Drew Karpyshyn Leaves BioWare, Takes Company's Integrity With Him

What exactly is a "lead writer" on a video game? Well, if you have a room full of writers working on a video game, the lead writer is one of them - the one with the whip who keeps the story in line. They're essentially narrative designers, directors, and staff writers all rolled up into one. (Or, at least, this is how it was explained to me.) This is important when you think about general tone, when/how certain plot points emerge, how characters develop, etc. The lead writer has to keep track of all of this.

My first experience with Drew Karpyshyn's work was during Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the first game in which he was credited as "lead writer". I don't think I have to go back over how much of an impact that game made on my life. I can! But I won't.

...I totally could!

But I won't... Or, maybe... Nah.

His second game as lead writer was Mass Effect. Again, huge impact on my life. It was a fantastically imaginative game, with great characters and great sci-fi that harkened back to the classics of the genre. Mass Effect 2 is when Mr. Karpyshyn had to hand over the reigns, and I think anyone who pays close attention to these things can see that there was some definite change. Not for the worse or for the better, but definite change.

Mass Effect 2, while good, was a little formulaic. Character development occurred on cue and usually involved what you thought it would. When Karpyshyn was involved, these things were handled with a little more subtlety. Party members joined your crew more organically, and their stories unraveled at a more natural pace. You saw Garrus's discontent before you ever heard about Dr. Heart, and how it affected his handling of Saren's case. You sensed Kaiden's subdued personality before you ever heard about his time on Jump Zero, and what actually happened there.

Even going back to KotOR, connecting Carth's trust issues to Malak and Saul Karath was fantastic. It made sense because it had always been there. Even Bastila's parental problem was something I didn't see coming but made sense. Or, you know, how you don't think about why fourteen-year-old Mission Vao is hanging out with a Wookiee until you find out she'd been abandoned.

Let's face it, the writing on both of those games won't win the Pulitzer, but there's something to be said for writing that's a little more subtle, more human. Mass Effect 3 is looking like it'll have all the bombastic dialogue that EA/BioWare have encouraged out of the series of late, and, you know, whatever. But there's something to be said for subtlety. Dialogue doesn't have to be a series of exciting and loud one-liners to make an impact. I don't remember Kaiden saying one interesting line that I can quote endlessly. What he said over time is what made him interesting. His actions and the many conversations he had with Shepard are what combined to make him one of my favorite characters in the game.

Subtlety. I'm gonna type that a few more times, because I think that's what Karpyshyn encouraged while he was with BioWare. Because people don't naturally talk with extravagant rhetoric; sometimes you can talk to someone for a long time before they say anything interesting. That's what made the characters Karpyshyn oversaw a little more human, because they acted like it.

That's an element that I think will be sorely missed once we're finally up to our controllers/keyboards in the beautiful guys and gals of the Mass Effect universe. Time will tell. I've been overly critical of Mr. Karpyshyn's other endeavors, but his work at BioWare speaks for itself: subtly, without sex and explosions doing all the talking.

Thanks for the ride, Mr. Karpyshyn. And good luck.

Getting Dizzy...

I'm sure you can guess why I got so excited over this particular mod for Star Wars: Battlefront II. And yeah, the Spire's still a-spinnin' while you battle.

Here are a few more shots!

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Quoth Darth Revan...

I know what you're thinking - once again these chuckleheads are talking about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Talking about it with barely contained tears in their eyes, talking about it like it's their first wife who died tragically and who was also their childhood pet. Talking until either they die from talking about it too much, or else Bioware hires them to write a second sequel.

Every time I write a piece of fanfic, I tell myself, that's it. No more of this, now. I'm 26 years old, and it's time I put all my efforts into writing actual fiction, instead of flash fiction about Jedi knights.

Well, I've given up trusting myself on that one, but with a ny luck, this one will be my last fanfic. If so, I'm glad it's about Revan, and extremely glad it's a collaboration with Anthony Lowe AKA Knightfall 1138. See, it was Knights of the Old Republic that brought me to Bioware, and indeed to Star Wars, and then to fanfiction, and then to writing fanfiction, and to my transatlantic friendship with Knight, and to writing, full stop.

All those things will no doubt continue to be big parts o f my life, but I think it may be time for me to leave KotOR alone, and shut up about it.


