management is a mess, with all your items thrown together and only a handful visible at any one time.
It takes some serious clicking around to figure out which character is using what item.
And come on... a rancor corpse.. one sword swipe and *poof* it's out of the way.
Your characters keep getting in your way, so you have to witch from one to the other to move around in tight places.
Silly. Combat is totally uninvolving, ranged weapons are almost useless for your main character, switching weapon from ranged to melee is totally impractical, NPC's all look alike. Well, you get the idea. Remember when Lucasarts used to mean great games? X Wing, Monkey Island. etc.
Now they just turn out mediocrity relying on the pop selling power of this tired SW franchise. It's sure to get rave reviews from major publications, given the fortune that Lucasarts spends advertising in said publications.
Rating: 
Summary: Lies and deception of freedom
Review: --Some minor spoilers in the review ahead-- Yes, the title suggest comtempt and perhaps anger, yet I give this game a 4, a rather high rating. Odd? Perhaps. Regardless of the little unexplainable 'nerfing' of the jedi (lightsabers are just another melee weapon), I've had fun playing this game. To finish takes around 20 odd hours. I've now played thru it twice. Yep 40 hours gone and never to have back. Regrets? Some. Why? Well, I now realize how woefully linear the game is. The choice they give, the apparent freedom to do what you want is all a facade. No matter how high your skill, there are some doors that you can't pick, some people you can't pursuade, and some NPC whom you cannot kill. The game gently pushes you this direction and that. When you go back to replay the game, you try your best to see if there is another route that can be taken. None. Play the game once, and you can see and do all there is. There isn't any place unlocked by the choices you make, and no special dialogue unavailable because of how dark or how light your alignement is. t's quite silly, some of this restriction. Take, for example, Calo Nord. The bounty hunter you meet early on. When you try and fight him when you see him at the Cantina, you're dead. one shot from his blaster, no matter how high your VP (I cheated and had 600vp and 40armor when I tested), and you die. But later on, when you have to meet and fight him, he is an easy target. Yes, yes...I know the story was written for Calo Nord to come after you later in the game...but still. Hmm...I never meant for this review to be so negative. But I'm just disappointed that a potentially GREAT game turned out to be just a good game. I did enjoy the twist in the story that you find out near the end.
ps - I enjoyed the dark alignment ending more then the pitiful light side ending.
Rating:
Summary: By far the best RPG I've ever played
Review: Although I'm not really a Star Wars fan, I must say that this is probably the best roleplaying adventure game I've ever played. It is more immersive than any game I've ever played, and even though the game has a 3rd person perspective I really felt involved with the characters and the storyline to an extent I'd never felt with any other game. The cinematic cut scenes really make one feel as if one is in a Star Wars movie - really excellent work, and these scenes really mesh well with the game itself, giving an almost perfect continuity. The storyline is exciting and intelligent, and the characters are interesting and well-acted by the voice actors (quality voice acting is often lacking in even the most professional games). The game is surprisingly long (a relief after having played some VERY short adventure games in the past). I spent 66 hours on my first run through (and I missed a few side quests), so once you get through it the sense of accomplishment is great. The story itself is quite linear. I'm by no means a fan of linear storylines, but the game overcomes this drawback by means of a branching character development feature which allows your main character to either embrace the light side or the dark side of the force to varying degrees - a feature that really makes for interesting and varied gameplay. This aspect is enhanced by the cleverly written dialogue which changes to fit the decisions you make regarding your character's development. My only citicism is that in the mini-games within the game the control options are somewhat limited, which is probably because the game was originally produced for the console market. The Swoop racing in particular suffers due to this - I found it hard to control the swoop bikes using keyboard input. Not a major problem though, since the swoop races are merely a side quest and can be ignored if you find them too annoying. I see some reviews here that claim that the game has hardware compatibility issues. On my system (P4 2.66GB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200) it runs very smoothly at the maximum 1280x960 resolution (as long as I don't add too much anti-aliasing), and it had only one minor video glitch - a black screen at one point that I overcame quite easily by simply clicking around the screen. I must say that I haven't seen many complaints regarding compatibility on the game's official site. All in all, this is an excellent game that I'm sure will be greatly enjoyed by anyone who plays it. I think Knights of the Old Republic will be an excellent choice even for the casual gamer who doesn't usually like this type of game - the difficulty options are well implemented, giving a nice challenge for every level of player. Don't miss this one! It's well worth the price.
