E3 2002: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Hands-On News

As the first Star Wars role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic from Bioware on Xbox was something we were itching to play. After hearing the initial announcement and details about the game we were hoping that this lives up to the potential. From the demonstration and chat we had with the Bioware representative we are looking forward to this one even more. <br /> <br /> Essentially Bioware look to be delivering exactly what you would want from a Jedi based RPG and doing it in some style. The graphics are epic and immerse you in the world with great design of architecture and landscapes. Characters are highly detailed and feature animated mouths and eyes, which are synched to the voice acting, all of the dialogue in the game is in-fact spoken. The landscapes look suitably organic and expansive and the internal sections feature some very subtle reflection effects that make everything feel cold and metallic. The texture work is of very high quality – as you would expect on Xbox – and in particular the external fields featuring high grass that sways in the wind and is trampled under foot. One odd thing was the character’s eyes look a little odd, not that realistic, but hopefully that can be sorted. The animation of characters is very good and adds a great deal to the overall effect along with a good sense of artistic consistency. You can tell this is Star Wars despite the locations and characters being somewhat unfamiliar, this is testament to the work Bioware are doing. <br /> <br /> The gameplay looks to have a healthy balance of combat, exploration and dialogue with a liberal peppering of mini-games to keep you on your toes. The combat is looking very good at this stage, lightsabre battles are so cool to look at as the animation is top notch and the collision detecting is spot on. Controlling your Jedi is relatively simple with attacks assigned to the face buttons but the animation system is dynamic enough to make the moves look accurate wherever the fighters are. <br /> <br /> As you progress through the game you will either follow the light or the dark side and the path you will take is determined by your actions in the game. When you speak to characters you have various options open to you and the choices push you closer to one side or another. For instance we were shown an encounter with a smuggler who knew the codes to a door you needed open, you could either help him and he’ll give you the codes, lie to him, use Jedi mind tricks or threaten to kill him. Depending on your character’s skill level you could convince him to help you or perhaps you should do him a good turn first. It’s fairly obvious which options lead where, and the dark choices are often the easiest – being good is so hard. Also the choices you make affect the reputation your character has and the attitude that other characters will have towards you. <br /> <br /> Knights of the Old Republic is coming along very nicely and looks set to offer about 40 hours at least of gameplay, but given that you can get through the game various ways it should have a fair bit of replay value. Again this is another game that we are really looking forward to just sitting down and sinking into.