Backwards-Compatible Game of the Week: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Precious few great franchises debuted on the original Xbox.  Even more rare for the system was a remarkable RPG, a fact that earned sneers of contempt from PS2 owners enjoying one bizarrely-titled JRPG after another.  That’s all fine and dandy, but they were denied one elite franchise that gave instant nerdgasms to Xbox owners.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was developed by Bioware, the minds behind the legendary Baldur’s Gate PC titles.  KOTOR, as the game is commonly known, takes place about two thousand years prior to the events from the epic films.  KOTOR puts you in the role of a mysterious force-sensitive human given the responsibility to lead a group of fellow warriors around the galaxy in an attempt to find and defeat an evil Sith Lord.  The plot is brilliant in its simplicity and thoroughly engaging, mainly due to very educated writing, fascinating characters, and the best voice cast money can buy.  The game also sent players reeling in disbelief with one jaw-dropper of a plot twist.

As an RPG, KOTOR stands as one of the most finely crafted in existence and delivers the best in diverse customization and strategic combat.  Moral choices also have an incredible effect on how the game unfolds:  you can be a legendary hero, a sadistic and homicidal psychopath, or someone like Han Solo.  Choosing the Light Side of the Force via good deeds will result in an aptitude for defensive powers such as healing, and your companions will often pat you on the back with the proper respect.  Falling to the Dark Side makes you fluent in hostile, offensive powers and will earn you contempt from those around you.  Your skin will also take on a gray and sickly pallor as a physical manifestation of your corruption.  Some decisions will even affect whether or not certain supporting characters will join your team at all, which can remove potential party members and their respective backstories from the plot entirely.  Herein lies the core of KOTOR’s magnificence:  replayability.

KOTOR’s main weaknesses are purely visual and easily overlooked given the game’s variety and depth.  Textures lack detail, characters tend to consist of the same few models, and the framerate chugs a bit throughout.  KOTOR will also talk your ear off if you let it but your character can often tell those chatterboxes to literally shut up, and one may be so inclined given the repetitive vocal phrases of most non-humans, especially the Twi’leks.  But skipping dialogue means skipping story, so handle that as you will.  Well, that pretty much sums up the game’s flaws.  So what, right?  Exactly.

KOTOR is widely reknowned as the best Star Wars game ever made, one of the greatest RPGs ever made, and the single most impressive RPG to ever grace the Xbox.  Even amongst Star Wars fanboys, KOTOR is often considered equal in quality to The Empire Strikes Back.  Could there be a higher compliment?  

Be sure to check out the game’s incredible reviews and you’ll be more than willing to shell out a measly thirteen American dollars for a used copy of this classic at any Gamestop…and I’m not being sarcastic like I was with my last BCGOTW .

PAST BCGOTW RECOMMENDATIONS:
Elder Scrolls III:  Morrowind 
Fable:  The Lost Chapters

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Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Beta Level Cap Rising Today

I suppose we can do without the standard paraphrasing just this once and simply show the email I received last night regarding the CoD4 MP beta:

Hey Everyone – Straight to the Point: The Level Cap Is Rising!Friday morning at 10 am PDT (1 pm EST) we’re going to be increasing the Rank level cap to Level 16. This is going to allow you to rank up and unlock more weapons, more perks, and more features; including Clan Tags (lv. 12). This is the first of several level increases we’re going to do throughout the beta, so keep playing, and we’ll keep you informed of incoming updates. Thanks to everyone currently playing for the tremendous amount of feedback we’ve been receiving; Keep sending it, and we’ll see you online!”

This is great news for those of us tired of joining 16-player matches where all but three people are at level 11, and have been for quite some time.  You have to admit that this is a well-designed system Infinity Ward has implemented in order to keep players coming back.  I’m sure many people have already grown bored with the shooter’s beta phase given its level cap and three maps.  It’s important to dole out little morsels to maintain interest, after all.  I hope that the next carrot-on-a-stick will be an additional map but it’ll probably be another raising of the level cap to 22…but that unlocks the Dragunov !

 

Oblivion Expansions Hitting Retail Shelves

As if the original Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion didn’t have enough creatures to slay and a big enough world to explore, the Bethesda Blog says that Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine expansions will be made available on retail store shelves in October.  For those not already savvy to the best-selling RPG, these expansions have been available on Xbox Live Marketplace for months and have received outstanding reviews. 

