Very Engrossing Game

I'll admit it. Ever since I saw Star Wars, I've been a jedi-wannabe. I was one of those people who waited in line to see The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. I haven't much followed the Star Wars storyline since, but I did hastily go to the two most recent (and disappointing) movies.

I picked up this game in the store about a year after it came out. It had been named as game-of-the-year in some publication or website I'd been reading. I don't know what I was expecting. I've played games since Pong, and have loved especially role-playing games and first person shooters. I'm not too big on puzzle games like Myst or RPGs that get too much into press these levers in this order and hold the purple flower in your left hand kind of nonsense.

So, I expected to have a few hours of fun for my $20. I was rewarded with an engrossing story, interesting characters, beautiful scenes, and many hours of fun.

This game has a great storyline that is very movie-esque. It combines all of the best parts of the Original Star Wars saga (the mystery of identity, the quest for answers, alliances with strangers, growing friendships, the fear of being prey, the element of the hunt, imminent danger from opposing forces, etc.) in a unique story set several thousand years before the newer movies.

It is the waning days of the Republic. The Jedi have had a schism. The dark forces of the Sith threaten to destroy all that the republic has worked for. You, wake, an amnesiac, on a Republic vessel that is about to be destroyed. As you overcome obstacles and meet new people, you grow in understanding and in power. On each of several beautifully rendered worlds, you discover new pieces to the puzzle of your identity and you grow to reflect your choices as you advance down the path of either Darkness or Light. On the way you also have the chance to test your strategy and reflexes in mini-games that have you playing a card game, racing pods, and manning a gun turret to shoot down the forces of evil.

Other reviewers have mentioned that the storyline is weak or sparse. I'm not sure what they are comparing it to. It definitely allows for much more enjoyment than the Star Wars movies. You have a good bit of latitude. It is true that there are not a whole lot of side quests that don't add up to some part of the major plot and that the intervening mini-game sequences are annoying for those of us who like the story more than we like the fast-twitch, reflex games, but the game is a fun, if fairly linear story, that deals with many of the complexities between good and evil.

I'd also take issue with the game not being very much fun to play over again. One has to choose very often between playing this game as a person seeking to be good (Light Side) and a person seeking to maximize the gain of self (Dark Side). The conversations, relationships and endgame sequences are all interesting and fairly unique to the direction you've decided to follow. So, I played each side and enjoyed the ride. It was fun.

I'm really not that into graphics, but I know that the game looks good and that it runs well and is very nice to look at on my middle-of-the road video card. Nothing is state of the art, but it is quite visually interesting. I particularly like the way you can customize your light-saber color by switching out the color crystals. That was a nice move.

The sound is great. The music sounds Star-Wars-like with big booming swells of sound at the right moment and great chase and fight music. The voice talent is superb. The sound of the lightsabers being drawn and brought together is worth the price of the game for a Star Wars fan, and the various races speaking other languages sound quite authentic. The boom of the Ithorian voices, the metalic grate of the Rodian voices -- From throaty gurgles to menacing clicks, all of these aliens sound truly and wonderfully alien. It is the whole package!
One of the other interesting things about this game to me is that it is just talky enough in the dialogues between you and your compatriots that it brigs up some rather interesting philosophical questions about the Star Wars universe specifically and about the human condition and our search for self-enlightenment and social harmony in general. In the Star Wars movies, the line between the good-guys (the Light side of the Force) and the bad-guys (the Dark side of the Force) is fairly distinct. In the most recent movies they are, of course, moving toward more moral ambiguity in the person of Anikin (Vader), but there is still a strong affective affiliation with those on the light side.

This game really reinforces some of the problems with painting such a distinct division between the two opposites. In fact, your force profile as a player is really a continuum between light and dark, and the people depicted on both sides have both strengths and flaws. Ultimately the timidity, caginess, and elitist spirituality of the Jedi is less repulsive than the Machiavellian, Darwinian, and often arbitrarily cruel nature of the Sith, but underneath this deliniated choice between Dark and Light there is a hidden text that seems to question both sides. In this game there is no middle-of-the-road conclusion that rejects both paths, but it is something that one can consider. I found this distinction to be intellectually stimulating.

From a literary point of view, this is a fine story with two distinct endings, good character development, and believable plot segments. As a game it is fun, engrossing and satisfying to play.

I'd highly recommend it in either the PC or X-box versions.