KOTOR Combat

**Brevity** · 05-16-2003

Hands on with Bioware's innovative combat system.
IGN

May 16, 2003 - Continuing the virtual onslaught of information on this title, we took some time to sit down with Mike Gallo, Producer of KotOR, to check out the combat system in a little more detail. As you may already know, things work a little differently in this latest installment of the Star Wars genre than in previous titles, such as the fantastic Jedi Outcast, or its newest sibling Jedi Academy. We wanted to get a feel for just how different that system is, and how well it'll play out in the end.

The game uses a rules-based combat package, utilizing the d20 system made popular by old pen-and-paper RPG's. Such systems have been working well in D&D-type games such as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, also developed by Bioware. However, how it stacks up in a game like this remains to be seen. Mike and his team of developers were kind enough to let us get a peek at it so we could judge for ourselves.

In short, the peek was fairly pretty. When combat ensues, though events take place in "real time", the player has the option to pause the action and select special attacks for each of his three characters. In fact, the team hinted at including an "auto-pause" option that would immediately freeze the action upon encountering any one of several player-set conditions, such as "player is attacked", or NPC's are aggroed. A host of force powers (46 in all) await the Jedi player, while several non-force-oriented feats, weapon choices, and abilities are avaiable to those a little less attuned in the arts of flinging lightning bolts and lifting X-Wings. Moreover, up to 3 follow-up actions can be queued up per character while paused to ensure that combat doesn't become a series of pause-choose-unpause-watch for 2 seconds-repeat. For instance, in one battle we fought 3 Dark Jedi at once (a considerable challenge one might think), but were able to dispatch them rather easily by combining the forces of our party. A couple Life Steals from the main character, grouped with a Force Lightning and Force Whirlwind attack from our Jedi counterpart softenened up the opposition. Finally, a frag grenade attack from the resident furball of the party dealt the final blow.

Clearly, the player's choices on what strategies and attacks to employ will play a crucial role in the outcome of each and every battle. In this way the title takes one a much more mature approach to combat than your standard hack-and-slash adventure, requiring that the player truly understand the abilities of his characters, and be able to determine the best possible times and ways to utilize their individual talents. Thankfully though, for those who like to plan out their strategies a little more carefully than the average bear, the pause option slows down the action enough to make such efforts feasible. Honestly, the action feels quite reminiscent of Vampire: The Masquerade, only with more to do and the "Star Warsy" feel that makes games like this so much fun to play. Cuz sucking blood may be cool, but let's face it, lightsabers just own.

Keep checking back for yet more updates on KotOR. Lord knows the chances of us coming up with something else to be impressed about here is more than a possibility. Back to the floor....

-- Rich Rouse