After the incredible reveal in KOTOR, I was really looking forward to the finale. I was extremely motivated to play after that fantastic twist. I wondered how the writers would deal with such a great shift in character and what other secrets would unfold.

I eagerly played through the last planet and found myself trapped on an unknown planet that resembled an island paradise. While this new place had some interesting conflicts, I found myself less engaged with the game than I was during previous levels. This stage was a means to the end, and I no longer cared about details such as the history of a new alien race. I was hungry for the real drama - I wanted to find my lost friend and beat Malak once and for all.

Malak was still a couple of levels away. I had to weave through a labyrinthine tomb and then fight wave after wave of enemies on his ship. I spent almost an hour fighting what seemed like endless streams of nameless enemies. I grew frustrated. I had been given a taste of fantastic narrative and suddenly I was stuck in some boring hack-and-slash. I don't mind fights at the end of a game, but these enemies had little narrative connection to the story; they were essentially bodies thrown at me to slow me down. Eventually, I took advantage of a chance to skip out on a fight and ran ahead to face Malak.

I confronted my friend and then reached the final boss fight. There were few surprises in the narrative and the final boss fight was dull and poorly paced. Malak would frequently run off to leech power, and I would heal myself quickly before hacking away at his HP again. It was tedious and dull, especially when I would have to wait for him to run over to me and attack me.

When the final boss fight was over, I was shown the "light side" cinematic ending. I was incredibly disappointed to watch a few lame 2D people cheering for me as I got a silly metal. After 30 hours and a ridiculous amount of fighting at the end, I won a war and got a few empty words. It was such a letdown after the big reveal that I thought there must be a better ending for the dark side. I looked it up on YouTube and found that the dark side ending definitely gave the player a greater sense of power. It was certainly not Mass Effect's ending, but this version was obviously superior to the light side version. I wondered if the game would have been more fun if I was on the dark side and spent 30 hours being mean to people.

As a fan of RPGs, I finish relatively few games. Many RPGs require such a time investment that it becomes impractical to finish a game when I grow frustrated. I don't regret finishing KOTOR at all, but I wish that it had given me more of a sense of accomplishment at the end. Mass Effect left me feeling as if I'd saved the universe and Okami nearly had my crying tears of joy. I was disappointed that a game that had such an awesome climax fell flat on its face at the end.  

Please do not read this post if you intend to play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). There's a fantastic moment of game narrative that caught me completely by surprise, and I would hate to spoil it for you. Click here to skip to the previous post.

However, if you have played KOTOR, please read on and feel free to share your own thoughts.


On a seemingly average Tuesday, I had an hour or two to kill before class. Too restless for TV, I turned to my favorite pastime: gaming. I booted up KOTOR with the goal of getting through a lengthy quest on Korriban.

An hour later, I was deeply engrossed in the game. The seemingly ordinary task on Korriban had turned into a rather interesting quest concerning multiple tombs in the Valley of the Dark Lords. By the time I left Korriban, I had met a host of interesting characters, from the ghost of a Sith lord to a droid that was hyper-sensitive to sounds.

As I flew to the next planet, I was shocked to find my ship pulled into a tractor beam. Suddenly, we had been captured and our entire fate was dependent on one character. I had to play solo to free my fellow adventurers. This new quest sounded quite fun, so I decided to play a little longer, foregoing my usual makeup routine.

No sooner had I rescued my characters than further developments unfolded, and I found myself bargaining for more time. I resolved to buy food instead of taking the time to make a sandwich. I worked my way through the level, searching each room and taking out the enemies. I had just beaten a boss and was running to my ship. Nearly home free, I was convinced I would stop once I had reached that safe point.

Then it hit me. It was possibly the biggest OMG moment in the entire game. Darth Malak had stopped me and mocked me with a grave truth: I was Darth Revan, the other half of the sinister pair that I had been fighting the entire game. My mouth dropped open in shock. It was simply brilliant.

I continued through the conversation, clicking through the dialogue with a stupid grin on my face. The writers had fooled me with one incredibly clever twist. I was thrilled.

Riding on this high, I suddenly noticed the time and had to race out the door and drive to school, still in shock. I ran into horrible traffic and was late to class, but I didn't care. I had just experienced one of my greatest moments in gaming. Fortunately, I was driving to a game design class full of people who would understand, or so I thought.

"I saw it coming," claimed one of my friends. How could it seem so simple to him and yet so brilliantly hidden to me? As I talked with him, I began to see how I had assumed that Revan was a male from the beginning, so it never occurred to me that my female character could be the same person. Even though Revan was carefully hidden in cloaks, my assumption had allowed me to be taken completely by surprise. He had played as a male character in the presence of roommates who dropped hints now and then.

Fantastic OMG moments in games can seem like pure genius when set up properly, but games aren't played in a vacuum. Gamers form a community that seems to thrive on rumors of the latest game and fans love to drool over the newest trailer. In a game development setting, some employees pick up games as soon as they come out and avidly discuss the finer points the next day. If you wait until the price drops, you will likely overhear gossip that spoils the delicate secrets of a game.

