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[Judas Maccabeus]

I'm sure you all know what Star Wars is.  If you don't, welcome back to the real world from the rock you've been living under for the previous thirty-three years.  Aside from the six movies that form the basis of the franchise, there are innumerable novels, comic books, a holiday special (no holiday special exists, nope, not at all), animated series, and so forth.  Perhaps where the so-called "expanded universe" has most shined, however, are in the video games (to be fair, the rest of the expanded universe is of... far less than stellar [pun intended] quality, but that's neither here nor there).



Pictured:  Darth Malak, Sith fighters, the Ebon Hawk, HK-47, T3-M4, a random Selkath (for some reason), Bastila Shan, and Sith ground forces.


Knights of the Old Republic is set several millenia before the movies themselves, in a Galactic Republic reeling from two bloody wars and in the midst of a third.  The Great Sith War against a former Jedi, Exar Kun, had revived the Sith in a new form, and soon after a warlike race called the Mandalorians attempted to conquer the Republic.  It seemed for a time after these wars that the Republic would have a chance to rebuild; however, not long after, the disappeared heroes of the Mandalorian Wars, Revan and Malak, returned as conquerors at the head of a vast fleet.  Where they had gotten it, and why they had turned on the Republic, noone was sure, but not even the loss of Revan could stop their assault.  The Republic and Admiral Forn Dodonna have a secret weapon, however: Bastila Shan, a Jedi skilled in using a power known as Battle Meditation to turn the tide of a battle.  She, a skilled pilot named Carth Onasi, and a member of the Republic Army suddenly assigned to the ship have been sent on a mission aboard the Endar Spire...




Character Creation

Yes, it's that time again.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gender, as usual, has two options.  You know the drill.

Class has three (Jedi classes aren't available at start; we'll get to choose one eventually.  Keep that in mind when creating a character, as force powers and lightsabers are very powerful in this game):

Scoundrel:  Weak in close combat with low vitality points and few feats, but very good with skills and definitely able to hold their own with a blaster.

Scout:  Something of a balance between the two, moderate in pretty much every category.

Soldier:  Tough in a fight, with high vitality points and many feats, but low on skills, with few class skills and equally few skill points.




Custom is more fun, of course.



First is appearance.  There are a bunch of portraits for both male and female characters, so I can't really get all of them to show you, but just a general description will do.







Attributes, skills, and feats.  All of the first two can be seen here; there is a list of the latter here, although of course most aren't available at start - some are high-rank, some require one to be a Jedi or droid, and some are class or character specific.

(Persuade, it should be noted, is main-character only and allows for an expanded range of possible interactions; a good Repair for the main character also is necessary if we want the full interactions with one of the NPC party memebers.)



And, finally, name.

(Note:  Canonically, the main character is male and went down the Light Side path.  We aren't limited to that, of course, although the regular romance option for male characters is vastly less annoying than the female one [there's something of a secondary option for female characters, but it's not very developed and I'll get to that later], if that factors into your decision at all.)

[Judas Maccabeus]

Index

Endar Spire
--The Two Most Annoying Men in the Republic Fleet

Taris
--Carth Talks a Lot
--Party Like It's -3999
--BOOM!
--They Aren't All That Hidden
--Well, This Undercity Doesn't Have Zombi- Scratch That
--I Have Seen the Promised Land
--Gutting the Vulkars
--Star Wars: Episode Negative MCXXXVIII: (Swoop) Racer
--Tarisian Gladiators, Or, The Only Thing That Could Make This Better Is Giant Cotton Swabs
--This Is The Planet That Never Ends
--The Fastest Hunk of Junk In The Galaxy

Dantooine
--His Word Speaks Only Truth, From a Certain Point of View
--News Flash From Duros: "Sith Are Bad"
--Two Households, Both Alike In Lacking Dignity
--The Star Map

Yavin
--Hazar and Sasha at Yavin

[Judas Maccabeus]

The Cast
(organised by the group they belong to at first meeting)


Galactic Republic

:  Hazar Denolo (No voice actor).  The main character, a smuggler roped into becoming a member of the Republic fleet.  Now in training to become a Jedi.

