Game Story

• You awaken aboard a Republic spaceship under attack. 
• With the help of the ship’s captain and a war bitter pilot, you narrowly escape your own death. 
• Once you safely jettison to a nearby planet, your story begins as you search for a Jedi held captive by a local gang. 
• As further events progress, you eventually start to develop Jedi powers which leads you on a journey to discover your forgotten identity, and ultimately stop a galactic conflict between the Republic and the Sith. 
• To assist you in your adventure, you start out with a bitter Republic pilot named Carth, and eventually add a Wookie and Twi’lek girl to your party.
• As you progress through the game, several more NPCS join your party, although you may only have a party of three at any given moment. 
• Each NPC has an interesting back-story, different skills to help you in battle, and a different persuasion that leans either towards the dark side or light side of the force. 
• The characters are, for the most part, very memorable. 
• One particular robot NPC was enjoyable to have on your party because of his wisecracking dialogue.  
• The overall story will have you traveling from planet to planet, solving missions, while continually progressing towards the main storyline involving an evil Sith lord. 
• I found the story to be an entertaining tale set in the Star Wars universe, although it used the clichéd evil ruler bent on ruling the galaxy storyline, which has been used in other Star Wars games as well as the film series.
• While it won’t win accolades of awards for its originality, it still entertains and many fans may even find the story more appealing than the episode 1-3 storyline.

Gameplay

• Anyone familiar with other Bioware classics such as Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate will feel right at home with this type of RPG (role playing game).
• This style of RPG uses a real time combat method that can be paused, so that the player can issue commands. 
• The combat in this game is very easy to get into and understand, which is a plus. 
• The player simply highlights the enemy, issues the attack and then watches the action unfold.  This process repeats until the enemy(s) are dead.
• You could technically play this game without pausing it, although you would notice that characters don’t immediately respond to your commands since this involves taking turns with the enemy NPCs.
• When not in combat, your party travels from area to area, solving missions and quests.
• When there is a need to travel to another planet, you simply board your ship and use a planetary navigation map.
• After selecting the planet, you will view a movie of your ship traveling.
• Occasionally, your space travel will be interrupted by another ship pursuing your ship.
• During these infrequent mini-games, you must shoot down all of the ships before they destroy your ship’s shields.
• These moments are slightly fun, although the gun turret is difficult to control and the ships look the same, every time you play this mini-game.
• Similar to other Bioware RPGs, you can edit your character’s stats to change their personality, their combat preference (ranged, hand to hand, stealth), and their force persuasion (light or dark).
• As you continue to play the game, you can assign skill and character points into different character aspects:
• Character traits such as personality and health level.
• Weapon upgradeables such as powered blasts, and sniper shots.
• Force upgrades such as force speed, persuasion, etc.
• You are also responsible for assigning the NPC’s skill points.
• You assign points to these characters, just as you do your own character. 
• You could conceivably create a well-balanced party with one fighter, one ranged attacker, and one character dealing with stealth or security (opening doors, hacking systems).
• When you select a character to use on a planet, that character’s skill points increase to match the level of your character.
• As a result, you may find that the underplayed characters have to suddenly level up numerous times.
• This can be an easy way to create a quick security expert, or a demolitions expert, if you need one.
• While character differences aren’t readily felt during battles, you will notice a difference when you see that certain characters can’t do certain things such as disable a bomb or hack a computer.
• Unlike other Bioware RPGs, unfortunately, KOTOR suffers from not having enough interesting special moves and spells.
• After upgrading your Jedi Powers (light or dark powers) you start to notice that there really isn’t a great assortment of cool spells. 
• You may find yourself only using one or two main spells, but little else.
• Some of the light force spells include a stasis field (holds an enemy in place) a  force whirlwind, cure (health), and a few others. 
• Some of the dark force spells include slow, drain life (steals health from the enemy), a fear spell, and a few others.
• There are also universal Jedi spells such as a throw lightsaber spell and a very useful force push.
• Ultimately, I wished that there were more spells, since there are only about 15 altogether. 
• When not in combat, characters travel across alien landscapes in a 3^rd person mode. 
• This mode works well, except for when the other two party members block your way.  I found that I frequently cursed at my teammates because they blocked my way when I was turning around. 
• Unfortunately, there were several moments where I had to make a huge effort to walk around an NPC, regardless of whether my character looked like they could walk between them. 
• There were even a few moments where I just had to switch characters because I couldn’t move forward. 
• I’m not sure if this was a bug, but I found it to be quite annoying.
• Throughout the game, you are given the ability to lean towards a force persuasion, and your actions dictate which type of force points you will receive. 
• As you progress through the story, several missions will fall clearly into the light side or dark side of the force. 
• However, some missions and dialogue choices have both light and dark side outcomes.
• Depending on your decisions during missions, and the light or dark force powers you use, your character will reflect what side of the force they use the most.
• Just as in real life, choices are rarely an either/or decision.
• Overall, the action and traveling around worlds made for a very fun game.