KOTOR's big reveal was incredibly satisfying for me because it caught me completely by surprise. Playing a game long past its prime kept me shielded from the spoilers and blissfully ignorant of its amazing twist. In a culture that thrives on the rapid spread of knowledge, I hope that writers continue to weave in twists that catch players off guard. It's the OMG moments that make the other 10-30 hours worthwhile.  

After I finished Mass Effect, I was desperate to find a new game. I wanted an experience that would draw me in and take me on a fantastic journey. I knew it would be difficult to find a current game that I would love as much as Mass Effect, so I turned to the past. On the recommendation of a friend, I decided to set aside my frustrations with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) on the 360 and get a fresh start trying it on my PC.

There was a remarkable improvement in performance and graphic quality on my PC. I was much happier playing the game when it didn't freeze up during battles, stutter during cutscenes, or muddle the textures. Suddenly the "dated" game didn't look so old. The game started to become more fun when I wasn't distracted by performance and graphics bugs.

Perhaps more important than the changes in processing and resolution were the changes in my perspective. After completing one BioWare game (Mass Effect), I had a better understanding of the types of puzzles I would encounter. I breezed through Taris in four hours instead of my previous ten hours. I finally understood that puzzles required a little thought; you had to pay attention to hints dropped casually in conversation. Clues were also left on datapads I collected unceremoniously from corpses nearby. Simple attention to the world helped me see how the answers were falling into my hands in an organic way.

I have easily surpassed the point where I stopped on the 360, and it was time well-spent. I finally feel as if I'm moving in a productive direction. Even if the battles and stat-management are more difficult than Mass Effect, I have a better understanding of BioWare-style games. I'm less likely to get stuck and I'm now free to enjoy the game. I'm looking forward to the rest of my adventure.  

When I tell people I’m majoring in video game design, they often ask me about Halo. The Halo series has penetrated mainstream culture in a way that most games never will. I think it is great that this franchise has made the entertainment industry take notice of the purchasing power of gamers, but I am not a fan of Halo. FPS games aren’t my favorite, since they usually lack the story, characterization, and lovely graphics that keep me glued to RPGs and adventure games.

When Halo 3 came out, I heard the co-op mode was decent. Hoping that this would mean better chances of survival for me, I grabbed a friend who hadn’t played much Halo and sat down with him to play Halo 3.

The opening sequence was decent but not terribly impressive by my standards. I soon found myself controlling an alien who had grudgingly become an ally of Master Chief. I found this somewhat amusing, as I was a taller than the human but much shorter than my co-op partner in real life. It was fun to tower above him and watch him running ahead of me.

The console FPS controls were somewhat confusing compared to the PC mouse and keyboard. This is a common issue for those used to PCs, and those used to consoles will often have the opposite problem. It seems that it’s merely a matter of preference for most people. However, I often found myself running into the ground or swinging the camera wildly in my attempts to determine whether or not the camera was inverted compared to my intuitive idea of controls.

Due to my difficulties in controlling my character, my partner would often run ahead. We established a nice system where he would jump into melee combat and I would stay behind, sniping off some enemies and providing a re-spawn point. This worked well for a while, but soon became somewhat boring.

The enemies were mostly mindless. A certain group of aliens had ridiculous voices that made me laugh at the game…because it was so stupid. I didn’t like the idea of the enemy being completely idiotic. I prefer games where war is about fighting for what you think is right, but you still realize the consequences due to the humanization of the enemy.

The biggest problem I had with this game in general was the fact that I just didn’t care. There was little cover, sporadically placed, but it didn’t seem to matter much if I died. Ammo was in good supply, so I never had to consider conserving my resources. I could just shoot everywhere if I wanted. Also, there was an A.I. controlled team that we first rescued and then joined. They provided little help; I didn’t really notice if they were around or not.

Compared to games like Half-Life, this game was incredibly dull and lacked a decent story. The story was sprinkled in small doses after completing certain objectives, but it wasn’t very interesting. Since I didn’t care about my team and those around me, I found myself lacking motivation.

Finally, I was frustrated with Halo 3 due to its unrefined design. There were enormous enemies with huge shock sticks that were ridiculously powerful. If these enemies ran at you, you would die, even if your partner was shooting them in the back. This type of imbalance is something I aim to avoid in my games. Then there was little guidance in the form of maps, making it hard to figure out where to go. Unlike the refined level design of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the level design in Halo often left me lost.

For such a popular game, I was very disappointed in my co-op Halo 3 experience. I hope that the appeal in this game comes from the multiplayer aspect, because I was sincerely disappointed in the story mode. Halo 3 seems like an unrefined, mediocre experience.  

Recently, I have discovered that there are two basic types of RPGs: the kind where you have a little group of friends to fight alongside you and the kind where you’re pretty much on your own. When I tell people I love RPGs, I mean that I love RPGs like Final Fantasy where you have those virtual friends. I do not mean that I love RPGs like Oblivion where you pretty much run around on your own and the camera follows the character around as if it’s a third-person shooter.