:  Trask Ulgo (Cam Clarke).  Your one-stop shop for all your exposition needs.  Killed by a Dark Jedi on the Endar Spire.

:  Carth Onasi (Raphael Sbarge).  Captain in the Republic Navy, piloting the Endar Spire when it came under attack.  Not killed by a Dark Jedi.


The Jedi

: Bastila Shan (Jennifer Hale).  A young Jedi Padawan who has become important due to her ability to turn the tide of battles.  Rescues herself from a swoop gang on Taris and lets us join her party.

: Vrook Lamar (Edward Asner).  Member of the Dantooine Enclave council, as well as the Jedi High Council on Coruscant.  Is the most concerned at the idea of training us to be a Jedi.

: Vandar Tokare (Tom Kane).  Leader of the Dantooine Enclave, and is one of the same unnamed species as Yoda belongs to.

: Juhani (Courtenay Taylor).  A Cathar training to become a Jedi, who falls to the dark side after thinking she killed her Master.  Hazar turns her back and she rejoins the Jedi Order.


The Sith

: Darth Malak (Rafael Ferrer).  Dark Lord of the Sith, having gained the title the old fashioned way when he decided to kill Darth Revan.  Born Alek Squinquargesimus, which is Latin for "Sfiftrieth".*
*Seriously.  "quinquagesimus" is "fiftieth"...

Saul Karath (uncredited).  Admiral of the Sith Fleet, formerly with the Republic fleet during the Mandalorian Wars.  He still holds some concern for excessive casualties, but when it comes time to perform his orders he does so and doesn't look back - even if he must kill an entire planet.


The Exchange

:  Calo Nord (uncredited).  Galaxy-famous bounty hunter, doesn't like to talk and doesn't like people who talk to him.  Gets a turbolaser blast to the head trying to get off Taris.

: Canderous Ordo (John Cygan).  A former Mandalorian soldier who, like many of his people, has turned to mercenary work.  Joins with Hazar to steal the Ebon Hawk and get off Taris.

: T3-M4 (beeps and whistles).  A top of the line utility droid built by Janice Nall of Taris for the leader of the Exchange.  Hazar threatens her to get it for free and use it in one of Canderous' plan, and no reason not to bring it along afterwards.

Hidden Beks

:  Mission Vao (Cat Taber).  A young Twi'lek orphan who grew up on the streets of the Taris Lower City.

  Zaalbar (Series of generic Wookiee grunts).  Mission's close friend and protector.

More to come once we meet more people, of course.

[zchris13]

BE HAN SOLO.

[Spartan 117]

BE HAN SOLO.

YEAH, LIGHT SIDE SCOUNDREL, BLASTERS ONLY, FINAL DESTINATION!

[Judas Maccabeus]

Hmph, I was hoping to be a little bit serious about this.... 

(Besides, "blasters only" isn't all that great an idea in this game.  KotOR 2, maybe, but not here...  Light Side Scoundrel definitely works quite fine, though.  )

[Spartan 117]

Fine, we'll be ninja Han Solo. Hand-to-hand only.

[Pathos]

Light side scoundrel, dual wield, no armour, male if you like.

[Spartan 117]

Dual wield is okay too I guess.

One thing I like to do is to dual wield lightsabers, and have one blue and one red.

Then I'd go around saving people and hugging kittens and stuff, before electrocuting bad guys to death en mass.

[zchris13]

No, but seriously, scoundrel, try to be as neutral as possible until you have to go light side.

No super heavy armor, either.

[Phantom]

Wait, Light Side Male Soldier who becomes Light Side Male Jedi Guardian Light Saber Duel Wielder.
Well, I actually don't care about starting class. Just as long as we duel wield swords or heavy blasters.

