I liked your review and thought that i wouldn't mind reading your reviews again. Right up until...
Now, I have defended my opinion. Shut up, and do not bring this up again.
That point there, you review a game people will critique on it as that is essentially the reviewer business.
Not willing to defend your points, don't review.
Anyway, the review itself.
Actually did do the game justice, whilst i agree with whoever said that it needs fleshing out because of the games high calibur. I do find myself overly compelled to play Kotor again, sadly however i only posses KotorII and i don't really feel like playing the three day tutorial mission on that space station just to get to the first planet.
Still, after reading the review i feel like there is a game missing from my collection.
The dialogue within the game was supreme and there was absoloutely nothing flawed about it in anyway what so ever.
I simply ignored Mission Vao, annoying as she was Bioware didn't make her an overwhelmingly necessary part of the game and for that i was thankful.
The graphics are still great, of course you can look back from todays perspective and say that progress has weakend them somewhat but thats bound to happen so i feel the perspective is a little jaded.
The graphics are great and with the unique atmospheres and asthetics of the worlds, Bioware truely put them to great use.
The battle system, the point which may well earn me a flogging with a stick but frankly i could care less.
I liked it, it was a little relaxed at at times uneccesary. The ability to que 4 actions at a time never really hit it off with me. The only time i ever felt that i needed to use was when i threw in some healing for good measure and then left another attack to begin again.
I only found myself queing attacks towards the end of the game, i'd offer an alternative if i could but i don't have one i could aptly name.
The ai of your team was actually rather good, they would die on occassion yes however most of the time they proved to be stella in a pinch and provide adequate support, more than enough for you to finish off whatever was posing a "threat"
The only points about Kotor that niggles me was the fact that some of the powers became retardly overpowered, of course this is a temptation for developers as:
A/ This is Starwars.
B/ The use of the force is necessary throughout the game.
C/ As the protagonist you're bound to be powerful at some point.
Later on in the game, much later on, i found myself using one force power only to clear out rooms of my enemies so i could get through undisturbed to my final moments of game play.
Whilst this made me feal completely badass and like Darth Vader reborn, i was hoping for more of a difficult end game than.
Step 1: Walk into room
Step 2: Superuberforcepower
Step 3: ?
Step 4: Profit.
This never really seemed to apply to the lightside however, which focused mostly on healing, shields etc etc.
I much preferred the lightside to playing the darkside, if only because i had to get my hands bloody once in a while. The irony of that isn't lost on me i can assure you.
The next point is the fact that the choice system, whilst reveloutionary at the time offered actually very little.
Sure, we all laughed at our maginficence when we could force choke someone during dialogue or make them hand over their credits so we could spend them on some silly little minigame.
But really, no great change was made to the overall running of the game until the end.
You could turn your cohorts i believe to the darkside if you really wished but even then, little difference was made and so i felt like the whole system there was washed away beneath everything else.
Too my last point, the levels. I don't mean the actual planets, but the fact that your characters level really doesn't mean squat. Or at least in my experiance, i don't believe i got past lvl 23 before i found myself completing the game. Whether that means i rushed it or not i have no idea. I did a fair amount of side quests and whatnot but by that point i was whooping ass enough to achieve the endgame and i was pretty much empty on other things to do.
Whilst such a design removes the need for labourious grind, i do feel the need to question it when some of my friends finished towards the 28 mark and i was only 23.