For the Love of...Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Let's face it, games based on films are usually rubbish.  Only a few are worth playing, and fewer still that actually good games in their own right.  Part of the problem is that publishers tend to be so busy worrying about making sure their games are released at the same time as the film that nine times out of ten there isn't a decent game underneath.  The other common difficulty is that games and films by their very nature have different narrative structures, and what works in one medium doesn't automatically work in the other.  Mr Uwe Boll please take note.

Those few games that are worth playing generally have one thing in common - they are given the chance to play fast and loose with the narrative, or alternatively have free reign to forge their own.  One example of this is Butcher Bay, the Chronicles of Riddick tie-in which actually worked as a prequel to the film.  Another example is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (or KotOR for short). 

With KotOR, Bioware took on the mother of all movie licences and came up with not only what is probably the best role playing game (RPG) ever to grace the original XBOX but also damn near the finest Star Wars game ever made.  One of the ways they did this was by realizing that the constrictive narrative of the films had been played out, and went about setting the game an Even Longer Time Ago in a Galaxy Even Further Away, and in doing so opened up a whole new universe in which to play.

At its heart KotOR is a fairly hard-core RPG based on a d20 role-playing system derived from 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragon rules.  Happily however all of the technical stuff happens behind the scenes and so makes for a more accessible game than other Bioware titles such as Neverwinter Nights.  For those inclined towards the geekier aspects of RPGs, there's still plenty of customisation and specialisation available, but for those looking for a less involved experience an "auto level-up" option allowed smoother progress towards newer and better abilities.

Rather than the active battles common to Japanese RPGs, KotOR implemented a battle system that allowed the player to pause the fight, cue up a number of actions for each controlled character and then unleash lightsabre based havoc on all and sundry.  This is undeniably fun.

It is however in the story telling department that KotOR really shines, and here Bioware created a fable worthy of their illustrious licence.  Set some 4000 years before the events of A New Hope, KotOR tells the tale of a Sith armada unleashed on the Old Republic by the nefarious Darth Malak.  Charged initially with protecting the Jedi fugitive Bastilla Shan, the player's character is inexorably drawn into the wider galactic dispute and gathers together the requisite rag-tag bunch of misfits.  

The difference between KotOR and other games is that these incidental characters are well drawn and interesting in their own rights, and one of them (the assassin droid HK-47) is quite simply one of the finest NPCs ever written.

One of the main selling points of KotOR during its development was the fact that players could choose to follow either the light side or the dark side, and that this choice, as manifested in ways as seemingly insignificant as conversation choices, would have an actual impact on the gameplay.

These differences affect things in a number of ways.  Actions taken by the player award either light side or dark side points which add up over the course of the game.  In a practical sense a player's alignment has an effect on the cost of force powers (positive powers such as healing being easier for light side players and vice versa) but alignment also has wider ranging effects on the player's interactions with other characters, on the missions available, and even on the wider galaxy as a whole.   

It is this sense of freedom and the idea that the choices you make have real ramifications that set KotOR apart from other similar games that offer divergent paths.  There's a moment late on in the game when, if you've followed the path of the dark side, you get to appreciate the full ramifications of that choice in an act of complete and utter betrayal that has few parallels in any other game before or since.

Not only all of this, but KotOR also sports one of the greatest twists in the history of the video game.  For obvious reasons I won't go into any detail, but the big reveal counts as one of the very few times I've ever shouted at the screen in sheer disbelief.