Over the past week or so, Knight and I have been writing two short stories (which link up together, much like Voltron), in the 1st person and from the perspectives of (almost) all of KotOR's party members, remembering moments from the game, and giving a 'eulogy' to Revan.

The Summer of Applejacks. Notice how Zaalbar is gleefully preparing to decapitate Mission with a machete in this picture.

Here is Knight's - 'Of the Sacrifice'
And then mine - 'Of the Fall'


They're just little scenes, but we enjoyed writing them quite a bit, maybe because they allowed us to say 'goodbye' to a fantastically good Star Wars character, who we now accept is almost certainly not coming back from 'the unknown regions or something, I think he said he was out of cocoa' (thank you again, Obsidian).

It's about Revan - his adventure or her second fall to the dark side depending on which of the two versions you read. But it's told in the 'voices' of the other crewmembers and really (not so subtly) it's about how much Knight and I cherish that videogame, and miss those characters.

If you miss that game too and happen to read it, I hope you notice some of the little nostalgic details we put in there, and go, 'Oh yeah, I loved that conversation / planet / scene too'.

If not, thanks for reading this, the latest in my series of overly sentimental theses about pop-culture and computer games. One thing that I love about KotOR, and its sequel, is how beloved they are, by so many people. When I was looking for a picture for this article, I found hundreds of drawings of Revan and the rest, some of them slightly disturbing and most of them a bit odd, but all of them showing the same love we're trying to reflect with these stories. When we posted the first chapters, they were swamped and covered by competing KotOR stories within hours. Annoying, but wonderful.

I love that people are still going on about this stuff. You know that Revan will make appearances of some kind in the upcoming MMORPG The Old Republic, as he already has in the adverts for it.

But you won't get anywhere sitting around here, chatting up old men all day! Shoo! We should return our thoughts to the mission, please, you know? I will leave you be. I'm here, if you want something done right! You got it. Whatever HK said. Dwooooo.



Once again, here are the links- Of the Sacrifice, and Of the Fall.

We have two chapters each up so far - there will be about five each eventually, and will finish uploading soon.

Let's get back to what we were doing... (the KotOR love letter essay)

I've been playing my absolute second favourite videogame (after Joust) the last couple of weeks - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I think we may have mentioned the game before.

This may not seem like anything out of the ordinary for me, the man who plans to name his first child 'Darth Revan' regardless of gender, and his second either 'Carth' or 'Carthette' (and I had a goldfish named Trask, we worked opposite shifts; I guess that's why I haven't mentioned him before) but this is interesting because I haven't played this thing in years. The reasons are firstly that the original Xbox game plays very badly on the Xbox360, and secondly... I was really worried that it wouldn't be as good as I remembered.

Knightfall and I really, really love this game, and I enjoy the nostalgic talks about it so much - and I enjoy using it as a baseline for comparison to any other videogame RPG - that I would have been truly sad if it turned out that I'd embellished it. After all, when I played this game I was in a rough place. I was lonely and miserable and got sucked into Bioware's strange 4000-year-old Star Wars world just because I needed some escapism. I wasn't particularly a Star Wars fan at the time (though I liked the movies in a silly, self-aware jokey way) and I'd never played a role-playing game. It was actually the first game I'd picked up since the Nintendo 64... I needed something silly to do to cheer me up, so I got an Xbox and the Star Wars game.

And it totally worked. After the intial day of "what the hell is this turn-based combat" confusion, I played this 40-hour interactive story through over and over, ten or twenty times through. What I loved was how every single time, I found a quest or a line of dialogue that I'd never experienced before. Nowadays we have DLC for that, but in KotOR, there was no need. It was already massive enough. It was all in the details, the sheer quality of the writing and the acting. I remember playing through it again and again, dreaming the story at night and living it all day, and thinking "God-damn... this story is so much better than the Star Wars prequel movies."

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And, playing it again, thanks to a new laptop...

I was right! I'm very happy to report that it's still the best damn game out there... provided you know the difference between a Rodian and a Duros, anyway. But then, when I picked this thing up, I didn't know much about Star Wars, 3D games or role-playing. But once I had made it through the training area and the first planet... once I had touched down at the Jedi training academy and built a lightsaber (with my choice of colour - I went with yellow because I fancied Bastila)... once I had role-played the process of becoming a Jedi knight with my own lightsaber, robes, Millennium Falcon-looking spaceship and team of fascinating, beautifully-acted sidekicks... I was hooked. For about 7 years.

