Greatest Game Ever?

I don't know if you guys have ever played KOTOR, but this game by far out-shines any game I have ever played. This game lets you make choices that determine the story, and there are endless possibilities. Even though this game came out ages ago, it still beats most games made today. BioWare is an absolute genius at making video games. They made KOTOR, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. I absolutely love all of these games, but it all started with KOTOR for me. I remember getting an original Xbox for my seventh birthday, and the first game I got was KOTOR. Being a seven-year old, this game was frustratingly difficult because my tiny little mind couldn't comprehend how customizable it was. But I loved Star Wars, so I kept playing and playing, and as time went on, I got the hang of it. And to this day, I've replayed and beaten that game over a dozen times.

Well, you probably don't care about my experience, but let's dive in to why this game is the dope game it is.

Companions

I think one of the best things in this game are the companions you get. All have their own personalities and skills, and you get to explore their pasts and even unlock special quests with them. Sometimes when you place certain companions together, they will start freaking roasting each other and it is hilarious. Like when Carth calls out Bastila for losing her lightsaber or when Bastila knocks Mission on her butt with the Force.

Just so y'all know; I've beaten the game light side and dark side, but the most fun I have is when I aim for comedy and money. I follow the light side story, but my character tends to be a little on the darker side. Going for money can make you some enemies, and sometimes comedy can be mean so you gain dark side points. But in the end, that's the way I find the most fun in it.

The Endar Spire and Taris

This game probably has one of the best video game storylines I have ever seen. So let's just dive into that right off. You get to make your character first, and you choose your looks first. You can be black, Asian, white, whatever you want. Then you choose your class. Soldier, Scout, or Scoundrel. Soldiers are combat focused, Scouts are more stealthy like a rogue, and Scoundrels I honestly don't know. Only thing is that they can use the neural enhancement thingys—which I never use anyways because they are worth big bucks in the markets. Picking your name is fun. SPOILER ALERT, but I used to always name my guy 'Revan', and then at the end when you find out you're Darth Revan, you get to walk around telling people, 'I'm not Revan anymore, I'm Revan now.' LOL.

So right off the bat, some dude walks into your bedroom while you're in your undies, and tells you that y'all need to leave. The Endar Spire is a Republic ship that is on an important mission, which I now realize is never explained, or even considered important anymore after the events of what happens next. The Sith attack your ship, and you need off. Bastila is the commanding Jedi of the ship, but she dips out quick so you need to find your own way off.

The guy that interrupted your nap is Trask. The dude is actually pretty chill, and he's a handy fighter. Except the dude freaking gets wrecked like immediately... You walk into a room, and a Sith walks out, lightsaber in hand, and lays it down on your buddy Trask while you escape. Sacrifice of the game right there.

So instead you meet up with a dude named Carth. Carth is the pilot and a Republic war hero. Sounds like a total badass right? Yeah, except he's pretty douchey. I swear the dude never believes or trusts anything you say. Every conversation you have with this dude is him whining about why he doesn't get to know every Jedi secret, and why he doesn't trust you. Turns out the Sith bombed his home planet, killing his wife and kid, and he has a personal grudge against Saul Karath, the commanding admiral in the Sith navy. You actually do get to find his son later in the game, but the lil homie has joined the Sith, which makes no sense to me... He hates the Republic because they took his dad away from him all the time. Yeah that sucks, but the Sith killed your mom and bombed your home... I mean yeah, your dad should have been there but... Dad leaving you? Or killing your mom and bombing your home? C'mon dawg...

Even though he kinda sucks sometimes, he's a loyal dude, and has got a wicked strong blaster that you can upgrade. Great ranged companion to have.

You guys crash on the planet of Taris, and since you're only level one, and a total weakling, you get knocked out so Carth has to drag you to an abandoned apartment which you make your base.

Really simply, the Sith control the planet. You can't get off and you need to find Bastila. So you make your way down into the Lower City where the gangs are, by finding yourself a suit of Sith armor, in which you look fly, and everyone you talk to is terrified of you. But then you lose it anyways, because the blind gang leader trades it to you for authorization papers to get to the Under City.

Bastila has been captured by the rival gang, and they are auctioning her off to the winner of the upcoming swoop race. So the only way you'll save her is if you enter the race, win it, and get her as the prize. The Hidden Beks, the gang you're siding with has a prototype accelerator, which will help you win. But it got stolen, and the only person able to help you break into their base, and steal it back, is Mission Vao, who happens to be adventuring in the Under City sewers.