Rating: 
Summary: Please---it's not really that good
Review: This game,to be honest,is not that good. My biggest complaint is not anything to do with the system (I don't have troubles running it one bit),but with the gameplay itself. Looks like they took the good old D20 rules here (which BTW I like,but for Star Wars suck) and used them in this game. What's wrong with that you say? Well simply put---Jedi are not MEANT to be balanced character classes. They are not wrote that way,Lucas never meant them to be that way,and they are NEVER,not ONCE portrayed in the movies,comics (especially there in the comics they are even worse in them than they are in any other media),or TV shows as weak as they are in this game. It has been said time and time again though Jedi are not all powerful,a Jedi caught unawares and overwhelmed will fall---we have seen this in the movies on several occasions,but against like forces and with numbers on his side the Jedi is all but unstoppable---not so in Knights of the Old Republic though. I have on several occasions taken 3 of my Jedi characters (my main character as well) into battle at full strength and lost battles,not against Dark Jedi as you are likely thinking,but against things like---oh---SAND PEOPLE! Does everyone craft their weapons out of Cortosis (which BTW on two counts does not make something immune to lightsaber blows,but rather makes it highly resistant. Also Cortosis in all Era's was suppose to be quite rare and difficult to come by)---even the SAND PEOPLE!? Come on---please. This is my one and biggest complaint about the game,it does seem to have a good story,and for the most part has me interested in it,but it's just so hard to feel like I'm playing a Star Wars game when 3 Jedi can be taken out by 3 sand people---it's not just hard,it's frustrating and most certainly not Star Wars. I'm getting tired of playing one game after another that does it's best to be "balanced" when the writers of the fiction and background that these game designers is used is thrown out the door---QUIT using the material if you are not going to stick to the material itself (IE don't make a game about Star Wars if you are not going to make the Jedi into the near God-like figures that they are in the Star Wars Universe. No it's not fun playing those type of characters so just don't write the game in the first place---oh what's that---you want to make money---then write the game as is and it will still sell. Time and time again has shown that it will and why do you game designers think that there are so many cheat sites out there as well---people don't want to be frustrated in playing a game,it's a sad fact but people have little time these days and the need for entertainment as to be such---quit making them so hard that they take up hours upon hours of peoples time just to get past one point).
Rating:
Summary: Caution: the PC version is buggy
Review: Be careful about buying the PC version of this game. There are lots of people having problems getting the graphics to work properly. Looks like they rushed this game out the door for the holiday rush. Go check the Bioware Forums and/or Gamespot if you don't believe me. On the bright side, if you can get it to work, it's an awesome game. But until they get it patched up, I just can't recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous
Review: It's unbelievable to me that a company would develop a game that won't even run on a PC with a P3, 850 MHz with a graphics accelerator. I've never had a problem running any other game. Now I'm out shipping because I missed this when I ordered it.
