Four Nerds

As I mentioned in the last paragraph of my last post, I have been playing Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) lately. I didn't get a chance to play it when it came out because A) The computer I had at the time was a piece of crap, and B) I didn't have an Xbox.

It's a great game, for the most part. I kind of wish you had more control over the fighting parts of the game, like in Jedi Knight II. That's okay, though. It's still a lot of fun. While it has a definite story to follow, I like the fact that you can take your character in any direction you want. Do you want to be an evil Jedi, or a good one? It’s up to you.

I’m about to talk in some detail about the game, so those few out there who haven’t played the game yet, there be spoilers ahead.

The one thing that annoys me about the game is the same problem I had with the Star Wars fan films. The game takes place roughly four thousand years before Luke Skywalker blows the shit out of the Death Star. The designers obviously wanted to significantly expand on the Star Wars universe by giving us something that takes place centuries before even the oldest Star Wars characters were born. Personally this infraction is more annoying to me because this game is a licensed, official Star Wars storyline. It's a part of the expanded universe. They should know better.

They were off to a good start too. They created a compelling story of a Sith War quite unlike the one in the movies. The planet that you started out on was one called Taris, a completely urbanized world where shit, quite literally, rolls downhill. Admittedly, it's a bit like Coruscant, but I liked the fact that it was a new planet I'd never heard of.

Unfortunately, that's where they stopped. First of all, they began by making most of the aliens in the game the same as the lot inhabiting the cantina in the first Star Wars, with a few from Jabba's palace thrown in for good measure. They have Rodians (like Greedo), Ithorians (Hammerheads), Twi'leks (The dudes with the head tails) and so on. The occasional Hutt shows up as well. They did invent one new alien, but s/he isn't a big part of the game.

You find yourself having to go to the local cantina. Why they can't have a bar, tavern, nightclub, pub, saloon, speakeasy, beer hall, or any of the other thousand or so names for your local watering hole is beyond me. No, it has to be a cantina, and the band has to be Bith players (like the ones in Star Wars) and the dancers have to be Twi’leks (like the ones in Jedi). Nothing new to report here.

A one point, you have to battle a rancor monster. Why they couldn't come up with another giant carnivore is beyond me. How hard could it be? Take a 20' body, add sharp teeth and claws. Add a roar and voila! You got a monster.

You soon find yourself at one point engaged in a Swoop race. For those of you who don’t know, a swoop is essentially like a speeder bike, except it’s a hell of a lot faster and more dangerous. While they don’t really make an appearance in the movies, they do show up in the expanded universe, including the popular Shadows of the Empire book and video game, which takes place between Empire and Jedi.

Again, the problem is that KOTOR takes place 4,000 years before all of that took place. Why are they racing the same damn thing? Even George Lucas, for all of the damage he did to the Star Wars universe with his prequels, was smart enough to create a new racing vehicle for the Phantom Menace, and that took place a mere 30 years before.

Through the course of the game, you gather together a collection of allies who accompany you on your travels. First there’s Carth, a Republic soldier who trusts no one. He’s a little like Han Solo, but I was willing to overlook that. You then meet up with a Twi’lek orphan named Mission, along with her Wookiee companion Zaalbar. After freeing Zaalbar from captivity, he offers you life-debt. (Sound familiar?) He’s followed by the Jedi Knight Bastilla and a few others (including an astromech droid, of course. Fortunately the droid looks more like Johnny 5 then R2-D2).

Finally you are able to escape Taris with your new friends. After stealing a rather familiar looking starship from a local crime boss, you fly the familiarly named Ebon Hawk (because all small freighters must have contain a species of bird in its name) to the planet Dantooine. For some reason, people just love coming back to a planet that Princess Leia mentioned in passing. The way you've designed Dantooine is cool, but why does it have to be Dantooine? You couldn't come up with a new name?

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Dantooine is far too remote to be make an effective part of your video game.

Once on Dantooine, you are trained as a Jedi. One of the Jedi Masters that trains you is Master Vandar Tokare, who apparently is a member of the same species as Yoda. He even sounds like Yoda, except he doesn't switch his verbs and nouns around. He's a paler shade of green also.

After completing your training, which seemed to be like a weekend seminar, you are sent on a mission. You are charged with finding several star maps located somewhere on four different planets in the galaxy. This is the point I got up to last night. Two of them are called Korriban and Manaan. I’d never heard of them, and that’s cool. I’m looking forward to exploring them.

Sadly, I cannot say the same for the other two. The first planet is Tatooine, the home planet of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. It’s a tiny litter jerkwater planet that, as Luke so eloquently stated, “if there’s a bright center to the universe, (Tatooine is) the planet it’s farthest from.“ Why galactic events seem to hinge on this miserable speck of a planet, I have no idea.

The next planet is Kashyyyk, the Wookiee homeworld. It was featured in Revenge of the Sith, and also quite memorably in the Star Wars Holiday Special. This was Lucas’ original idea for the planet Endor, but decided to go with the more marketable Ewoks, after already establishing the Wookiees with Chewbacca. While Kashyyyk is a great idea for a planet, I would very much like to see something new. We’ve been there, seen that.

Upon looking at the Ebon Hawk’s navigational charts, I discovered you could also go another jerkwater planet called Yavin. You remember Yavin, right? It’s the big red gas giant that was all that stood between the rebel base and the Death Star at the end of Star Wars.

So far, Knights of the Old Republic is a great game. It’s fun to play; there are a lot of options, not just a single path to follow. The gameplay is solid, great graphics and sound. I love everything about this game, except for the fact that the people behind the games can’t seem to let go of the few little chunks of the Star Wars universe that George Lucas created in the movies. You have a whole galaxy to choose from guys. New aliens, new technologies, new planets. Create something we haven’t seen, especially if the whole idea behind the game is that it has no connection to the Star Wars universe in Luke and Leia’s time.