Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Star Wars video game abbreviated "KOTOR". For the Montenegrin city, see Kotor
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic PC box cover
Developer(s) BioWare
Publisher(s) LucasArts
Designer(s) David Falkner
Steven Gilmour
Casey Hudson
Derek Watts
Drew Karpyshyn
James Ohlen
Preston Watamaniuk
Engine Odyssey engine
Release date(s) Xbox PC
Genre(s) RPG
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (T)
OFLC: G8+
USK: 12+
PEGI: 12+
Platform(s) Xbox, Windows, Mac OS X
Media CD (4), DVD (Mac & Xbox)
System requirements PC Version: Pentium III, Windows 98, 256 MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM Drive, 100% DirectX 9.0b compatible hardware, OpenGL 1.4 compatible graphics card Mac Version: Mac OS X 10.3.4 or later, PowerPC G4 1 GHz or faster, 256MB RAM, 4.2 GB free disk space, 3D Graphics Card (ATI Radeon 8500/nVidia GeForce 2 or better), 32MB of VRAM, DVD drive
Input Keyboard & Mouse (Mac & PC)
Gamepad (Xbox)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. The game was released for Microsoft's Xbox on July 15, 2003, for PCs running Microsoft Windows on November 19, 2003, and later for Mac OS X. Its tagline is "Choose your path".

KotOR is the first computer role-playing game (RPG) set in the Star Wars universe. The game allows the player to either be good (light) or evil (dark) using an alignment system that tracks actions, from simple word choice to major plot decisions, based on whether they are aligned to the light side of the Force or the dark side.

The game's system is based on Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which is based on the d20 System role-playing game system derived from the Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules. Combat system is round-based. Time is divided into discrete rounds and combatants act simultaneously. The number of actions a combatant may perform each round is limited. While each round's duration is a fixed short interval of real time, the player can configure the combat system to pause at specific events or at the end of each round.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

[edit] Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Knights of the Old Republic is set in the Star Wars universe about 4000 years before Episode I takes place, during the time of the Old Republic. The story begins as a Republic ship, the Endar Spire, is ambushed by Sith fighters while in orbit around the planet Taris. As the ship is destroyed, the player and Carth Onasi land on the planet in an escape pod. Their first priority is to find Bastila Shan, a young Jedi who was accompanying them on the Endar Spire and who knows how to use the rare Force Power of Battle Meditation. One year earlier, Bastila used Battle Meditation to lead an assault against Darth Revan, the Dark Lord of the Sith; as she was battling Revan, Revan's apprentice Darth Malak attacked Revan's ship and usurped the title of Dark Lord. Now Malak seeks Bastila because he fears her power; he will either turn her abilities to his use or remove the threat she poses by eliminating her.

The player's character is a male/female (depending on the player's choice), who escapes the attacked Endar Spire with fellow Republic soldier Carth Onasi. Their escape pod crash lands in the upper city of Taris where they begin the search for Bastila. The rescue of Bastila allows them to leave Taris moments before the planet is destroyed. The companions go to Dantooine where the player learns the ways of the Force. The Jedi Council gives the player and his/her companions a mission to find certain star maps which will locate a mysterious Sith weapon called the Star Forge that allows the infinite production of Sith warships. In the middle of their mission, a confrontation between Malak and the player reveals that the player is actually the former Sith Lord, Revan, who had lost his/her memory after Malak's initial betrayal. Also during this incident, Bastila is captured and eventually turned to the Dark Side.

After all the clues are found, the player travels to the unknown world of Rakata Prime where he/she crash lands. The player goes through difficulties with the natives but finally is able to reach the temple where Bastila is waiting. After a confrontation, the player either chooses to not go with Bastila and help his/her companions reach the star forge and defeat the Sith threat (Light Path) or the player chooses to go with Bastila and take the throne of Sith Lord from Malak (Dark Path). The Light Path has been confirmed as canon, and the following games of the series, though allowing you to choose the outcome of the first game, build on the fact that after saving the galaxy, or conquering it, Revan left for the Outer Rim, which is only revealed during the sequel, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.