Those without Xbox Live access can finally experience these great add-ons, and also for a lower price.  On Xbox Marketplace, both expansions combined cost 3200 Microsoft points, or the equivalent of about $40 USD.  The retail version will spare you ten bucks at $29.99, a pittance for forty more hours of an already outstanding title.  As an added benefit, the disc-based expansions can be resold once completed, as opposed to being stuck with a digital download you don’t play anymore.  Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine are expected to hit shelves in October, but a specific date wasn’t given.  Also, bear in mind that the remaining additional content to be found on Xbox Marketplace, such as the coveted horse armor , will not be included with the retail expansion.

 

Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Beta Access: Only $1,250?

No, this isn’t the highest eBay bid for a code key.  Seems that remarkably simple action has finally been taken to prevent unauthorized access to the CoD 4 MP Beta.  A photo at The Above Domain shows beta access priced at a slightly-inflated 99,999 MS points, the equivalent of 1,250 American dollars.  So if you don’t mind hitting up Daddy for the cost of twenty games, then I guess there’s no stopping you, theoretically.  Whoever has the money has the power, right?

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Halo 3 News: Vol. 1

Sometimes there’s just too heavy a flow of Halo 3 news for one man such as me to monitor all day long, so I’m compiling various headlines into one post on a frequent basis.  By the looks of how often news is getting dug up on Microsoft’s superweapon of a game, that basis could very well be daily.  Here we go with the first “official” incarnation of Halo 3 headlines at Xbox 360 Truth.

MASTER CHIEF:  STUFF OF LEGENDS?
Could it be that Master Chief is joining the legendary celebrities and historical figures at Madame Tussauds world-famous wax museum in London?  Not bloody likely.  Someone snapped a photo of what is almost certainly an unfinished Master Chief statue or figure (or costume?), but the person posting the photo merely claims that it was taken at the museum.  This is skeptical at best.  I don’t see a videogame icon earning a spot with the likes of Winston Churchill while I exist on this earth, and there seems to be no real proof thus far as to the picture’s veracity, so this could have been taken in someone’s house for all we know.

SUGAR ADDICTS, FANBOYS, OR EBAYERS?
These pictures, however, are for real.  There are now two incidents of people posting photographic evidence of massive Game Fuel stockpiles.  The first photo appeared at Microsoft Is Awesome (swear to God) while another has recently appeared at Xbox360Fanboy.  Game Fuel is the limited edition Halo 3 soda that has apparently become rather difficult to find in some places (I wonder why…).  I hear the stuff tastes like liquified gummy bears, so I can’t imagine building pyramids to honor its flavor.  This is definitely fanboy material, and you just know sealed Game Fuel cans will be collectibles once the drink’s production is inevitably discontinued.  As a result, they will mostly likely fetch some tidy eBay bids someday.

Also check out earlier posts about preordering Halo 3 in an unlikely place, TIME’s take on the Halo phenomenon, and Korea’s…uh, we’ll call it “quirky” Halo 3 commercial:
Halo 3 Amusement: Master Chief in TIME and Korea
Preorder Halo 3 at… Hot Topic?

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Sunday Splurge 360: Stranglehold Sale, HD-DVD Deal, Live Arcade Special

Circuit City dominates this week’s edition of Sunday Splurge, as they’re the only one of the biggest stores offering any sales of note.  That’s the place to go for Stranglehold this week, for certain: a very appealing $47.99 (according to the ad) for the John Woo/Chow Yun Fat bullet orgy.  For today and tomorrow ONLY they’re giving away a wireless controller and Rockstar’s Table Tennis with purchase of a Premium console.  Circuit FTW this week.

Best Buy is a total disappointment.  No discounts, and they’re actually advertising 2006 releases Rainbow Six Vegas and Gears of War at regular prices.  Normally I wouldn’t mention games that aren’t discounted, but this is just lame.  Honestly…

Amazon is still running an awesome promotion for those hesitant on taking the plunge into HD-DVD.  Buy the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player for $180, get EIGHT movies free–three at purchase and five more after rebate.  Some of these choices were practically made for hi-def such as Batman Begins and Superman Returns.

A few cheap games are cheaper still on Xbox Live Arcade.  Four games are available at half price for the weekend:  Zuma and Small Arms are 400 MS points, while retro classics Gauntlet and Dig Dug are a mere 200 points.  Hurry, because they go back to regular price at 11:59 PM GMT on Monday, Sept. 3.