Rating:
Summary: Good fun with some caveats
Review: KOTOR is a great-looking, but fairly linear "by-the-book" RPG that should satisfy you if you are a fan of other recent Bioware titles such as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. However, it might not *thrill* you. First and foremost, Knights is a role-playing game - there's a lot of rich story and a lot of interaction with interesting and well-acted characters (the voice acting really is excellent in most cases - Jennifer Hale [Bastila] and Raphael Sbarge [Carth] give great performances in lead roles in the game). Like other Bioware RPGs there is a single main story thread and then a number of (mostly unrelated) side quests that you pick up for experience here and there. KOTOR's gameplay combines some of the thrill of a first-person (well, third person chase camera) view with the precision of a turn-based RPG. Battles work exactly like other Bioware titles - auto pause when enemies sighted, issues orders then either let the battle rage on or micromanage it as you will. One major difference from Bioware's predacessor RPGs is that only two other characters may accompany you at any time. Also, be advised that you do have to walk through a lot of dialog trees to advance the story. I found most of the stories entertaining, but if your idea of fun reading in a game is 'J0k3r ate ©l0ne_gunm4n's rocket' then you should find another game. A new feature, in-game mini games, gives a nice new element to gameplay and a good distraction when things get too rough or boring. The interfaces to work with and equip characters had some minor annoyances with their design (mostly for the 'newbie' like myself) I won't regale you with a list of them. Once you've learned the minor idiosyncrasies, it's not a problem. What I did miss was having more out-of-the-box combat scripts to choose from - there appear to only be the default and two others. But I guess scripts don't make much sense when there's only 3 characters you can control. I haven't played through key sequences of the game in any other skill level besides the default, but at this level most of the quests were fairly straightforward and, frankly, easy to do. I'm obviously going to encounter more puzzles as I progress, but finding entertaining side quests is a difficult job to do for writers and developers these days and it's been done farily well (as of the first 10 hours of the game, that is) but too linear for my taste. Many quests, if they involve fighting, conviniently have a de-activated droid around for you to re-program to kill the bad guys in case you didn't create a character who's good in combat (or a computer console to cause to explode etc). You go here and there and kill the bad guys and loot their stuff... rince, repeat. Ten hours in, I'm starting to like the side quests more, though. They have interesting moral components to them. The worst aspect of the game is also part of one of the BEST aspects of it: the graphics. The graphics are well done (not Half-Life 2 good, but good). The major issue is speed. With my settings turned up either at 60% to 75% of their max values and a modest screen size (1024x768), the game was not exactly a fast-moving experience. (This is bad because I have an Athlon 2600 and Radeon 9700 Pro and 1.5 GB of cl2 PC2700 memory). The processor just maxes out all the time while playing. So if your system is well below recommended spec, expect to lower the quality to get playable game rates. Hopefully this will be helped in the future by a game patch. Overall, the game is a good solid, somewhat immersive Star Wars RPG that rocks where it counts. Frankly, the gameplay if very reminiscent of Star Wars Galaxies - the Star Wars MMORPG that just came out in June - except that you actually get to be a Jedi in KOTOR.
Rating: 
Summary: A Major Disappointment.
Review: I had anticipated the release of this game for so long this winter. With a pedigree of Bioware and Lucasarts, how can "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" go wrong? I envisioned myself playing this game for hours on end, much like what I did when "Baldur's Gate 2" was released a year ago. But this game is such an utter disappointment to me for many reasons. First off, the graphics are terrible. I have a NVIDEA GeForce FX 520, and even with this above-average graphic card the game is very choppy and poor looking. The opening scene when your ship is attacked, no matter which character you pick, they all look like a horse because their teeth are showing even though their mouths are supposed to be closed. It's hideous. And then a guy enters your room and he sprints towards you, but by his animation it looks like he just went from zero to full speed in under a second flat, just to make it five feet forward. It's terrible. Controls are another problematic area. The game handles like a shooter but it won't let you format the keyboard and mouse to the ideal shooter setting (right-click to move forward, z to strafe left, x to move backwards, and c to strafe right). It has a funky control scheme where holding down right-click and left-click moves you forward. It's awkward and not intuitive at all. You can pan the camera by holding the right-click button only, but it's not like there's anything good to look at in this Star Wars universe. Combat is a snoozefest. Whenever you engage a hostile threat, the game automatically pauses. Okay, BG2 did this and it was effective. But the attack menu is a scroll-through command using arrows. And there's other bars for other attacks, like throwing a grenade. It's all handled like you're operating a Win XP system. Not fun at all when it's being applied to a video game. Audio is probably the worst aspect of the PC version of this game. The voice dialogue is top-notch, and with every morsel of text spoken, you're in for a treat. But the game suffers from static noises whenever the game world becomes too busy. Blasters and sword clashes sound second rate. And upping the graphics settings (which you WILL want to do with this horrible looking game) will only increase the problems of sound. Choose your poison. The story is supposed to be good. I never got into it because the game sucks. In conclusion, what a let down. To everyone praising this game, at least you guys are having fun with it. It was a very big disappointment for me. Guess I have to go back to playing Temple of Elemental Evil with all it's bugs. PC RPG games really went down the toilet this year. Peace.
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