I remember thinking, "Where are the cool starship and the amazing sidekicks in Phantom Menace? There's... Jar Jar, I guess, and that black guy with the plastic guard outfit... and that shiny ship that Amidala had that time... the HMS ShinyShip I think it was..."

So I'm about halfway through my game now, my first in a fair few years, and once again getting totally caught up in it. Even though I know, almost word for word, I want to know what happens next. I want to influence the tiniest of details in this story, fine-tuning it as only a loving fan can. I want Carth in Jamoh Hogra's black-and-white cowboy armour. I want Mission to cheer up without forcing her to (she's my surrogate daughter, that girl) and I want to crack dumb jokes at Juhani until she snaps and tries to behead me in that wierd... little bathroom place she lives in.
And I absolutely won't get on with my life until I've done those things.

Carth wears the black and white cowboy armour. The protagonist has a random surname and a real-world first name, and that face that looks a bit like a young Barbara Streisand with the blue eyes and the black hair tied in a small ponytail. She has a single yellow lightsaber and brown Jedi Master robes and levels-up in repair and persuade and I LOVE THEM.

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What I truly love about this game, more than any Bioware game that's come since (I've played them all to death and somehow I'm always just a touch disappointed) is that the good/evil decisions are... a little something more than that. As Carth, that handsome bastard, said to me last night outside the Ebon Hawk, "I used to think 'The Dark Side' was a fancy way of describing what I see every day. People are cruel and selfish, and cowardly. But I'm starting to think for the Jedi, it's different." That handsome fuck. That sums it up - because the characters are Jedi, the good / evil aspects of this particular story really allow you to create a character - and better, they allow you to make the story into one of temptation. You know, like Anakin Skywalker, only not rubbish. That's Star Wars.

Your guy can be a noble hero, a cartoonish villain, or a bit of a rogue who wears a leather waistcoat and cracks jokes because she's got a real nasty streak and keeps finding herself swinging between massive acts of charity and Vader-choking that jackass in the cantina who keeps insulting her. And near the end (all good/evil RPG's should have this) there is a distinct choice: the game stops and gives you one heroic dialogue choice and one that just says 'Death to the Jedi'.
The game is saying this is it - good or evil, no turning back. Save the galaxy in the last dungeon, or else murder your friends right now and take over the woooorld instead. I loved to craft the character as if s/he were a recovering addict: always wanting to solve her problems by lightsabering people's knees off, and being kept juuust on the right side of things by her endless invasive chats with the various party-members who were all sick of her, and all hesitant for various reasons, to mentor her. You can't do THAT in Mass Effect 2.

I remember landing on Dantooine for the first time and really liking how there was a flock of birds who followed you in. I thought, 'Huh! Birds in Star Wars - awesome!' (I hadn't been paying attention to Naboo in Phantom Menace, but I ask you, why should I?) The birds were there on Kashhyyk, too. That's a really nice touch. When I saw those birds again a week ago, it honestly felt like coming home. I've missed these birds, and I've missed the poorly-animated fictional Space Opera characters onboard this ship. All their superb little nuances.
And I'm looking forward to seeing my favourite, Jolee, again so damn much. He was a better Ben Kenobi than Alec Guinness (or even Professor Frink), if you took the time to keep pestering him.

That's all I can think of, at any rate. Let's return our thoughts to the mission, please. I'm here if you want something done right, you know?

I should go.

Only the Master of Facebook, Darth.

Knightfall and I have just created Darth Malak's personal Facebook fan-page!

Here, the Man Who Would Be Ruler of the Galaxxxeeeeee will keep his many fans, admirers and colour-co-ordinated Sith Apprentices informed on his doings, comings and goings, and his breathy whinings.

It's not exactly a secret that Knightfall and I are big, big fans of masterpiece RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Malak is a big part of that. He's bald, he's got a big, metal jaw, he's evil, he has a red cape. He thinks he can destroy a planet by bombing it from one position. He's awesome.

