Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Updated Impressions

We recently got our hands on a near-final build of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The upcoming Xbox RPG, which is in development at Edmonton-based BioWare, is set 4,000 years before the events seen in Star Wars: Episode I and gives you a chance to participate in the events that shaped the Star Wars universe as we know it. After checking in on different parts of the game over the course of the past year, we've finally gotten a chance to have a go at the game from the start.

When you start a game, you'll be able to choose a male or female character in one of three classes: scoundrel, scout, or soldier. After you select a class, you'll be able to select either a ready-made character who needs only a face and a name or a custom character who can be tweaked to your liking. The custom character option lets you tweak five major elements: portrait, attributes, skills, feats, and name. Portrait lets you choose from an assortment of faces for your character. Attributes apply bonuses or penalties to combat, skills, and force powers. You'll be able to divvy up points between six different attributes--strength dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma--and your character's class will determine which attributes you'll want to focus on. For example, if you choose a soldier, you'll want to make sure you bulk up your strength, dexterity, and constitution to complement the character's combat abilities. Your character's skills determine how proficient he or she is at eight different tasks. Finally, feats are enhancements to your character that let you use special items, modify your skill development, or perform new attacks. While the process sounds a bit intimidating, especially if you're used to the less-customizable characters found in other console RPGs, it's actually not that bad. You're given explanations every step of the way, so it's pretty tough to screw anything up horribly.

After you've sorted out your character, the game goes into the franchise's familiar text crawl, which brings you up to speed on what's happened so far. Once you're up to speed, you'll watch a cinema of a massive Republic starship called the Endar Spire being hammered by Sith fighters. Unfortunately, the cinema doesn't bode well for your future, as you're a member of the Endar Spire's crew. You're awakened by your bunkmate, who gives you rather grim status report: The ship is under attack and has been boarded by Sith. The pair of you set out to find Bastila, the ship's resident Jedi, and get off the ill-fated ship before you're captured or killed. You're clued in to the basics of gameplay by your roomie as you make your way through the ship, much like in the first level of Halo. Your crash course will include how to equip items, manage your party, and interact with your environment.

Veteran console RPG players may find that getting a handle on the gameplay in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic requires some time. The various menus you'll be navigating will require you to accustom yourself to the game's various systems for leveling up, equipping items, and combat. The game's combat system takes a bit of getting used to, as it features a mix of real-time and turn-based elements. Essentially, you'll automatically initiate combat by approaching an enemy. The game will then pause, and a targeting reticle will come up to let you know that combat has been initiated. At this point, you'll have the option of either selecting attack options from an onscreen menu or unpausing and picking your attacks on the fly. Once you're comfortable with the system, you can stack up to four actions in a queue by selecting them with the X button. While queuing up actions isn't incredibly vital when you start out, it becomes more important later on as your character develops and you gain different attacks and collect items like grenades.