The minigames in KOTOR are a nice diversion if you ever get sick of roaming the galaxy as a badass Jedi and you're given an introduction to most of them early on. The card game Pazaak, swoop racing and turret battles are all integrated into the story, so you WILL have to learn them and be good, but I see them more as a way of fleshing out the Star Wars credibility that Knights of the Old Republic has in excess.

For those that are familiar with the Xbox version of the game, it's definitely worth noting the changes to the interface. Instead of being a direct port from the console as many games are, which usually forget to take advantage of the mouse almost entirely, the interface has been redesigned with those controls in mind and work very well. The great thing is you can play the entire game using the keyboard by itself or just the mouse as the left mouse button can be used to move forward and holding down the right button puts the player in mouse-look mode. A smart talking head icon will show when the cursor moves over a player that can be spoken to. And when in battle, players can use the mouse button to pick through the various attacks and actions or use hotkeys. Objects can also be cycled through using the keyboard just as the triggers would work on the Xbox controller, but the mouse will work for you also, although sometimes cycling through them will actually be easier. Overall, they've done a really fantastic job converting the interface for optimum performance on the PC and the effort is well appreciated.

Graphics

Knights of the Old Republic has the look of an action title, not your run of the mill 3/4 view PC RPG. In fact, it'll end up having more in common, in terms of visuals, with this fall's Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy than you might expect. Detailed character models, the lip-synching and combat animations, and extremely impressive environmental effects are the game's strengths and overwhelm any problems it has with framerate. Granted, we were running the game with a high-end PC (Dan was going to test it on his crapper at home, but it, well... crapped out), but we were also running the game in 1280x960 with 4x AA on and it ran well. At 1600x1200 things slowed down a bit with AA on, but once turned off, ran smooth as butter again.

Anyway, the locations in KOTOR are so beautifully rendered, you've got to think that George Lucas himself would want to pay a visit to Bioware to find out how they created such impressive digital mountains and buildings. You'll go from the murky Shadowlands on the surface of the forest-planet Kashyyk, to the bowels of a Sith battleship to the dusty dunes of good old Tatooine in this game and never does one environment look or feel like another. The grasses on Dantooine and Kashyyk bend and sway as you disturb them walking by, an effect that at one time was extraordinary, but still looks good. On Tatooine you'll be able to see little swirls of dust spin up into little whirlwinds and dissipate. Even when you reach the limits of areas you can explore and are looking out at the backdrop painting on, say, the ocean world of Manaan or rocky planet Korriban, that painting is so detailed that it looks like you could venture out across the rest of the planet if only this was an action game with a jump button. We end up getting the same effect in a Star Wars videogame that we get in the movies.

The real-time lighting in the game is a little sketchy, however, because you can get what appear to be real-time shadows when you're trudging across the Tatooine desert or space-walking like Buzz Aldrin, but when you spark up a lightsaber in a dark cave, you won't get any reflections of the cave's inner surfaces, even if the characters themselves do light up appropriately. Nonetheless the bloom lighting when you look up at the blazing suns on Tattooine is blindingly spectacular, and you'll really appreciate it when you move your character so that the suns are suddenly blocked out by a gigantic Sandcrawler. Along with that, the PC offers the chance to up the graphics from the capabilities of the Xbox for soft shadows (but only for Nvidia users) and anti-aliasing as well as those much higher resolution textures that make the worlds sing.

The characters in Knights sare all drawn and animated with plenty of believable detail and the game's story certainly wouldn't be as compelling if they weren't. Considering you can change the clothing, equipment and weapons of the nine characters that will eventually be in your squad and that these changes are instant, Bioware could've been inviting disaster if they hadn't known what they were doing. You can look at your television and appreciate the difference between Carth's personal blaster and a Heavy Mandalorian blaster that somebody might be carrying. We're still trying to figure out the subtle differences between a Jedi Robe, a Jedi Knight Robe and Jedi Master Robe, but we know they're there because the multiple kinds of armor and battlesuits all have differences that you can recognize.

It's when the characters in this role-playing game start moving and speaking, that all your Star Wars fantasies come true. All of the conversations are letterboxed cutscenes so you can see the text of the dialogue and your responses in the black bars above and below the picture. The fact that you can read, listen and see the character's mouth (if it has one) moving draws you into the experience of this Star Wars story because you see the wrinkles on a treacherous Twi'lek's face or the giant Wookiee looming over your character. If we had one nit to pick it's that using the game engine in the conversation scenes (the camera basically zooms in close) reveals a few shortcomings in the facial expression system but then again it certainly keeps things quick and seamless with loading times between action and dialogue. One thing that should be noted about using higher resolutions on this PC version is that the text will be considerably smaller on your screen. At 1600x1200 it can really put a strain on your eyes having to read what that Rodian is saying since it's subtitled thanks to the actual Rodian language being used.

You won't get much of a thrill from the combat early on because using ranged weapons is your best bet in the beginning. But getting your hands on a lightsaber or two upon becoming a Jedi really opens things up. There are unique dueling animations that take into account the number of sabers involved in the fight and the proficiency of the combatants. A lightsaber fight against a Dark Jedi early in the game may look nothing like a fight against a Dark Jedi Master later on because both you and your enemy will be stronger by then. At first you're simply happy to see your Jedi whirling and slashing a saber by throwing multiple flurry attacks against an enemy. By the time you level up to a 15 or 16 Jedi, you'll be mixing in force powers in between lightsaber swings and enemies (even soldiers wielding conventional blades) will have better defense. This is how you'll get spectacular lightsaber clashes with all of that glowing energy and that crackling sound. But you'll actually see your character and enemy lunge and parry and end up with their blades crossed, each pushing into the other trying to get the advantage. It's all very quick and subtle but also very satisfying if you pay attention.