Hero. Villain. Saviour. Lover of brightly-coloured jumpsuits. He is all things to all men. But, in the end... he is nothinnnnnnnnnng without your support.

If you love old Malak too, why not 'become a fan' (if not an evil disciple of the Sith) and see what he's up to these days. Has he recovered from his humiliating defeat? Does he still have an army of ninjas? Does he still keep long-haired guys in glass tubes? Now's your chance to find out!

We've just now started the page, but be assured:

This is but a taste of the daaaaaaark siiiiiiiiiiide!

Oh Reginald... (Dragon Age and the 'KotOR feeling')

Aside from work, I've done precisely two things over the last three days: read Knightfall's blog posts and obsessively play Bioware's 2009 D&D-style RPG, Dragon Age: Origins.

And I'm absolutely loving the game, quite a bit more than I did the first time I played it. At that time I played through in a grumbling hurry, confused by the lore and plot, being punished horribly by the steep difficulty, and almost losing it after the largely-dodgy endgame (luckily the very end bits are great.) Then Mass Effect 2 came out, and I forgot all about DA:O (It looks like the initials and then a shocked emoticon) until the extremely meh expansion pack was released, and I read the surprisingly great prequel novel.

This past two weeks, I've been playing DA:O again, and this time... I've just been completely absorbed in it. It's been constantly on my mind. I play long into the night, and I wake before my alarm clock, so I can get juuust one more conversation in with Shale, or kill juuuust enough darkspawn to level up, so as I can wear that heavy chainmail that's a slightly lighter colour than the one I'm wearing now. I think because I now understand the plot better, and I'm revelling in how flexible it is - the dialogue options, the plot decisions, the inventory. My character feels like my character, whereas Commander Shepard feels like Bioware's.

This is what I call the 'KotOR feeling'! And it's More than a Feeling. It's... a way of life, or something. What I mean is, this is exactly what I want from a role-playing videogame. I want it to be like Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic, the game which brought me back into games, made me into a Star Wars fan, thrilled me for a year and even influenced my writing. It brought me into fanfiction, and thus into renewed writing. I know Knightfall has a similar story. He and I truly revere KotOR, and with good reason. The plot was incredible, the voice acting was a cut above (at the time). This is what I would call a true role-playing experience. You felt like you were that Jedi apprentice. For the week and a half it took to play through, the Ebon Hawk was your home, Jolee Bindo was your mentor, Mission Vao was your respnsibility and Lord Malak was most displeased to learn you had escaped Taris alive. Through its tight, excellent and immersive story, it sucked you in and forced you to abandon every other part of your life until you were done.

I remember the first time I beat that game... It was my first RPG unless you count Zelda. At the first I had no idea what I was supposed to do or why clicking people initiated lengthy, casual conversations about seemingly trivial things. After a couple of days I was hooked, and a week later I was astounded. I remember excitedly telling my brother about this amazing new game: 'I just finished it - I saved the Republic, fell in love with my Jedi teacher, resisted the dark side, conVERTed the girl from the dark side, and even convinced the Sith Lord that I was right and he was wrong - right before killing him with my YELLOW lightsaber! And holy crap... there's this twist... you've got to play this!!' And what's great is that all those things I mentioned are optional. None of those are set as part of the plot. I chose to persue those goals, and when they came together into a perfect Star Wars story, it blew me away. Oh, and the 'evil' decisions I made a few weeks later were also incredible.

At the very end, when the classic John Williams theme music kicked in and the credits rolled over the story's climax (and a teasing hint at a sequel) I was so excited I pumped my fist into the air like a fool. I couldn't help it! I beleive it's called the 'Manly Arm Pump' expression, but it didn't look so manly then. The game occupied me for the best part of a year: I had KotOR weeks and non KotOR weeks. I dreamed I was playing the game, I read fanfiction and heard the game's plot in every song on the radio. And every time I got to the end, I involuntarily did the arm pump, reviewing the choices I'd made, the character I felt I'd co-created and the ending s/he had created. It was like being in love! But with a videogame about Jedi Knights. I know this blog doesn't exactly make me sound mature.

When I reached the end of KotOR 2 (the somewhat disappointing, rushed sequel by Obsidian Entertainment) I did not do the arm pump. I did it for Jade Empire several times, and Mass Effect once or twice, but that game wasn't so immersive. I loved Jade Empire, KotOR 2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 (and also Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), but never became so obsessed as the first time.

