Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

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"KOTOR" redirects here. For the town, see Kotor.
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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic {{#if:{{{image|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image|}}}
Developer(s) BioWare {{#if:{{{publisher|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher|}}}
Release date(s) July 15, 2003 (Xbox)
November 19, 2003 (PC)
Genre(s) RPG
Mode(s) Single player {{#if:{{{ratings|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings|}}}
Platform(s) Xbox, Windows, Mac OS X {{#if:{{{media|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media|}}}

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) is an RPG video game originally on the Microsoft Xbox platform and later for PCs running Microsoft Windows then for Mac OS X. The game was developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts and released on November 19 2003. Its tagline is "Choose your path".

KotOR is the first computer RPG set in the Star Wars universe. It uses the d20 System, based on the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons rules and more specifically the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Roleplaying Game rules. Although combat takes place in real-time, it can be paused when needed. The game also 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.

Contents

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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 the Star Wars movies take 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 possesses 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.

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Locations and characters

Players also visit other locations:

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

Image:Kotor 8.pngThe game is played over numerous planets in the Star Wars universe:

Other characters met along the way include:

Image:Kotor 11.png

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Voice actors

The following voice actors were used in the game:

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Trivia

  • The game also takes a familiar line from Bioware's other best-seller game Baldur's gate series. When you try to enter a new area with party members, and they're not near Revan, a line appears and says: "You must gather your party before venturing forth". This line appeared whenever you tried to leave an area without your party in Baldur's Gate, as well as any game using Bioware's Infinity Engine.
  • The name Bendak Starkiller is a homage to the name originally chosen for Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. It is also a reference to the first ace in Wing Commander, also named Bendak Starkiller. Also, the name Bendak may be a homage to the Baldur's Gate series character in the Copper Coronet named Hendak.
  • Certain lines through out the game also pay homage to the original films: Mission Vao says, "I have a bad feeling about this" several times, referring to a line spoken repeatedly in the films. Additionally, the line "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. Another instance occurs when 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." A few scenes before this one, Carth Onasi echoes Han Solo's line in Episode IV: A New Hope: "We're caught in their tractor beam".
  • The game contains a number of references to Star Trek:
    • The quest "The Trouble with Gizka" is likely a reference to the Star Trek episode entitled "The Trouble with Tribbles".
    • HK-47's line "Dammit, master, I'm an assassination droid, not a dictionary!" is similar to Dr. McCoy's frequent catch-phrase from the series.
    • The number 47 itself has also been used in almost every episode of the different incarnations of the show since Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • 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. The droid is also a possible reference to the AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle of modern-day Earth. The HK prefix could also be a reference to Heckler & Koch, a German firearms manufacturer. Another possible reference is the The Terminator films' robotic death vehicles (HK meaning Hunter/Killer.)
  • 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.
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Critical acclaim

Image:Kotrbattle.png

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.

Reviewers (and hard core Star Wars fans) have even commented that KotOR was better than the Star Wars "prequel trilogy", Episodes I–II in particular which had alienated much of the hard core Star Wars audience.

  • 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
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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 but they recommended Obsidian for KotOR's sequel. It was released for Xbox in December 2004 and PC in February 2005 to critical acclaim.

A third game is projected by Obsidian. It is believed by gaming websites such as IGN to currently be in development with an estimated release of 2007 or late 2006. However LucasArts has not announced anything regarding KotOR III's development yet. To see the article, go here

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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.
  • 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.
  • 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".
  • 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.
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Bugs & other errors

Note: Updating your game and graphics drivers to the latest version will correct most, if not all, of these issues.

The following bugs and other errors are known to affect the PC version of the game:

  • Security Spikes/Security Spike Tunnelers are supposed to temporarily increase the player's Security skills, but they do nothing.
  • Contrary to the manual and in-game statements, using a computer or repairing a droid disrupts stealth mode.
  • Saves can become corrupted.
  • Certain quest-related enemies never permanently die and will regenerate after the player leaves the area and returns.
  • After a quest is completed, the screen will occasionally draw black and not continue the game.
  • Loads can occasionally freeze and never continue.
  • The Dantooine portion of the game causes severe graphic problems on many systems. Adding "Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1" under Graphics Options to swkotor.ini (usually located in Program Files\LucasArts\SWKotOR\) with a text editor usually solves this problem.
  • The game has trouble with certain ATI graphics cards, and will crash occasionally if certain graphical options are on.

The following bugs and other errors are known to affect the Mac version of the game:

  • Graphical overloads
  • In OS X 10.4, if the computer is equipped with certain nVidia video cards, the game will not startup properly. The get around is to add "Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1" under Graphics Options in ~/Library/Preferences/Knights of the Old Rebublic/swkotor.ini when it is opened in TextEdit. There are unconfirmed reports of this causing a crash when loading a swoop race, particularly the one necessary to rescue Bastila Shan on Taris.
  • Additionally, certain graphics card drivers and OpenGL implementations are optimized poorly for Knights of the Old Republic, leading to poor performance, particularly on the Dantooine levels, as well as crashes on certain cards. On the Mac version, this appears in Mac OS X versions 10.3.8 and later.

The majority of the bugs in the Xbox version appear only when the game is running on a console with a Thomson DVD drive, which has a reputation for compatibility problems with "newer" titles. If the game runs on a console without a Thomson drive, these glitches are not expected to occur. The most common of these glitches include:

  • The game freezes during or after the load screen.
  • The game freezes while in 'action' during gameplay.
  • The game freezes if the Start Menu remains active for a prolonged period of time.
  • The game will stutter during the load screens, sometimes resulting in disappearance of the player character's head and further stuttering during gameplay.
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External links

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