Now, let me say that Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, being a turn based RPG and heavily dependent upon the story line, is a definite candidate for our Game of the Year. It is awesome! The game has so deeply penetrated my consciousness that at the grocery store this morning I called someone a "Rakghoul" for pulling out of a parking space before me.

Why don't I go ahead and preface the game's story for you: There is a great war between the Sith and the Republic. This is about 4,000 years before Luke and Han and the gang. You play the game as a Jedi who has only recently discovered his/her powers. It is your job to figure out what the two evil Sith (Revan and Malak) did to make themselves so powerful. Along your way you get lots of help from a seemingly endless cast of characters. Yoda, he's there (except his name is Vandar). Chewy, well you get Zaalbar and a whole Wookiee planet. Han Solo, how about Carth...yeah, he'll do. And what about Leah? Hmmm. Looks a lot like Bastila to me.

In order to discover Malak's evil plan you need to travel from planet to planet discovering pieces of a map which will lead to Malak's enclave. On each planet you encounter people/beings who need your help. Enter the side quests. Yes, this game is full of side quests. Literally dozens of them. Everything from helping a poor woman get her droid back to freeing the Wookiees on Kashyyk to figuring out who kidnapped all of the Selkath (water people) children.

As you play through the game you have to make hundreds of decisions. The choices you make greatly influence the game. The most obvious way is via your "Force Meter." You can either be a Light or Dark Jedi. If you help someone out you get some "Light side points." If you tell someone to bug off or kill them (sorry Juhani!) you get "Dark side points." Various "Force Powers" are available to you depending if you are a dark or light Jedi. For example, if you are a dark Jedi you can force-choke enemies. On the light side, you can make them freeze (statis).

Your choices also determine many of the events in the game. If you don't help people you'll get fewer side quests and the game will go by much faster. If you are nice and tell everyone that you meet that you'll help them you get side quest after side quest and the game becomes considerably longer. In other words, if you choose the easy route and don't help anyone you are looking at about 30 hours of gameplay. If you're like us and had to do everything you're looking at about 60 hours of gameplay. Well worth your $50 either way.

Let's focus on the gameplay itself. You are the main character and at any one time you'll have 2 other people in your party. Therefore you are controlling 3 people at a time. You can switch between characters at any time to perform character-specific functions like opening a security door or slicing into a computer. You get experience points for tasks and for killing enemies. Your characters level-up and you can either choose to customize them or just go for the "auto-upgrade." As the game goes on, your characters become more and more powerful and have more and more weapons and force options availabe to them.

Most of the gameplay is either battling enemies or figuring out puzzles. Many of these puzzles are math puzzles. The kind of fare that you'd find on a logic test such as figuring out what the next number would be in a string of numbers or how to measure four gallons when you have a 3 gallon container and a 5 gallon container (made famous in Die Hard 3 with Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis in the park when they need to diffuse the bomb). There are also various murder trials that you have to help in detemining the guilty party by doing investigative work and interviewing witnesses.

There are thousands of items in this game. The coolest and most important of which is the lightsaber. Not only will you find many lightsabers of various colors and styles but you can upgrade using various crystals. Each Jedi you have in your party can wield two lightsabers or one doulbe-bladed lightsaber. In addition to the lightsabers there are various blasters, grenades, armor, implants, shields, belts, etc. that help your characters in various ways.

In summary, this is a huge, complex game that requires you to pay attention and get involved in the story. The story is so good that I personally feel it's a better plot than either of the new Star Wars prequels. The RPG aspect of the game is not over bearing and will not hinder any newcomers to the genre, myself included. The controls are easy to use and the menus and map are wonderful. If you have $50 and an extra 40 hours of your life to spend being taken away into a deep world of Jedi Knights, right and wrong, and wonderully imaginative planets then you'll absolutely love this game.