I saw Knights of the Old Republic in my local Department store for cheap. I don't play video games that often. In fact, I have NWN Diamond Ed. on my laptop and have been downloading modules now and then. I read once on some other site about a similar question for a replacement game for Diablo 2 LOD and NWN and it was suggested I get Kotor. Well I couldn't find it then and I was just wondering if it is a good game compared to NWN.
I am bad at video games and strategy games.
If Kotor is a broadband game, I'd only play it single player, same as NWN.
Thanks for the Info.
I thought it was bloody brilliant.
Neverwindter Nights and Knights of the old Republic are very similar games in spirit.
Both are d20 systems adapted into a semi-real time game. It's a little more akin to NWN2 than 1 but i think you'll find your way into the game quickly. The biggest difference should be the setting.
In terms of storyline, characters, environments and so on, KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC is vastly superior to NEVERWINTER NIGHTS. KotOR is widely-regarded as one of BioWare's best-ever games, probably challenged for that title only by BALDUR'S GATE 2. NWN is highly-regarded for its engine and for its toolkit: the SP campaign in NWN is solid but not that great (though certainly entertaining).
The biggest difference with KotOR is that the camera is locked over your character's shoulder rather than overhead and you control most things with the keyboard rather than the mouse. It's a bit different from NWN (despite using the same engine, more or less) but doesn't take long to get used to.
KotOR 1 and 2 are simply excellent games and well-worth playing. However, they can be fiddly to get working on Windows 7 systems (unlike NWN which I found worked fine right out of the box). There's plenty of advice on Google how to overcome those issues though.
|
I saw Knights of the Old Republic in my local Department store for cheap. I don't play video games that often. In fact, I have NWN Diamond Ed. on my laptop and have been downloading modules now and then. I read once on some other site about a similar question for a replacement game for Diablo 2 LOD and NWN and it was suggested I get Kotor. Well I couldn't find it then and I was just wondering if it is a good game compared to NWN.
I am bad at video games and strategy games.
If Kotor is a broadband game, I'd only play it single player, same as NWN.
Thanks for the Info.
Diablo 2 & NWN tend to be heavier on the action while Kotor is more story driven. That said, Kotor is one of my favorite games. The combat can take a bit to get use to these days but the story is worth it.
NWN still exists as a game because people are still making modules for it or there are many to play on the nwvault.ign.com site. Even though NWN is a relatively old game, it is this that keeps it going. I can go there now and get a module and keep playing the game. I could (if my ability was up to scratch) make my own).
The question I suppose is, Does KotOR have such a thing?
I was really worried by what I saw in the box art. Now that I know it is more like NWN, I am willing to get the game, I will do so.
Just curious, NWN sold in a Diamond edition that had all the updates on the DVD. Bioware stopped supporting the game and it was difficult to find the last updates and they were only available via that DVD or the nwvault forum I don't know if that is the case with this game too.
You can get the last KotOR patch here. Since LucasArts folded, I'm not sure how long the website will stay up, so I'd grab it now.
If you plan to play KotOR 2 afterwards, remember to get both the patch and the HD movies update, as they make the game basically playable. There's also an argument for using the complete update mod for KotOR 2, due to LucasArts shipping the base game in an unfinished state. The base game is playable and completable (with the main quest), but there's a whole load of subplots and secondary quests left hanging. But it's best to worry about that when you get to it :)
My review of KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC is here and the sequel here. My take on NEVERWINTER NIGHTS, which may be useful as a comparison, is here.
KotOR and KotOR II were the best games on the original XBOX hands down.
KotOR is in fact built on the Neverwinter Nights engine. I would say storywise, it is superior to NWN's original campaign.
Gameplay wise, one thing to note: I found some of the arcade-style mini games (which have no equivalent in NWN) difficult, and some of them are unfortunately mandatory -- you have to win this race to get off the first planet, and there some star battles you have to fight where you man the guns. I think there was a mandatory pazaak game too, but at least I was fairly good at pazaak (which is a card game). I got better at the races and gun battles so they did not keep me from finishing the game, but I got frustrated I had to do these arcadey-like skill games (which I am not great at, especially with laggy PC controls) to progress in my story-based RPG. Even as you get past the mandatory ones, they're still the best way to earn money, which is annoying--basically the game is harder and you feel like you fall behind if you don't play them.
|
Still doesn't impact the awesomeness of the story.
