To the delight of gamers everywhere, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has finally been released on the XBox. The PC version should be out this fall…if you can wait that long. That said, Knights of the Old Republic is easily one of the best RPGs on any of the current consoles. BioWare has brought RPG fans another excellent game!

An even longer time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…Knights of the Old Republic takes place in the Star Wars universe 4,000 years before the events of the original trilogy. The Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Malak, has amassed a tremendous Sith army and is at battle with the Republic for control of the galaxy. One of the greatest obstacles in his path is Bastila, a powerful Jedi fighting alongside the Republic. While serving on Bastila’s ship, you find yourself caught in the middle of a huge battle. Barely escaping with your life, you begin a search for Bastila in hopes that you can find her before Malak does. If Malak should find her first, all will be lost.

There’s a lot more to the story than that, though. Overall, I must say I was very impressed with this game’s story. There are lots of twists and turns to keep things interesting, and the main story will really pull you in… especially if you’re a Star Wars fan. Knights of the Old Republic fully captures the magic of Star Wars… far better than the last two movies did. You’ll see all sorts of familiar alien races in the game, like Jawas, Ithorians and Hutts. You’ll also see familiar worlds, like Tatooine.

The cast of characters is great and features a variety of character personalities, from Darth Malak to Mission Vao. Throughout your journey you’ll run into all sorts of friends and foes, and they each have some interesting backstory to them. You’ll have the chance to speak to your characters constantly, and you’ll learn more and more about them as the game progresses. The most interesting character by far, though, is the character you create.

You start the game off by selecting one of three character classes(male or female): Scout, Scoundrel or Soldier. The soldier is the fighter of the group, the scoundrel is focused on stealth and skills, and the scout is a mixture of the two. As you progress through the game you’ll eventually become a Jedi Knight, and you’ll have several different Jedi classes to choose from too. After choosing a class you can choose a portrait for your character’s face. There wasn’t as big of a variety here as I’d hoped for, but it’s not all bad. I planned to be a Sith all along, so I picked the evilest looking character.

After that you can choose a name. If you lack creativity, the game will generate a ‘Star Wars’ like name for you. Last is editing your character stats. You can manually choose your character’s starting stats, or have the game do it for you if you’re confused. As you level up you can also choose to distribute points to your characters, or you can let the game do it for you. Right off the bat you start off with a lot of character customization, but that’s just the beginning.

Probably the most interesting part of Knights of the Old Republic is the fact that you can choose to follow the light side or the dark side. What you say and what you do will decide which path you follow. If you act like a jerk to everyone you see, kill people, steal, etc., you’ll earn dark points. Helping people out and being an all around nice guy will earn you light points. There’s a dark-light meter and your character's position on that meter changes with each point earned. Whether you choose the dark side or the light will have a pretty big impact on the game itself. For starters, your character’s appearance will chance significantly if you’re a Sith. Your eyes get all freaky, and your skin gets really pale. The game is FULL of lots of little side quests, and some quests might not be available to you should you choose the dark path. If you make someone really mad, they aren’t likely going to recruit you. Your party of characters may even differ somewhat depending on what path you choose. In my frenzy to become the evilest Jedi this side of Coruscant, I got a little carried away only to find out that a certain party member would no longer join me.

Another obvious difference between dark and light are the powers. Each will have access to a variety of abilities, but they vary depending on whether you’re good or evil. One of the most impressive differences is with the story. Yes, the story is a lot different between dark and light…especially towards the end. I don’t want to say too much about this, though, since everybody hates spoilers.

The gameplay is actually pretty easy to catch onto and the controls are simple. Characters will automatically attack an enemy once ordered to do so, and you only need to worry about choosing targets, assigning skills and using items. It might sound a little boring, but it certainly isn’t. There’s a lot of action in the game, and battles can get really exciting. Although, I will admit that I did find battles with blasters to be a little dull, and since it takes a good amount of time before you have any characters that wield lightsabers, the game starts out a little slow. But, once you start recruiting Jedi, the battles are loads of fun.