I also loved Fable 2, when I played it through twice more than a year ago. Like Knightfall, I was amused but not thrilled by the first Fable. But number 2 was a triumph. It's a fun, action-RPG set in Dickensian England, with guns, goblins who wear top hats, Julia Swahala, Zoe Wannamaker, Shepard Book and Stephen Fry... those Scottish gargoyles... a cockney hero... and in general, a great deal of loving passion and a magnificent sense of humour. I don't really care for the silent hero, the button-mashing and the halo that forms around my 'good' character's head, and the plot is generally very shallow and silly (but much better than you'd expect). But that's deliberate, and that's fine. It's an excellent game, and a perfect example of what a sequel should be: it's like Fable 1, but with all it's major faults removed apologetically (and even joked about in-game), and great, new innovative features added.

And now... I come to the point of this post. Knightfall said something in his Fable 2 review on Friday, which chilled my blood.

"That's the sin that BioWare keeps committing, but shouldn't. Sure, they rectified this in Mass Effect 2, FINALLY giving you the ability to keep playing after the main storyline is done, but there's nothing to that galaxy. There's nothing to do outside of the quests. I can't get a job, because I'm already the effing savior of the universe. I can't own a house, because I got captain's quarters and, you know, your life is your job. That's the one thing that I'd take to BioWare on a flag or something: if we're gonna save the galaxy, give us a reason to save it besides blue women."

Whoooooah there, Billy.

Bioware, if you're reading, ignore him. Good, solid endings are not a sin. The tangible, beautifully-acted love of a blue woman is a better reason to save the galaxy than ownership of a house in which there is a nameless woman who says 'Welcome home, darling' when you walk in.

What I'm trying to say here (and what this article was supposed to be about) is: I HATE carrying on the game after the end. I really like endings - I think they're the best part of almsot any story - the bit where everything ties together, and everything is resolved. The author's points are driven home, the characters demonstrate how they've changed, the world is changed for good. So why would you want it to... carry on for a bit after that? It's like The Return of the King! It should have ended long before they returned to the Shire and drove-out Sharkey!

I like my Bioware RPGs (as opposed to Lionhead or Obsidian) because they have solid, well-crafted stories. The endings (although lately they are suffering... ME2...) are powerful and contain complete 'closure'. In the last moment, I always think about (and very occasionally do) the Manly Arm Pump - because I know the epic story is finally over and I'm looking back. In the run up to the end - when I have my final conversations with the party-members or take one last stroll around the places I've been - there is a wonderful bittersweet feeling. 'This character will never talk to Kaidan again' ... 'That's the last time I'll fight alongside Canderous; I wonder what he'll do now the war is over' ... 'I'll spend all my remaining money on the special armour now, and equip Duncan's swords for the final battle.'

I don't like it when the story ends... but you don't. Rather than ending on a bang, the character ends with a whimper. He ends when you get bored of side-quests. I hate seeing the world AFTER the cataclysmic events of the ending... and seeing it's just the same.

That said, I played Fable 2 for a while after its end. Not having my dog was indeed heartbreaking. God damn, I love that dog. Bravo, Lionhead. And it was nice to wander about, aquiring and collecting things for fun. But I wish this could all have happenned as part of the story proper.

And as for Mass Effect 2... you win, you fly around... nothing happens... you fly around more. You go to some place and fight some mechs, you get credits. You go back. No-one talks to you.

Story-based games should end when the story ends. Bioware made me pump my arm into the air every time I beat KotOR and Jade Empire! It was a rush.

Dragon Age is giving me something very close to the KotOR feeling as I play it now. I've been playing for 54 hours, which is a record. It's an excellent game, (if one with a complex plot and too much backstory required.)
I just played through this one scene where one of the characters (my elven PC's love interest at that) randomly sings a goddamn beautiful ancient elven song - just before the endgame kicks in - and the camera shows us reactions from the hero and the other members of my party. The song reflects the quest we just finished, and some of the greater themes of the plot. And it tied itself into my own backstory and character seamlessly. Above and beyond the call of duty, Bioware. More songs please.
I've shaped my character and her story arcs, making my Grey Warden and Alistair mirror Loghain and King Maric in their pasts and relationships with each other and their party. I've grown immensely fond of talking to my followers and getting their pasts out of them, earning their favour and loyalty through carefully chosen questions and gifts. I'm going to be genuinely sad when I find out which one of the two lead heroes will die this time, and imagining what happens to the other one.

