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Just as I was eagerly awaiting an appointment with Bioware, during which I was shown Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for Xbox. I must own this game. When I finally do own it, I shall make a "Female Scoundrel" character named "Magenta Black." She will wield a pinkish lightsaber and dress darkly. Whether she'll be good or evil, I don't know. I can't say. I shall let her do as she pleases. Then I'll play the game again as "DH Grey," trying to stay on the light side; he'll become beautiful-skinned and shiny as his "force" meter drifts from the middle to the "Light" side. Then I'll play again, as "Sud RaSud," and totally give myself to the dark side; I'll speak meanly to NPCs, start fights, get gutsy, and grow mysterious tattoos on my paling skin.
Best Star Wars game ever, as far as I'm concerned, and RPG of the show.
The Bioware guys told me it'd take about forty hours to finish the game the first time. After that, I could probably blow through it in twenty. I like this kind of length. I like not being told it's going to take me ninety-five hours to beat the damned game. The quest in Knights of the Old Republic is quite refined, and I like that, too. The graphics are nice, the sound is perfect, and every NPC's dubbed dialogue is approved by Lucasfilm linguists. Whether you like Star Wars or not, this one has shaped up to be a beautiful RPG. Hell, maybe it'll even be RPG of the year. The downside is that it's now been pushed back from June 25th to . . . "Sometime in July." Damn it.
When the two new Neverwinter Nights expansions are coming out for PC, no one said. Which is fine by me, as long as the games show up as high-quality as I know they will. New to these expansions are the ability to script movie sequences in modules -- making NPCs attack NPCs as part of a player-created story, for example -- and a higher reliance on consequences. For example, if you are mean to an NPC, he might not ever talk to you again, and you might not ever be able to open certain quests. I tend to like that kind of harshness in my RPGs.
I don't, however, like not being able to name my RPG character. In Bethesda's Pirates of the Caribbean for Xbox, I have to play as whatever bearded guy Johnny Depp portrays in the upcoming Major Motion Picture. Once you actually get into the game, it makes little difference -- everything else is ridiculously customizable. The towns look nice; any NPC can be attacked whenever the player feels like it, perhaps necessitating some diplomatic relations afterward; the water flows like water; random encounters include friendly ships, hostile ships, and storms; trade routes can be managed, contraband goods can be sold, and different weapons can be equipped, resulting in one of those long, long PC-style sim-RPGs that you wouldn't mind never ending. Call this one the game of the show: pirate-related.
Bethesda also showed us Call of Cthulhu for PC, and for a guy who's never read any of the books, I sure had half the hell impressed out of me. Is it a first-person shooter? Is it an RPG? Survival horror? Whatever it is, it looks immersive, highly narrative, graphically gorgeous, and soon-to-be legendary. Eric-Jon, both a fan of Daggerfall and of HP Lovecraft, has more to say than I can. I shall, at present, award this one as game that makes me want to read a book -- in a good way.
Conker: Live and Uncut, for the Xbox, is something I really don't have very much to say about at all. The only level I played was something of a third-person shooter. I had a bazooka, and I was shooting at some other squirrel. The game was, if nothing else, polished as all hell -- though I doubt it was polished enough for Rare's liking. I had hit Microsoft's booth late on day one of E3, and the Rare guys were afoot in the Rare corner, answering questions. I had one for them:
"Any chance of a sequel to Solar Jetman?"
The guy just laughed at me. I'll take that as a . . . "Yes"?
Perfect Dark Zero was sadly absent. Some game called Grabbed by the Ghoulies was around, though. It looked something like a silly platformer involving silly monsters and silly weapons. Kameo, also -- surprise -- for Xbox, looked like something a little more serious. Its art style, similar to the art style revealed for the new Perfect Dark, pleases me. The game itself didn't leave much of an impression.
My thoughts of Rare's lineup, assembled winners of the I'd rather play Solar Jetman 2, and that's not an insult award, told to Eric-Jon as we waited in line for the Halo 2 demo: "I'd really like a job writing stories for them. They could do wonders with Tokyo Psychic University." Eric-Jon seemed to agree. I can't really be sure. Maybe I'm the only person on earth who thinks a story-heavy game by Rare would kick anything with an ass.
[next: Ungodly Amounts of Fun]
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