So you get to the Under City where all the rejects live, and it's infested by rakghouls, monsters that transform you into one of them when they bite you. You can help them find the Promised Land, but it doesn't really matter because the planet gets destroyed later anyways. You find Mission, but she'll only help you if you help her save Zaalbar, her Wookiee friend who's been captured by slavers. You save him, he swears a life debt to you, meaning those two will follow you anywhere you go, and then you're set.

Getting off Taris

Mission is dope. She's just a kid, but kicks ass. Except for when you get off Taris, and you'll probably never use her again. Zaalbar is kinda just there too, and doesn't talk much. Mission can unlock any door and hack into any computer system though, which is helpful early on. She also has a brother who I FREAKING hate. That guy is the worst, and you wish so bad that you have the opportunity to kill him, but sadly you don't.

Well, she gets you in the base, you steal the accelerator, win the freaking race as a first-time amateur against long-time pros, and Bastila becomes your prize.

A Jedi. So nice to have a Jedi companion. Well the next step is to get off the planet. A guy named Canderous approaches, and is all 'yo I gotchu.' He tells you to sneak into the Sith base by buying or robbing the droid shop of T3-M4, and have it break you in. T3 joins your squad, but yeah, you're never gonna use him. He's chill and all, but you would choose R2-D2 to back you up in a fight despite how much you love him.

You break in, steal the codes, visit the crime boss Davik, and out-crime him by stealing his ship. Then you dip off the planet, right as Darth Malak and Sith decided to bomb the whole thing and kill everybody. Sweet.

Dantooine

Bastila tells you to go to Dantooine, where the Jedi council is. They decide you need to become a Jedi, and you have some kind of bond with Bastila (that's hot). You're a badass so you complete the year-long training in like two weeks and you're off. You get to settle a classic Romeo and Juliet family feud, solve a murder, save a fallen Jedi named Juhani, who later joins you, and then finds a Star Map. The map is incomplete though, and you need to find the other ones so you can find the Star Forge, which you have no clue what it even is at this point.

Tatooine

First planet you visit is Tatooine, the desert world. The Star Map is somewhere out in the desert, and the only way to get out there is by getting a hunting license from Czerka, and the only way they'll give it to you is if you help them with the Sand People problem. So you got two options here: first option, buy a translator droid named HK-47 to help you. He costs like 5000 credits, which at this point in the game, is a ton. So you can threaten the shop owner with death and get a 50 percent off discount. Turns out, HK-47 is also a baller at shooting people, and likes to call you a 'meat-bag.' HK-47 can translate Sand People speech, and you can sneak your way into their enclave, and bring him water storage stuff so he can move. That first option may be a lot of work, so you can just go with the second option. Slaughter them all.

So now you can find the Star Map. Well, the map is stuck in a cave where a krayt dragon is chilling. So you help some dude blow it up, and you get a dragon pearl, which is a MASSIVE upgrade for your lightsaber, and then you get the Star Map.

You also get attacked by Calo Nord. Calo is Davik's little buddy who you killed on Taris. He's pretty pissed you left him for dead, so he went to the Sith for help. Well, you drop him too, and get his dope armor for you to wear, and then you are off this dusty planet. There are a few other things you can do like swoop racing, finding Bastila's mom, saving Mission's brother and other stuff, but that's about it.

Kashyyyk

Next stop is Kashyyyk, home of the Wookiees. So Czerka has made a living off the planet by slaving Wookiees, and it's run by Zaalbar's brother Chuundar. Zaalbar doesn't agree with this, which is the reason he was on Taris in the first place. Chuundar locks up his bro, and then sends you to the Shadowlands to kill another Wookiee who has opposed him.

You head down there and find Jolee Bindo, an old Grey Jedi who is hilariously fun to roast when you talk to him. Jolee helps you get deeper into the Shadowlands, where the Star Map is, as long as you let him tag along on your ship. Well, you don't ever really agree, he just kinda forces it...

Well, you find out the Wookiee you're supposed to kill is Chuundar and Zaalbar's dad... So two options here: first option is kill the dad and side with Chuundar, letting Czerka take all the Wookiee slaves they want. Or you can challenge Chuundar and wipe Czerka off of the planet. Either way, you find the Star Map, get Zaalbar back and then you can dip out of there.

Manaan

Third planet is Manaan, a sea world run by the Selkath who have kept Republic-Sith neutrality. They sell kolto, a healing substance, and threaten to destroy all of it if the two sides aren't keeping the peace there.