Leave that feeling in. I like endings.

Bioware Announces KOTOR 3!!! (April Fools Joke)

It's the day we shouldn't have been waiting so long for. At the stroke of midnight, Bioware lead writer Drew Karpyshyn let slip that a sequel to their much-renowned Star Wars RPG, Knights of the Old Republic, would soon see the light of day.

After the release of Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, the wonderful sales, and the awesome reception we had from RPG and non-RPG players alike, we've been able to get the green light on the next KotOR.

It'll be produced by Bioware Austin, where we already have a legion of dedicated writers ready to get started on continuing Revan's story. It's our hope that we'll have a product that will "connect the dots" from the original title and lead in to the story we have locked in for the MMO due out next year.

We want to give the fans what they've been wanting for years, and build a strong foundation of new fans who weren't able to play through the original game with Carth and the gang.

The game will detail the further adventures of the redeemed Darth Revan after his fight with Malak. No word yet on how closely Bioware plans to adhere to the canon set up by the pseudo-sequel to KotOR, "The Sith Lords."

A new cast of characters will be introduced, in addition to having most, if not all, of the party members from the first game play a part in the storyline. Players who wish to have a more streamlined experience may answer an "advanced questionnaire" to determine how Revan will be portrayed in the third game. A sample question has been posted:

On Taris, Revan was faced with the task of helping Undercity denizens find the fabled Promised Land. Did Revan complete this task?

Players will be expected to yet again make serious choices in game that will determine the fate of the galaxy. Raphael Sbarge and Jennifer Hale have already been confirmed as returning castmembers, and will be again voicing the roles of Carth Onasi and Bastila Shan respectively.

Casey Hudson, the project director on the original KotOR, also had this to say:

The fans have been waiting a long time for this, and even though we believe that our new MMO, The Old Republic, will be the definitive experience to this saga, we don't want to continue on knowing we might have robbed long-time Bioware fans of a chance to continue the story they fell in love with all those years ago. I mean, how could we *not* make it? To factor it out completely would be utter bulls**t on our part.

Fans can expect full details at this year's E3, as well as the announcement of a release date next Thursday. The full article can be found HERE.

KotOR Replay: Part Two: "Maybe next time, shlummie!"

I find it flattering that Carth Onasi decided to wait for me, even though I was the last crewman on board. He tells me that he's been keeping an eye on me through the ship's sensor, which he uses to help me defeat a contingent of Sith troopers. Why he didn't think to use those sensors to warn Trask of the Dark Jedi behind that door, I'll probably never know. But he did the same thing I would have done in his position.

Let's face it, Trask belongs in that Special Hell that Shepherd Book talked about.

We make it to the surface of Taris and Carth starts to lay out the situation. I start to remember why I love this man so much. It's clear that Raphael Sbarge took this role very seriously, and I've yet to hear any video game voice actor come even remotely close to matching what he did here with Carth. He has such a broad range here, it's amazing.

I also have to point out the music that plays in the abandoned apartment. This song conjures so many emotions it would be difficult to list them all. The apartment is where I first discovered how in depth the dialogue options can be, and it awestruck me. Have that song downloaded on my computer and I play it way more often than I should.

Anyway, I start making my way through Taris with Carth in tow. This city could have benefited from a few landmarks, because even now on my fifth or sixth playthrough I still get turned around here. Way too much blue, and all the doors and buildings look alike. But, to be honest, this wasn't a habit that Bioware shook off until Mass Effect 2.

I talk to the doctor, pick up the rakghoul serum quest, and immediately go to the next apartment complex to get me some Sith uniforms. The soldier guarding the Lower City elevator doesn't seem to notice that even though I'm disguised as one of them, Carth, however, is not. He more or less waves as we pass him by.

At the bottom of the lift, I clear out all the baddies in the next apartment complex to get my level up again. At the Lower City Cantina, I witness the stout awesomeness of Calo Nord. As Mister Buch has pointed out, he's the perfect killing machine: able to lure his victims in with humor before he guns them down. I always have to push my luck, and keep talking to him until he counts down to "Two." When he gets there, I back off.