 

Backwards-Compatible Game of the Week: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

One of the benefits I wish to provide with the BCGOTW feature is to offer further exposure to games of outstanding quality that were overshadowed by titles enjoying higher demand.  A great deal of care and labor went into excellent games that ended up cast aside in favor of what was popular, and oftentimes the titles that fly off shelves were slapped together in short order but sold famously due to their use of a familiar license.  Sequels and spin-offs are even more guilty of walking over original games that forge unique and unforgettable experiences.  And so I find it my duty to expose these unsung heroes, as they deserve equal or better exposure than the mediocre juggernauts that captured the world’s attention instead.  This week’s overlooked gem is the mysterious cult hit Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The Xbox 360 has been around almost two years and not one current-gen game has offered up the degree of scope and variety to be found in GTA:SA.  Not even the remarkably similar Saint’s Row and the open-world Oblivion boast such size and diversity.  GTA IV is the next title with any chance of accomplishing this, but Rockstar has already revealed that the next GTA will be scaled down in size and features in favor of a more realistic experience. There won’t even be any airplanes, which GTA:SA has in abundance.

GTA:SA spreads its decadent thuggery across three enormous cities separated by a vast rural landscape peppered with small towns and various points of interest.  As you progress through the game’s compelling story of betrayal, blackmail and redemption, it’s easy to become distracted by the plethora of extraneous activities.  Driving around being evil is always a fun option, but you can also shoot hoops, race by any means, practice at a shooting range, buy clothes, skydive, fly fighter jets, drive lawnmowers, shoot pool, gamble, date women, mod cars, and the list goes on.   GTA:SA stands as the best example to date of how a video game can double as a playground so big that you could put in a hundred hours and still not have seen everything.

GTA:SA looks horrific by today’s standards, but still may be just what you’re looking for if you’ve already blown through BioShock and would like something a bit more open with a few more things to do.  The game also received stellar reviews by the few publications who cared enough to check it out and didn’t give in to evaluating only what was flying off shelves just to score some site hits.  So by all means, deviate from the mainstream and check out San Andreas.  It’s a virtual playground that offers so much quality, content, and style that it deserved to have become one of the bestselling games of all time. 

(Yes, I know…)

RECENT BCGOTW FEATURES:
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Fable:  The Lost Chapters

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Complete BioShock Achievement Guide Posted

As we achievement whores know, BioShock has a thousand of the easiest gamerscore points out there.  In fact, a person with the right guide can grab up the whole grand in a single playthrough.  That right guide is here and even comes complete with strategy videos showing how to deal with those groaning Big Daddies.  “sircuddles”, a forum member at Achieve360Points.com, has taken a great deal of time to craft a comprehensive walkthrough of 2007’s masterpiece.  Thankfully, it features accurate instructions on where to find all those audio diaries as well, some of which are well hidden and can be easily overlooked if you miss a vent opening, for example.

I’m not one to go hunting for every achievement on the first playthrough of any game.  I want to enjoy the game as intended first and seek achievements later, and you will spoil BioShock’s story if you refer to this guide right away.  You’ll ruin wrenching plot twists and stunning revelations by doing so, and I’m not exaggerating.  BioShock’s higher echelon of storytelling is exceedingly rare in video games and not that much more common in movies, truth be told.  You have been warned.

RELATED ACHIEVEMENT STORIES:
Madden 08 Achievement Guide Posted
No Multiplayer Achievements for Call of Duty 4

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Halo 3 Amusement: Master Chief in TIME and Korea

Xbox 360 Rally came across an article at TIME about the Halo phenomenon.   Although written from a distance, as is the case with most mainstream publications addressing subcultures, TIME’s article does offer accurate facts and a fair amount of respect for Master Chief and Halo.  I especially like this passage:  ”Halo takes itself seriously as, if not art, certainly a spectacle. But art seems more apt.”  That should punch Ebert’s button.   Also, I just love how the article consistently refers to everyone’s helmeted hero as “the Master Chief”, as if there’s a lower-ranked Expert Chief sidekick or something.  But, hey–they’re trying.

Xbox 360 Fanboy was referred to a very entertaining Halo 3 commercial in Korea.  Some Halo fanboys will undoubtedly be offended by this ad, as it depicts someone in a Master Chief costume committing such unbecoming acts as attacking a fake dinosaur and dancing with people on the subway.  But this is the wacky voice to be used if you want to sell things in Asia, and to spread the Halo greatness you must be multilingual.  Oh, and the zany rebel yell cracks me up every time.

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Preorder Halo 3 at… Hot Topic?

They’ve been selling Halo 3 hoodies for months, so in a way it makes sense.  Not only can you reserve the limited edition or regular version of the game at Hot Topic, but you can drop a deposit on the special edition controllers, headset, and even the Halo 3 console.  Check out the website and preorder it all right away if you so desire.  Something to consider if you can live without the Legendary Edition:  by reserving at Hot Topic you could mostly likely avoid the subway-at-rush-hour conditions surely to be found at all Gamestops on September 25, and you can pick up all of your glorious Harry Potter merch while you’re at it! 

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