When you get there, you find out Jolee's old buddy Sunry is in jail for killing a Sith officer. They ask you to be his attorney even though you haven't graduated from law school yet, and you do some digging. Lots of possibilities with this one, but basically, Sunry was feeling a little horny so he started cheating on his wife with this Sith lady. Turns out she was a spy trying to get Republic secrets so he murdered her. Dammit Sunry...

Well the Republic tell you the Star Map is under the ocean, and the only way is to take a submarine down to their super secret, super illegal base underwater and check it out. Apparently they've lost contact with it.

First off, you need to break into the Sith base so they don't find out about the Republic's shifty work. Well, you walk in, kill 'em all, get arrested, persuade yourself out of murder x100, and then you're free to walk the streets.

The Republic sends you to their base, and you find out that the base has gone nuts. They were mining for kolto and a giant shark came out, made some weird noises, and then all the Selkath in the base went cannibalistic. You find some surviving scientists and as usual, you got two options: one, dump poison into the water to kill the shark or two, destroy the machine to make the shark calm down. If you poison the shark, you straight up get banned from the planet, which sucks but it's also pretty badass haha. But if you destroy the machine, then kolto is less available to you and the Republic get's pissed, but who cares because you're a Jedi anyways so you just use Force Heal. You find your Star Map after, and you are outta there.

The Leviathan

So on your way to the last planet, you get ambushed by the Leviathan, the Sith armada's flagship led by Carth's old buddy Saul Karath. They capture you, torture you, and tell you that the Sith bombed Dantooine, killing all the Jedi. So yeah... that kinda sucks...

Here you get to choose who breaks you out. Every companion has their own special method, and it's up to you. Whatever you choose, you break out, storm the bridge, kill Saul, but not right before he whispers something kinky into Carth's ear, which definitely riles him up.

You start making your way to the hangar to dip out, but get attacked by Darth Malak himself. Malak tells you that you are actually Darth Revan. A HUGE shock to a seven-year old me, but pretty normal now since I've beaten the game so many times. Story is, a while back, Bastila and a group of Jedi attacked Revan's ship, and Malak, being the dick that he is, saw this as an opportunity to kill the Jedi, and also assume command of the Sith, fired on Revan's bridge. Revan went brain dead, and Bastila took him to the Jedi Council where they brainwashed him into a Republic soldier, and then assigned him to the Endar Spire, where the game began. This is cool knowledge, because now you get to roam around telling everyone that you are Darth Revan.

Bastila sacrifices herself to let you all escape, and you head out to the last planet.

Korriban

Last planet is Korriban, where the Sith academy is located, and where Sith students run around the city killing people in funny ways and the citizens just walk around like it's nothing.

The Star Map is in a tomb and the only way in is if you become a student in the academy. You tell the Sith Master that you're Darth Revan, but they just laugh at you, so instead you gotta do it the hard way. You need to gain prestige. Earn enough and the Sith Master will take you to the tomb. So now you gotta adventure around the other tombs, and earn the respect of the Sith Master. There is lots of evil fun to be had around here. If you play your cards right, you can get all of the other students killed so now the Sith Master HAS to choose you for the final test! The second in command of the academy also wants to kill the top dog there, and take over so you can help her do that. You can side with either master, and they'll start plotting, but what I normally do is just spill the beans to both sides and let it play out.

Once you get to the final test, you'll find the Star Map, and then kill one of the Masters. You can kill both if you want, but the entire academy will try to kill you if you do.

And there ya go! All Star Maps found.

Unknown World and the Star Forge

You got the coordinates for the Star Forge, which by now you've find out is a massive factory that builds the Sith fleet hella fast. Problem is, there's a disruptor field that sends your ship crashing down on the nearby planet.

There are these googly-eyed natives living there... you can basically just slaughter the first tribe, and then get the second tribe to help you. Or vice versa. Either way, the only way off is if you enter the temple and shut off the disruptor field. Now you can get to the Star Forge, kill Malak, and then the Republic can show up safely and blow up the factory. Only thing stopping you is Bastila...

Malak's turned her to the dark side... she wants you to join her, and for the last time, you got two options: first is to oppose her. You'll fight her, storm the Star Forge, fight her again, and either kill her or save her. Then kill Malak and sit back and watch the Republic do its work. Second option is to join Bastila. If you do this, Juhani and Jolee turn on you, so they gotta go, and then half of your other companions will turn on you too... but hey! Bastila is your pal again, you storm the Star Forge, kill Malak, and then become the new Dark Lord of the Sith, and crush the Republic.

No matter what you do, what an ending... This game is flat out amazing. The characters, the story, combat, customization, etc. is so vast. And the best part? THERE IS A SEQUEL. So go check it out fellow nerds.