"Smart."

Meet up with Mission Vao and Zaalbar for the first time. I still think it odd that Bioware decided to pair me and Carth up with an underaged member of a race universally seen as purveyors of sex.



I go about my business, take out a few more Black Vulkars, then return to the Upper City once I remember that I haven't bought that pazaak deck from that old guy. I loves me some pazaak. It's like a cool man's version of blackjack.

After visiting the Hidden Bek base and getting chewed out by Gadon's bodyguard, I head down to the Undercity to look for Mission, who I had just parted ways with. Jeeze.

Ride the lift down and I am accosted by a couple of beggars. I make threats I was perfectly willing to act on, and they go running.

"RUN, BROTHER! FLEEEE THIS ONE'S WRATH!"

KotOR Replay: Part One: "Damn, we could have used her help!"

After finishing up my KotOR fanfic, and talking to Mister Buch about all the great memories we created back on the Ebon Hawk, I decided I was going to do play Knights of the Old Republic for the first time in yeaaars.

I first tried to play the game on my Xbox 360, but the emulation for it was FUBAR. The frame rate skipped around incessantly. The sound cut out. The menus wouldn't react sometimes. It was terrible, and I didn't want it to put a damper on the experience. So, I pulled down my little "Box of Forgotten Dreams" from my closet. It was caked in dust and got me sneezing immediately. Inside I found my:

-Seeega Dreamcaaaast. Bought it brand new at the tail-end of Sega's bankruptcy period for just over $60. Was only able to get a few games for it. Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, NFL Blitz, and Tomb Raider. Wish I had been able to get more. One of my few regrets.

-Sony Playstation. No, not the PS-One; the giant one that looks like a weight scale. I still have the only games I ever played on it up on my shelf: Final Fantasy VII, Legend of Dragoon, Mega Man Legends, and Mega Man X4. Used to own a mod kit for it so I could play the Japanese version of Dragonball GT: Final Bout and DBZ: Ultimate Battle 22, back when getting the American versions required either a lot of money or a lot of misplaced hope.

-Nintendo Gamecube. The decline of Nintendo, in my mind, began with this console and it still hasn't ended. Not even with the Wii. The high-points in its many years on the market were few. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, TimeSplitters 2, and Resident Evil 4 were the only games that really defined that console to me.

At this point, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about these consoles and not KotOR. Well, that's because I played it just before bed and couldn't even make it to the escape pod before I fell asleep. Short Answer: Shut up, that's why. (jk! xD)

Finally pulled out the old Xbox, get it all hooked up, pressed the power button and it roared to life (quite literally, actually. I had forgotten how loud this beast could get). Pop in my old KotOR disc and boot up the game. It runs perfectly. Having my old controller back in my hands, hearing the Xbox whine and the main menu theme play...it was magical.

Checked my old saves and remembered that the goddamned Yavin DLC corrupted my first few playthroughs. All that remained was a file where I got as far as Taris, and my ex-girlfriend's file...harumph.

The game begins. I'm standing in my quarters on the Endar Spire after a rude awakening. Trask Ulgo bursts in and speaks in the lamest tone of voice I've ever heard in a game since the original Resident Evil. (Jill sandwich, anyone?) He tells me to get dressed, watches me as I do so, and starts ordering me to do practically everything.

"Save Bastila!"

"Unlock that door!"

"Now tell me to unlock that door! But say it in a sexy baritone...No! No time for that, man. But seriously--baritone..."

We unlock our way into the middle of a group of Sith. There are some Republic solders fighting them off, but Trask waits until our allies are dead before shouting "FOR THE REPUBLIC" like an idiot. He risks his life to save me, but won't help his own buddies when the odds are in his favor. Bastard. Anyway, I beat the Sith down with my little vibroblade and we move on.

Trask and I fight off a couple more Sith before we find ourselves in another crossfire. Once again, Trask opts to watch his fellow soldiers die before leading the charge. Bastard.

Next room over, we find a Jedi and a dark Jedi fighting it out. Once...again...Trask decided that we should watch them kill each other off. At this point, I'm beginning to wonder about Mister Ulgo. Oh, and then he has the nerve to say, "That was one of the Jedi accompanying Bastila. Damn, we could have used her help!" LIKE HE'S BLAMING ME! Bastard.