[edit] Locations and characters

Ahto City, the only above-water city on the ocean-world Manaan
Enlarge
Ahto City, the only above-water city on the ocean-world Manaan

The game is played over numerous planets in the Star Wars universe:

Fazza's Hunting Lodge, Tatooine
Enlarge
Fazza's Hunting Lodge, Tatooine

Players also visit other locations:

Along the way the player also meets a great number of other characters, some of which can be directly controllable:

Other characters met along the way include:

[edit] Voice actors

The following voice actors were used in the game:

[edit] Trivia

  • When the player tries to enter a new area with party members, and they are not near the player character, a line appears reading "You must gather your party before venturing forth". This line appeared in the other games that used Bioware's Infinity Engine, such as Baldur's Gate (Planescape: Torment being the only exception), whenever the player tried to leave an area without the rest of the party . In the Baldur's Gate series of games this line was spoken by voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson, who also plays Jedi Jolee Bindo in Knights of the Old Republic.
  • When sleeping at the Hidden Beks hideout before the swoop race, a line appears reading "you spent a restless night at the..." which is a line that would appear in Baldur's Gate when spending a night without comfort.
  • Certain lines and events through out the game also pay homage to the original films:
    • The Starlight dancer interviewer will say, "Good, good. Feel the music. Let it flow through you", a tribute to a famous Star Wars line.
    • Mission Vao says, "I have a bad feeling about this" several times, referring to a line spoken repeatedly in the films.
    • "My name's [your character's name], I'm here to rescue you", is a homage to the line Luke Skywalker delivers when rescuing Princess Leia.
    • Carth Onasi shouts "NOOOOOO!!!", a line that has been used in all six Star Wars films.
    • When the player is being tortured on the Leviathan and pressed to reveal the location of the Jedi base on Dantooine, a possible response is "Alderaan, they're on Alderaan", the opposite of when, in Episode IV: A New Hope, Princess Leia lies that the Rebel Alliance base is on Dantooine to avoid Alderaan's destruction, saying, "Dantooine, they're on Dantooine".
    • Carth Onasi echoes Han Solo's line in Episode IV: A New Hope: "We're caught in their tractor beam".
    • The lightside end-game cinematic, when the entire crew of the Ebon Hawk is rewarded the Cross of Glory, references the award ceremony at the end of Episode IV, complete with an astromech droid is scene shaking and beeping happily, (T3-M4 and R2-D2, respectively) and a wookiee's growl as the last line in the scene. (Zaalbar and Chewbacca.)
  • At one point in the game, Canderous Ordo tells of a ship he once chased until it crossed the boundaries of the galaxy; he says that the ship looked like an asteroid and spat fireballs. This sounds very much like a Yuuzhan Vong vessel from The New Jedi Order.
  • The HK-47 assault droid is a direct reference to Bioware's first game, Shattered Steel, where the player's transport ship is named HK-47.
  • HK-47's references to organic characters as "Meatbags" is rumored to be an homage to the character Bender from Futurama.
  • The LucasArts game that eventually became Star Wars: Obi-Wan was initially going to be called "Knights of the Republic". The title was rejected as too generic.
  • If the Player Character decides to follow the path to the Dark Side, their face and skin will gradually become deformed as they progress. Eventually their eyes will turn a pale yellow as well. This predates the release of Revenge of the Sith, and was in reference to a theory, first expounded in Dark Empire that Palpatine's decrepit appearance was not entirely natural, but was due to his body being worn out by the Dark Side of the Force.
  • In character creation, using the random name generator can yield interesting results. Sometimes the last name will come up as Suul, Organa, Homsar, and Kerreck.
  • If the player chooses to, Zaalbar can be left on Kashyykk and you can get the map for the Tatooine desert without meeting HK-47. Also, the player can kill Juhani.
  • If the above is done and the main character decides to join Bastila on the dark side, she will say, at some point, something somewhat like this, "The droids will follow you, my master." despite the fact that there is only one droid.
  • Jolee appears to recognize Bastila during the fight at the Temple Summit even if you go to Kashyyyk after the Leviathan missions.
  • If the player is lightsided, when they fight Bastila Shan on the Star Forge they have the option of killing her. Though at the ceremony on Rakata Prime, when the Republic awards the party, Bastila Shan is still there even though you killed her. (If the player is darksided Bastila joins your party) (This has been fixed by the patch)

[edit] Critical acclaim

Final Battle as a female Light Side Character
Enlarge
Final Battle as a female Light Side Character

The general critical response was enthusiastic. KotOR has won numerous awards, including Game Developers Choice Awards' best game of the year, BAFTA Games Awards' best Xbox game, Interactive Achievement Awards for best console RPG and best computer RPG, and has been named an Xbox Platinum Hit.

