It was mainly the tone/wording that irked me...otherwise I would've not commented at all. I just like the series, even with it's flaws(like the lag when walking in some open areas and fighting, which causes one to leap around the area jarringly sometimes).

So, some people are pro, and some people are con. Not too surprising.

But my question is, are all sides judging it by what games were like when it was first released, or are both sides judging it by modern game standards, or what? Just for the record.

I'm judging it by how I felt when I played it for the first time which was in the last two or three years or so.

I think there are older, much better RPGs. Also older games with much better story. KOTOR just doesn't come close.

I consider these Star Wars games to be very good:

Star Wars: Republic Commando
Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds
Dark Forces 1 and 2
Jedi Outcast
Jedi Academy

These games are decent:

Episode I: Racer (If you are into racing)
Battlefront 1&2 (If you want large scale battles)

Knights of the old republic is a great game, but many thought it was too slow and not active enough. It's very similar to Neverwinter nights. You select who to attack and what skills to use. Your rolls determine everything else.

I did not like it on PC. Perhaps I need to give it another chance. But on my original Xbox (still compatible with Xbox one), I thought it really shined.

Jade Empire came two years after KOTOR.
I love Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, and played both several times before I first played KOTOR, which was a few years after it was released. I also played NWN before KOTOR, and was not too fond of it. I liked KOTOR in my first playthrough (with a light side character), but it didn't come close to BG and PS:T (however, my love for BG1 is extremely influenced by nostalgia, as it was the first RPG I ever played, and I can understand people who play it now for the first time and don't like it). As I wrote earlier, when I replayed it not too long ago with a dark side character I didn't like it at all (and I agree with most things clarry wrote about it). However, I know many people love it and I respect that. I just don't think it deserves its reputation as one of the best RPGs of all time.

The SW games have been a bit hit'n'miss - Some of the best ones were from Lucas Arts when they still made other games; Ironically, when they started becoming more and more StarWars-only the games got worse!

My favourite LA SW game of all time is TIE Fighter - I've never been so immersed in a flight combat sim, or in any game, as in this! You are literally just some scrub in the Imperial Navy, starting off in the same crappy TIE Fighter I used to one-shot in X-Wing, and having to work your way up the ranks and getting involved in a really engrossing storyline. They way they do it, esp. with the 'talkie' version, really makes you feel like a cog in the Imperial war machine, and it's not just contrived heroic crap or fighting the Rebels all the time - You also get to see the other side of the Empire, as a peace keeper holding the line against pirates and acting as a mediator between antagonistic planets, trying to stop them killing each other without crossing a line and starting a war.
Although technically you are doing the same kind of things, the variety of plot devices and motivations behind all the missions keeps it interesting and engrossing.
I've never felt more like I'm playing a character in a really good book as much as in this game! And the dynamic iMUSE music is just amazing - The LA musical god-like trio of Bajakian, McConnell and Land really knocked it out of the park and IMHO out did John Williams with their work on the game. If you ever play it, get the Enhanced CD edition and figure out how to get DOS Box working with some sort of wavetable synthesis - It is worth it and far better than the remake and its crappy static redbook CD audio loop.

X-Wing Alliance is another game that has a great storyline like that, but is let down by really annoying secondary controls like things for the MFDs and squad commands, and minor mechanics changes that make the game feel less fun to play compared to its predecessors, esp. X-Wing vs TIE Fighter which had nailed the mechanics and feel to perfection - It's just a shame XvT had no real single-player story at all, aside from the short expansion.

They do feel a bit dated now, esp. TIE Fighter with its gouraud shaded polys and unrebindable joystick controls (Thank smeg for DOSbox's rebindable controls!), but if you like combat flight sims the only game that beats them is still to this day Freespace2 SCP.


Another stand-out one for me was Republic Commando - It's one of the few squad-based FPS I've played since Project Eden that got the squad mechanics to not only work well but actually be useful and is, I think, the only game based on the prequels I've played that was genuinely very good.

The level design is a bit all over the place and the mechanics are not up to ID-game levels, although still very good, but the scripting and voice acting of your team mates quickly endears them to you and that helps get through some of the more irritating parts of the game.


My most hated Star Wars game is Shadows of the Empire - I bought that game based solely on the demo, which takes you into the Battle of Hoth in a Snow Speeder - Really really fun! Very enjoyable. Went out and bought it a day or so after completing the demo.
Sadly, in the most painful case of bait and switch I've had with a game demo, the rest of the game is nothing like that and is just a really mediocre-to-bad third-person platform shooter.

That was the last game I bought solely based on a demo. You'd be better off spending the money on the book. The book is much better than the game...

