Very admirable effort by Bioware

 The game sounds good, too. The soundtrack by Jeremy Soule mixes some well-done original music with the epic music of the Star Wars movies. Special effects, such as light sabres, alien voices, and space ships, sound as they should. The voice acting is also well done.

Like its great Baldur's Gate series, Bioware has delivered a storyline that is epic in both scope and depth. It is not particularly original and follows the Star Wars formula: rescue the damsel, fight the evil empire, discover the weakness of its super weapon, and duel the dark lord at the end. However, the storyline ranges over several planets, ties in a number of fascinating characters, and has a shocking plot twist about two-thirds of the way into the game that will make you reevaluate your character's purpose. Much of the story is told through your interaction with 9 other characters who can join your party (though only 2 can travel with you at any given time). As with Baldur's Gate, Bioware continues to do character development and interaction better than any company that I know of. The game itself is fairly easy to figure out and play. You develop a player character at the beginning, which you can customize in ways similar to the Dungeon & Dragons statistical model. The game is played through the keyboard and mouse. Combat is turn-based, though it appears fluid and in real time. There are a range of options for customizing your experience, from the kinds of skills and Force powers you choose to the wide range of weapons, armors, and other items that can be found or purchased. Actually, the game resembles Diablo 2 in the way that it allows you to endow weapons and armor with various attributes. Fortunately, unlike Jedi Outcast, there are not many puzzles to frustrate you and the game flows at a nice, even pace. It lasted me about 45 hours, which seemed long enough. (One very fun mini-game called Pazaak, a sort of blackjack-like card game, could add several more hours of gameplay, as could trying to complete every side quest.) Unfortunately, all is not perfect with KotOR. I found the game to be very unstable on my computer, which surpassed the recommended requirements. Even with the 1.03 patch, I counted almost 50 crashes to desktop during the loading of new areas and saved games, which is inexcusable. I am not sure why Bioware released this otherwise superb game with such a terrible bug, which many others have experienced. Hopefully, this will be avoided with KotOR 2 and future Bioware games. More minor in nature, occasionally characters would not instantly follow the commands that I entered. For example, the game automatically pauses when an enemy appears to allow you to queue a response. Let's say you order one character to throw her lightsabre or order another to use Force push. Occasionally, the character might just stand there or may run headlong into melee, as if you never entered the command. This is generally a minor annoyance, but can mean the difference between winning or losing some of the tougher fights. The only other problem that I say with the game was balance. The blasters were nowhere nearly as good as the lightsabres in combat. Fortunately, you'll do just fine in this game with a lightsabre (or two) and some grenades and never really have to rely upon blasters. I personally have no desire to play the game again, but I could definitely understand why a person would play it at least twice--once as a good guy and once as a bad guy. There are so many dialogue options (every word of which is written and spoken) to choose from that you'll be curious to see how different responses affect the story.