You have a party of up to three characters under your control and can easily switch back and forth between them. They have an array of unique special abilities, weapons and equipment, and each has their own advantages in battle. I really enjoyed being able to switch back and forth between characters during battle, and it gave the battles a lot of variety. You can fully equip each character, and have hordes of different armor and weapons (either one handed or two handed) to choose from. You’ll also have the opportunity to upgrade your equipment throughout the game. The most fun weapon to toy with is the lightsaber. You can equip different crystals to increase the lightsaber's power, and even change its color. Speaking of lightsabers, you’ve got quite a bit to choose from. Aside from a variety of colors and abilities that can be given through crystals, you can have a regular lightsaber, a double-bladed lightsaber, or a short lightsaber (you can carry two of each lightsaber…except double-bladed).

You can lock onto enemies, and your characters will continue to attack that enemy until it’s dead. This was one of my biggest issues with the game… the locking on to the enemies was great, but it often lead to some camera troubles. If you were trying to find a nearby door, switch, or a specific enemy, you would have to hit the triggers and search all around. The game paused when you did this, so it wasn’t usually a big issue. But if the object you were looking for was a distance away, it could be difficult to find it while the camera was focused somewhere else.

When a character dies they’ll get back up when the battle is over, so there’s no need to worry about reviving. Force Powers (FP) also refill quickly. On top of that, the game autosaves for you pretty often, so Knights of the Old Republic is a pretty friendly game to play.

The game features some good, but not necessarily great, graphics. The character designs are nice, but there is a pretty severe lack of variety throughout much of the game. On top of that, the game’s framerate slowed on several occasions…especially during the larger fights. Also, despite having a variety of worlds to visit and pretty expansive maps, some of the particular areas are small and traveling from area to area results in a good deal of boring load times. Those minor issues aside, Knights of the Old Republic is a pretty game featuring beautiful and expansive environments, great effects and detailed character designs.

The game has some great dialogue, whether it’s spoken or written. The character conversations are really enjoyable, and you’ll be given lots of different choices as to how to respond in each situation. These choices will be crucial in deciding which path your character follows... plus they’re fun. Many of the choices are really amusing, and seeing how each character responds and what choices you’re given makes this really memorable. In my quest to become evil, I remember walking into a bar, pissing some guy off and then have him say “Hey, what’s your problem?” You gotta love my response to that… “Your face. Maybe I should remove it.” Naturally, I did. I killed him right then and there, and of course I gained a dark point. You'll have plenty of characters to harass should you want to become a sith like me. You'll encounter several different worlds, like Tatooine, Dantooine, Taris, and more. Each of these worlds is full of citizens to run around and speak to. While traveling through the galaxy, you'll be aboard the Ebon Hawk. It's much like the Millenium Falcon, and it'll serve as your home away from home as you play the game.

The voice acting is top notch. Each voice fits the character really well, even when it’s an odd alien species. There’s a HUGE amount of voice acting in the game, and it’s probably the best voice acting I’ve ever heard. The sound effects, like blasters firing and lightsabers humming, also sound great. These sounds help bring the battles to life and are really impressive. On top of that, you can expect to see a fairly familiar sounding Star Wars soundtrack. Of course, that’s a good thing. A Very good thing.

Knights of the Old Republic has a huge amount of replay value. For starters, you’ve got varying levels of difficulty to choose from. Once you start the game there are soooo many sidequests to complete that you’ve got a lot to keep you busy. On top of that, there is a card game that’ll provide hours of fun. The card game isn’t very original. In fact, it’s a lot like blackjack. But still, it’s fun. Now, the biggest area for replay comes from the fact that you can play as a dark Jedi and a light Jedi and see the differences. Loads of fun.

If you’re an RPG fan, get Knights of the Old Republic. If you’re a Star Wars fan, get Knights of the Old Republic. It’s a great game and among the finest RPGs I’ve ever played. Is it worth buying an Xbox for? I did, and I can honestly say I haven’t been disappointed. Although, I'm a die-hard Star Wars fan so maybe I'm a bit biased. Should you decide not to get an Xbox, make sure to catch it when it comes out on PC.

Final Grade: 96%