I think a lot of people felt that way as Rogue Squadron came out shortly after, which was literally based on just the good parts of Shadows of the Empire!


Hmm, other standouts... Dark Forces is pretty good; One of the few games to out-do Doom back then. It's also one of the very few FPS I've played where enemies can't see in the dark without that being a core mechanic, which can lead to some hilarious moments like when I ran into a storm trooper in a pitch black wrecked bar, shat myself and started blasting him, which lit up the room revealing a load of other storm troopers who then also saw me and started shooting me too! Of all the games in the series I enjoyed the storyline of this the most - There's no Force anything in the game, just you as the badass Kyle Katarn, mercenary for hire, doing work for the Rebels. The one downside people may have with this game is it is unusually puzzly for an FPS, and there are a few areas (The sewers and the Imperial Vault thing come to mind) that may require a dip into a FAQ. if you figure them out yourself it does feel awesome tho'. Also, Dark Troopers. Brrrr.
The sequel, Jedi Knight, is... kinda janky - It's an early 3D game so it's ugly as heck and actually looks worse than Dark Forces, and for some reason they've cast a Riker look-a-like as Kyle Katarn in the cutscenes. If you like cheese in your games, it's worth a look as it's quite amusing.
Jedi Knight 2/Outcast is muuuch better - The sabre combat actually works properly and you can, e.g., have more than 1 point in force speed without risking instant immediate death by running into a wall 2ft away from you. The only thing that annoyed me about this game is that it's the first SW game I played that introduced Cortosis, which is one of the stupidest things invented in the Extended Universe (It basically makes lightsabres useless)
All the post-Dark Forces games tend to revolve around The Force in some way tho' so the plots feel a bit less stand-out and a bit more generic to me than earlier titles. I think it's why the later-released Republic Commando stood out more for me when it came out.


I think the weirdest Star Wars game I've played was Yoda Stories, which was a very Windows 3.1-esque tile-based RPG...? GOG don't have it and I doubt they'd be able to get it running on a modern system even if they did, but it's worth a mention just for historical interest. LGR does a review of sorts on YouTube... and that's all you really need to know about it... really...

So you don't like KOTOR because it's a dumbed-down RPG, but you do like an FPS - a genre that's dumb by design?

Ok, I know, it's just my opinion. And I can be as paradoxical as the next person. ;-)

To be fair, Dark Forces is not your typical twitch-shooter murderfest like Doom and Duke Nukem - It encourages a slower pace and a more thinky-sneaky-shooty approach. Laying anti-personel mines and then triggering nearby stormtroopers to run over them never gets old!

The fact that not all enemies can see in the dark also opens up extra possibilities.

And then there are the afore-mentioned puzzles... stupid sewers...stupid vault... grumble grumble...

Cool! That's the best motivation I've ever read that makes me actually give it a try. (I once bought the whole SW package here at a huge discount)

One can like different genres, can't one?
And the Dark forces/Jedi Knight games aren't that dumb imo, they have great level design, and in the later games you have force powers and lightsaber combat. They're also challenging. Which can't be said about Kotor's combat which is repetitive and fairly easy (you basically just have to spam a few force powers/abilities to win).
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Kotor 1&2 are bad games (the 2nd one is actually quite nice with some of the role-playing imo), it's just that they're somewhat overrated imo and have noticeable flaws in their gameplay.
You'll have to change the controls though, because the default settings are pretty weird (it was before WASD became standard). But by opening the setup file and changing movement controls, one can get something pretty close to modern settings; only issue I had was I couldn't get look up/down to work by moving the mouse, so had to use keys for that.

I actually always play with the arrow keys. (Because, unlike WASD (ZQSD on my keyboard), there are no other keys around it to accidentally press.)


Oh sure, I think my second sentence nuanced it a bit?
I guess I like RPGs because they're (often) a different kind of "adventure game". If combat is bad or not interesting: too bad, there's often (for me) a lot of other aspects to like.

Not to mention the lame limited save system..which I hated.
A. X Wing vs Tie Fighter was designed as a multi player game;the single player was added as an afterthought.
B. COuld not disagree more about DF2:Jedi Knight. IMHO it's the best of the SW FPS's despite the outdated graphics.
C>Yoda Stories is a 32 bit game;runs fine on my Windows 7 after you get over the 16 bit install problems..which there are work arounds for.
Now Indy Jones Desktop adventures is a 16 bit game and is just plaing not going to run on a 64 bit computer,period.

Yoda Stories was MY JAM when I could run it....that and Indy's Desktop Adventures.