Man i loved to flirt with Bastila, partly because the only other choice was a cat girl, and i'm no furry, and because i loved her embarrassed andswers. Man i wish Bioware would redo KOTOR in Mass Effect 3 engine with lightsaber fights like in Jedi Knight 2.
I would say storywise, it is superior to NWN's original campaign.
I would say that, storywise, it is superior to any NWN and NWN II expansion. Yeah, that one dialogue with you know who in Mask of the Betrayer was pretty awesome, and Hordes of the Underdark was decent, but KotOR and KotOR II are still superior IMO.
The only thing NWN and NWN II have over KotOR and KotOR II is the campaign editor and customization: there's more classes, races, feats and spells in NWN than in KotOR.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Still doesn't impact the awesomeness of the story.
No, it doesn't, but if he doesn't play a lot of video games, it's important to be aware of the gameplay factor. After all, if you can't finish the awesome story because you just can't hack the last leg of the race, that's all the more frustrating.
I would say that, storywise, it is superior to any NWN and NWN II expansion. Yeah, that one dialogue with you know who in Mask of the Betrayer was pretty awesome, and Hordes of the Underdark was decent, but KotOR and KotOR II are still superior IMO.
I personally would put it as better than NWN1 and 2OC and Shadows of Undrentide, on par with Hordes of the Underdark and Storm of Zehir, and not as good as Mask of the Betrayer. But then, the only game I would personally put as "as good or better than Mask of the Betrayer" would be Planescape: Torment. Maaybe KotOR2, which is better than the first KotOR, IMO. Just my personal opinion.
Well, the thing that hurts Mask of the Betrayer story the most is the fact that MotB is the sequel of the horrible NWN II OC, which was still better than the original NWN OC. It is like trying to build a magnificent castle on top of stinking quicksand.
I don't recall Storm of Zehir being very stong, storywise. Was fun for the sandbox/openworld feel though.
KotOR II had better writings than KotOR IMO, and more world-changing choices, but KotOR feels more polished. Both games have a very stong beginning, but the ending of KotOR II feels rushed. I can't tell which one of the two is my favorite.
P.S.: Have you tried Shadowrun Returns yet? The text-heavy aspect of the game kind of reminds me of Torment, but I never completed Torment. The theme is very different though, and Shadowrun Returns feels more modest than Torment, storywise.
KotOR 2 would be superior if it had actually been finished. Even with the mod to restore the lost content, it only goes so far and there's still a lack of polish to KotOR 2.
More to the point, KotOR 2 is essentially a criticism/revisionist take on the STAR WARS universe and George Lucas's simple moral relativism (KotOR 1 is as well, to a more limited extent). Which is fine but the lack of polish and the lack of the normally brilliant Chris Avellone's familiarity with the mythos (Avellone had never watched, read or seen STAR WARS in any form prior to Obsidian getting the KotOR 2 job, apparently) meant that the game often didn't feel like part of the STAR WARS universe. Other revisionist takes on the franchise - like EMPIRE and Matt Stover's novels - succeed better because they also 'feel' like part of the STAR WARS universe.
KotOR 2 I count as a failure in what it was trying to do, but a noble, brilliantly-written and excellently-conceived failure and certainly very much worth playing.
I haven't played NWN2 and its expansions yet. I need to finish off DRAGON AGE (just finished AWAKENINGS, so only DA2 to go) and THE WITCHER games (have about half of W1 and then all of W2 to go) before I even think about the NWN2 collection.
the game often didn't feel like part of the STAR WARS universe.
I think this is actually a good thing because Georges Lucas utterly destroyed the STAR WARS universe. =^.^=
KotOR is in fact built on the Neverwinter Nights engine. I would say storywise, it is superior to NWN's original campaign.