We continue on, clearing out the corridors and the ship's bridge. I level up, and that little jingle gives me a warm feeling inside.

Down the next corridor, Trask decides he wants to fight the Sith Lord instead of locking the door. The door slides shut, and you can hear two beginning to have at each other. I silently wish I could watch him die, just to get back at him for being the worst Samaritan I've ever seen.

To Be Continued...

Bane of the Sith

I'd like to announce the newest fanfiction Knight and I will be working on together. It's going to be a parody of Drew Karpyshyn's 'Darth Bane' book/s. The title is 'The Marvellous Misadventures of Darth Bane'.

This post will likely double as a little review for the books and a discussion of Karpyshyn in general. He's the head writer at Bioware, the games studio who made our beloved Mass Effect and our even more beloved Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. As such he is a genius. Both of those games utterly sucked us in and turned me into a videogame fan and a Star Wars fan all over again after I had successfully given both up. Really, the quality of the writing in those games is superb. It's a popular saying among fans that the Star Wars game is better-written than the newer movies, and I agree.

On the sucess of these, the giant machine that makes the decisions at Lucas Arts commissioned Karpyshyn to write a Star Wars novel set in the distant past, like his game. And so we at last have a fully fleshed-out biography of Darth Bane, the Sith Lord who introduced the idea that there should only ever be two Sith at any one time. Personally I find this 'Rule of Two' idiotic - what if one of them dies? What if both of them die? And how much of a massive drain on the master's time must this apprentice be?

Anyway, if you suspend your disbelief about that, then Bane is kind of a legend in the SW lore. He has a silly name, too. You have to suspend your disbelief a lot when it comes to Star Wars novels.

The first book was good, but perhaps took too long to get going. The second book was also good, but was clearly rushed. The structure is all over the place - it's more like a series of short stories than a novel - and certain characters (including Bane, who is almost relegated to a supporting role in his own book) are a little two-dimensional. Both were great fun, though - epic and exciting and full of unique and imaginitive new lore. Better than a lot of Star Wars titles.

But! The problem we both had with the first book is that the legendary Darth Bane comes across as a bit of a stooge. The first book starts with his unhappy childhood then goes onto his sucky life in a mining colony, his prowess in cheating at cards, his accidental manslaughter of some guy and subsequent freakout... he is a lot less driven and dominating than one would think. When the other characters almost force him into the Sith, he spends the next 100 pages at school - he's the new student at the evil wizards academy, and as such gets picked on by everyone and keeps getting beaten up and losing his nerve. After this a new girl starts - and she makes a fool of him too. In the third act he finally gets his act together by studying really hard and kissing the girl - then he kills aaaaall the other Sith so that he can rebuild them with this whole 'two people' thing. Again, this sounds a like a very silly plan to me, espescially since he's still brand new and has barely learned anything... but you know.

The second book - I won't spoil it but suffice to say, he comes across as an utter idiot. During many of the chapters about him, I was laughing out loud at his neverending incompetence. In one chapter he crashes his own spaceship because he was too busy yelling at hallucinations to drive. In another he spends five years building a holocron then smashes it by mistake (I was howling with laughter when Drew described his reaction).

(I should point out that most of the ridiculous episodes are not really Drew's fault. The book is apparently based on the aptly named short story 'Bane of the Sith' by Kevin J Anderson - and the majority of Bane's greatest failures can be attributed to this. Similarly, I think the stupid name 'Bane' is the fault of Terry Brooks, who wrote the dodgy Episode 1 novelisation.)

The guy achieves literally nothing in this book, except training a more useful apprentice during the 'Ten Years Later' period. All we see him do is bugger things up over and over again while she picks up the pieces and furthers the plot.

So - yeah. Darth Bane was apparently a bumbling fool who only rebuilt the Sith order by pure luck and with great help from more sensible people, like a bartender and his own apprentice.

Hence the parody. Although we love Drew Karpyshyn deeply, we're going to make fun of these books. Should be a laugh for anyone who has read the books. This is one that Knight is already working on and I've just joined in with some ideas. I've read what he has so far and it's very funny.

Coming soon!