In the starting area, take the other guys blaster (And sword.) Get the Long Swords later on in the level. Electrocute bad guys on the way to escape pod and take the prototype vibro blade.

I beat this game, twice to have you know. Although I was never able to free this Republic Prisoners on Korriban.

[psyn]

For most fun: DS Scout 2/Consular 18. ~450 FP and you can Force Kill/Force Storm/Death Field 100 enemies in a row before draining force. Heavy armor actually gives more AC due to AC type stacking rules (Jedi robe AC does not stack with powers) -- except maybe for a 28+ Dex. build, I can't remember -- but it limits the fun powers.

And whatever you do, don't go with a LS Consular unless you enjoy Force Waving every enemy to death.

[Spartan 117]

LS Soldier or Scoundrel. Male. Duals.

[Judas Maccabeus]

[Dividing this into two parts, since it's rather longer than I expected.]



Intro: The Two Most Annoying Men in the Republic Fleet

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There we go.  One dual-wield sword scoundrel coming right up.  The random name generator even gave a name vaguely reminiscent of Han Solo.


To the game!

Spoiler: Intro (click to show/hide)

Just in case you weren't absolutely sure this was a Star Wars game...





...there's the obligatory opening crawl, complete with obligatory Star Wars Fanfare...



...then the obligatory pan down to a nearby planet...



...and the obligatory ship going past the camera.  It's caught in a battle, and not doing well from the looks of it.

Spoiler: The Endar Spire (click to show/hide)

Music:  The Sith / Endar Spire



The bombardment wakes our hero up.  Get used to overhead shots of him sleeping, by the way, they're going to show up a lot in this game.



Fortunately, Ensign Exposition... I mean, Trask Ulgo is here to help!  I dearly love KotOR, but let's just say it doesn't have the most immersive tutorial in the world.  The sequel was better at it, but then again the sequel was better at a lot of things.



You can't even choose to play it as a non-tutorial, more's the pity.  Ah, well, if it isn't going to do things seriously, neither am I.



"Now hurry up, we have to find Bastila!  We have to make sure she makes it off the ship alive!"



... Our options are equally stupid here, so let's go with the first one.



Fortunately, Trask lives only to provide exposition and make obvious statements.  He's Ric Olie's distant ancestor, apparently.

"One of our primary duties is to guarantee her survival in the event of enemy attack!  You swore an oath just like everyone else on this mission.  Now it's time to make good on that oath!"

"I know all about your repuatation, how you used to smuggle spice and blasters along the Corellian Run.  I guess the Republic figured since they couldn't catch you, they might as well hire you."

"And I'll admit, the Republic is in desperate need of someone with your kind of skills.  Desperate enough to overlook your shady past."

"But now that you've signed on for this mission you're part of the Republic fleet.  And Bastila needs all troops at her side during this attack!"



Yes yes yes I know how to do my job thank you.



Suited up, are you happy now?



Apparently.

"We should stick together; you'll have more success with a party than on your own."



The party selection screen.  This will be more meaningful when we actually have more than 2 NPCs to choose from.



...Locking your crew members in when you most need them seems counterproductive to me.



Going through the door...



We're contacted by Carth Onasi, ace pilot and person who would have been the whiniest character in the Star Wars canon if it weren't for that Anakin Skywalker fellow.

"That was Carth contacting us on our portable communicators.  He's one of the Republic's best pilots!  He's seen more combat than the rest of the Endar Spire's crew put together."

"If he says things are bad, you better believe it.  We have to get to the bridge to help defend Bastila!"

"There's a map of the Endar Spire and a copy of Carth's message in your electronic journal, just in case we get separated."

"Let's move out."



This is pretty much all you'll ever get out of droids.  At least generic ones like this.



First skill use:  Security.  This is of course an easy one just to give you a chance to see how it's used.