Gameplay wise, one thing to note: I found some of the arcade-style mini games (which have no equivalent in NWN) difficult, and some of them are unfortunately mandatory -- you have to win this race to get off the first planet, and there some star battles you have to fight where you man the guns. I think there was a mandatory pazaak game too, but at least I was fairly good at pazaak (which is a card game). I got better at the races and gun battles so they did not keep me from finishing the game, but I got frustrated I had to do these arcadey-like skill games (which I am not great at, especially with laggy PC controls) to progress in my story-based RPG. Even as you get past the mandatory ones, they're still the best way to earn money, which is annoying--basically the game is harder and you feel like you fall behind if you don't play them.
The gun turret battles on the Xbox version of KOTOR were MUCH easier than the PC version...
The game I saw on the local department store shelf was Star Wars The Old Republic. By all computer stats I could see I could not run it on my 2 year old Toshiba laptop. So if I want KotOR I can get them via Amazon for a good price.
What I read about them was a bit of a surprise. The bad reports said that they do not run on Win 7.
I have Win 7 64bit and run NWN in compatibility mode.
I did a search for kotor and Win7 and it gave several suggestions and one said using compatability mode but the game would run slow and I would not be able to use some shadow features. This is very odd if you guys have said they have used the NWN engine. Why would it be such a pain in the a$$ to run when I can do so much with NWN.
It sounds like people have had no problem with KotOR and Win7.
Just FYI, I have a laptop that isn't a gamers machine. I haven't had problems with NWN, so why would I have problems with this game?
I am sad to here that Kotor doesn't have mods, I have seen a site that offered heads and other modifications to the the game.
I will look into that update as soon as I am sure I will get the game. I don't have broadband. If it's over 20mb, I have to go to a library to get it. I think NWN's final update was about 150mb.
There are mods for KotOR. However, they are much fewer in number than NWN's because KotOR does not have a dedicated toolset, so programming new stuff for KotOR is a lot more complicated and difficult. There are some interesting ones out there though.
And yes, running KotOR on Windows 7 can be tough. There's lots of patches and guides out there to doing it though, so you should be able to do it. You may need compatibility mode, you may need to assign KotOR to run on one core if you have a multi-core system and so on. But even more recent games sometimes need that (DRAGON AGE, released in 2009, can be flaky on multi-core systems as well).
As for why there are issues, NWN is a PC-only game and is much more customisable and was designed for a wide range of hardware. The game is also more accepting of mods and plug-ins to help fix its problems. KotOR, on the other hand, is a console-first game (it was first released for the original X-Box) with a reasonable PC port following. This limited the options they had in making the game.
They do use the same engine (though KotOR's is a hugely upgraded version of it) but that doesn't mean they are the same game. Many games use the UNREAL 3 engine, from RPGs to third-person action games to FPS, but that doesn't stop them from being very different.
|
The game I saw on the local department store shelf was Star Wars The Old Republic. By all computer stats I could see I could not run it on my 2 year old Toshiba laptop. So if I want KotOR I can get them via Amazon for a good price.
What I read about them was a bit of a surprise. The bad reports said that they do not run on Win 7.
I have Win 7 64bit and run NWN in compatibility mode.
I did a search for kotor and Win7 and it gave several suggestions and one said using compatability mode but the game would run slow and I would not be able to use some shadow features. This is very odd if you guys have said they have used the NWN engine. Why would it be such a pain in the a$$ to run when I can do so much with NWN.
It sounds like people have had no problem with KotOR and Win7.
Just FYI, I have a laptop that isn't a gamers machine. I haven't had problems with NWN, so why would I have problems with this game?
I am sad to here that Kotor doesn't have mods, I have seen a site that offered heads and other modifications to the the game.
I will look into that update as soon as I am sure I will get the game. I don't have broadband. If it's over 20mb, I have to go to a library to get it. I think NWN's final update was about 150mb.
I repurchased KotOR 1+2 on Steam, because my first release copys wouldn't run on Win7 and a friend told me her Steam copys would run without any problems. As far as I am concerned, she was right, both games run smoothly.
Good point. Some of these incompatibility issues are down to the PC's default-installation path being changed on later versions of Windows, which confuses things. Steam overcomes that problem by putting the games in the Steam directory and forcing it to run from there.