  • GameSpy
    • Xbox Game of the Year 2003
    • Overall Game of the Year 2003, across all platforms
  • IGN
    • Best Sound (Xbox category)
    • Best Story (PC category)
    • Xbox RPG Game of the Year 2003
    • PC RPG Game of the Year 2003
    • Xbox Game of the Year 2003
    • PC Game of the Year 2003
    • Overall Game of the Year 2003, across all platforms
  • Gamespot
    • Best Game Based on a TV or Film Property
    • Xbox Game of the Year 2003
    • RPG Game of the Year 2003, across all platforms

G4's show X-Play named the original KOTOR their Game of the Year in 2003.

The game is part of The Xbox Platinum Series, for sales in excess of 1 million units.

[edit] Sequels

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords was developed by a different studio, Obsidian Entertainment, using an "improved" version of the engine from the first game. Bioware was occupied with producing Jade Empire and wanted to focus more on their original productions than licensed games, but they recommended Obsidian for KOTOR's sequel. It was released for Xbox in December 2004 and PC in February 2005 to critical acclaim, though the views on the game are mixed.

[edit] Next Sequel

The sequel to KOTOR II (if released) will be called Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic III. Gaming websites such as IGN believe that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic III is currently in development with an estimated release of 2007 [1]. However, LucasArts and Obsidian have not announced anything regarding the possibility of KOTOR III's development.

Hope for the series has been renewed with a statement made by Nancy MacIntyre, VP of global sales and marketing for LucasArts, who recently said that neither the KOTOR series, nor the Star Wars: Battlefront series will be left behind. [1]

[edit] Cut content

The following content was removed from the final game due to time constraints:

  • The planet Sleheyron along with its corresponding Star Map, mentioned as the volcanic planet in the Dantooine computer. Yuthura Ban's backstory included Sleheyron in it, in a tribute to the work done on Sleheyron that was cut.
  • An extension of the Taris Swoop Bike quest, in which a second level exists in the Vulkar base, and the player has to disguise himself as a Vulkar to infiltrate the level.
  • An alternate ending for darkside females, in which the player can choose to kill Bastila Shan and die on the Star Forge along with Carth Onasi.
  • The Taris arena fighter Deadeye Duncan, who survived the events of the planet, would show up in Manaan and ask for rights to use the name "Mysterious Stranger". (This is available as a 3rd-party mod for the PC version)
  • A possibility to buy parts for the Swoop Bike. On the Swoop Track on Tatooine, when the player talks to a racer named Nico, he can still ask Nico where there's a place to buy upgrades for the swoop bike. Bioware forgot to cut this dialogue.
  • If the player didn't kill Juhani, the Jedi Belaya, from the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, was supposed to have been captured on the Leviathan and was to have died in captivity.
  • As with other team configurations, if Juhani and Canderous were part of the player's team, they were suppose to have dialog with each other. Specifically about the Mandalorian invasion of Cathar.

Some of this cut content is still in the games files. This enabled some modders to restore this cut content, including the alternate ending, and the appearance of Duncan on Manaan. To view cut elements, KotOR Savegame Editor can be used to view and equip various items existing within the game, and can be used to edit global boolean variables as well; this affects "triggers" and may alter the storyline the player is following. Cut elements can also be found within the sound files.

[edit] Possible live-action television series

At Celebration III, Lucas explained that if the Live-Action TV Series (scheduled for 2008), along with the planned 3-D Clone Wars Series (2007) is successful, more television series may follow. He explained that he has considered setting the time frames of these possible shows during time periods far away from his films. When asked by a fan at his AFI lifetime achievement ceremony if this may include the Knights of the Old Republic/Sith wars era, Lucas explained that that is always a possibility, and that he may be interested in taking the franchise to those story areas one day.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/nov2006/id20061122_709907.htm

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
The Star Wars Saga
Episodes | Spin-off films | Television series | Books | Comics | Games
v • d • e
Computer games developed by BioWare
Shattered Steel • Baldur's Gate • Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast • MDK2 • Baldur's Gate II • Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal • Neverwinter Nights • Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic • Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark • Jade Empire • Dragon Age • Mass Effect
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../k/n/i/Star_Wars%7E_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic_67b1.html"