On the other side, the Sith and a Republic soldier are fighting it out.  He goes down, and Ensign Exposition provides useful information once again.

"For the Republic!"



The battle screen!  There are buttons to select an attack type by clicking up and down above that sword, so long as you have the feats for them.  We have level 1 Critical Strike right now, but since it makes you miss more often than you likely already will...

Also, see Trask in front of us.  Blaster-using NPCs still happen to love running up and fighting in close quarters, completely negating the advantage of them having blasters in the first place.  At least we can't accidentally hit him.



In any case, it's an easy battle.



As is the next one.



The container in that room has a long sword in it, finally allowing for some dual-wielding!



Around the corner, the Sith and Republic are going at it again.  Note that the explosion is caused by one of the Sith throwing the grenade into melee, at the cost of one of their own soldiers.  Have to love expendability.



There are five to fight at once here; I had to use two medpacks to keep alive.  Scoundrels don't tend to take hits too well.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Through the next door:



The Jedi wins this little fight, but before you think we get a chance to play with lightsabers:



Conveniently timed explosion!  Two more Sith also run over.



They go down easily.  More important is this vibration cell, which will very much come in handy soon.



And we're to the bridge.  Looks like the Sith are here too.



After they're killed, Trask is fortunately here to state what is obvious just from looking at the bridge.

"The Sith want Bastila alive, but once she's off the ship there's nothing stopping them from blasting the Endar Spire into galactic dust!"



Level up time!  I'm saving a point so I can take another in repair skill next level.  Awareness isn't all that amazingly great in this game anyway.



Carth isn't here; hopefully the Sith did kill him and dragged his body somewhere else.  Also:  The planet seems to be a lot further away than it was in the intro movie.



Through another door...



Oh, hello.



Trask rushes to certain death, no doubt about to say "You just killed me!" when the Dark Jedi inevitably does so.



Oh, well, I'm not about to start mourning him.  Onward and starboard-ward!

Spoiler: Endar Spire Starboard (click to show/hide)

...Damn it, he's still alive.

"Bastila's escape pod is away - you're the last surviving crew member of the Endar Spire!  I can't wait for you much longer; you have to get to the escape pods!"

"But be careful.  There's a Sith patrol just down the corridor.  Use your STEALTH skill to sneak past him."



Let's be an idiot this one time.

"How do I shot blaster?"

"First, make sure you have a stealth field generator equipped on your belt.  You can't use your stealth skill without one."

Voice from nowhere:  "Use the mouse and click on the Stealth button to activate it."

"The generator will wrap you in a cloaking effect so you can sneak past the Sith.  Just be careful you don't get too close ore he might notice soemone's there."

"Okay."



Here's the stealth button.  I don't use it all that often, mostly since you don't get experience for the enemies not killed.



You may not be able to see it very well (it's called stealth for a reason), but Hazar makes a little ripple effect in the middle of the screen.

Fortunately, the Sith trooper is distracted by an exploding door, and stares at it for a long time, letting us pass.



The next room:  More Sith.  Can't sneak around them, so we'll have to deal with them the old-fashioned way.



"You could reprogram the damaged assault droid to help you, if you have enough repair parts."

"Or you could use computer spikes to slice into the terminal and use the Endar Spire's security systems against the Sith."



The security camera does show a group of Sith in the room.  You wanted them electrocuted, so:



A container in the room has just enough computer spikes to make it happen.



There they go.



The leader has a vibroblade to replace our short sword.  We can upgrade this weapon later; the vibration cell we picked up off the Jedi is one thing we can use.



"How do I know I can trust you?"

"I'm a soldier with the Republic, like you.  We're the last two crew members left on the Endar Spire."

"Bastila's escape pod's already gone, so there's no reason for us to stick around here and get shot by the Sith.  Now come on - there'll be time for questions later!"



Off we go then!



Ooop, there goes the Endar Spire.



Welcome to Taris.