I had heard that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) was a great RPG. I am a fan of Star Wars and many of my nerdiest friends had basically told me that KOTOR was the best Star Wars game ever made. I had the feeling it was the no-friends type of RPG, but so many of my friends recommended it that I felt I should give it a try.

I had purchased the game just after buying my 360, counting on it to be a great experience. One hour into the game, I wondered if I had made an unfortunate mistake. While it was certainly Star Wars, it was feeling less and less like a game I wanted to play. To begin, you can customize your character. I knew very little about the game and didn’t care about character stats and intensive customization. I just wanted to try the game out, so I went with recommended stats and chose the female character that looked the least mannish.

The game began with a stuttering cutscene of a ship under attack that made the game look incredibly dated. I soon gained control of my customized character and had to run around a ship. Finding my way through the ship was easy enough, especially as there was basically only one exit in each area. The battle system felt staged and boring, as characters would attack in turns but there was one attack “mode”. Moving my character while this attack mode was engaged would cancel my actions. So, much like World of Warcraft, I got to sit back and watch my character attack automatically unless I was struck by the sudden desire to use a special attack or a healing item. There seemed to be little thought required here – a stark contrast to the many options allowed just minutes ago when customizing my character.

I continued through the game and ended up in Taris. I ran around, talking to many people. I had a companion who followed me around at this point but he said little and was pracitally useless. I got lost in a circular maze of a bar and had to consult my map (in the menu). After consulting the menu a few times, I grew increasingly frustrated by its complexity. The attempt to visually map things out such as character stats and equipping items in a grid seemed overly complex. There were so many options that I had trouble finding what I wanted. To make things more difficult, this was the first real Xbox game I had played on the 360, so I was continually confused when the game kept asking me to press the black and white buttons (now bumpers in a completely different area of the controller). This was not the game’s fault, but it wore down my patience.

After half an hour of talking to people and exploring the town, I had no idea where to go. Perhaps I am just one of those people who has to have a strategy guide in order to enjoy RPGs. I would like to think that KOTOR is more like an adventure game, so I would not need a guide. Unfortunately, I got stuck shortly after going to the one “event” to which I was invited. It was some sort of Sith party. When I went to the party, I was greeted by the man I had met earlier and then saw a short cutscene where the attendees joked about drinking too much. The cutscene ended and I heard a “clunk” noise. I looked around and everyone at the party was on the floor, unconscious, and no one in the surrounding apartments cared. The one lead I had stopped dead on the floor with the Sith party.

I was frustrated with my first experience of KOTOR. The game seemed burdened by dialogue that continued to refer to at least five people I had never seen or met. I was forced to ask stupid questions because I had so little background and constant remarks like, “You really aren’t from around here, are you?” made me feel even more like an outsider. Perhaps I take such comments too personally.

I wanted so badly for this game to take me away into the Star Wars universe. I really hoped that I could break out of my habit of playing turn-based RPGs with happy parties of friends. I may give KOTOR another shot in the future, but next time, it will probably be with a strategy guide to serve as my faithful companion.  

After much deliberation and a well-timed price drop, I decided it was time to buy an Xbox 360. I was just about to order one from Amazon.com when a friend asked me, “Since you have an HDTV, don’t you want to wait for HDMI?”

The answer was no, but I ended up doing more thinking and had a long discussion with the owner of an EB Games. He convinced me that the black Elite console really was cooler, as I would need the extra 100GB of space and I could have my HDMI hookup right then. Later that day, I was at a Target in Oregon. There is no sales tax there, so I finally said those magical words, “Excuse me, I’d like to buy an Xbox 360 Elite.”

I had the magical console in my hands and was eagerly awaiting the moment when I could call it mine. I scanned my credit card in the card reader and looked up. The young man trying to sell me my Xbox just 20 minutes before closing was on the phone with my credit card company. Unless someone had stolen my credit card number, there was no way I could have maxed out my card. My mother came to my rescue and the console was mine. I walked out of the store gleefully, and then noticed a thirty-something couple gawking at my purchase on the way out of the store. I must’ve looked unusual, since I was a little blonde girl lugging that heavy console as if it were my own.

The next day, I received a call from the fraud department. They wanted to know if I had charged over $450 at a Target in Oregon. Ten minutes later, I discovered that the sales guy must’ve hit the wrong button and accidentally marked my purchase as fraud. My mom’s explanation was that I had made the guy flustered since I had one of the coolest summer jobs and was going to school to make games. I wasn't sure about that, but I was relieved to find out that I was the only supposedly fraudulent person using my credit card.

Later, I went to a mall with my mother and I convinced her to let me stop in the game store. I found exactly what I was looking for: a pristine used copy of the Xbox game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Since I never owned an Xbox, I missed out on this one, but now the 360’s backwards compatibility changed that. Several of my friends love that game and I was very excited to own it. I walked up to the counter and stared to buy it. “Is this for you?” asked the salesman. I was proud to say that it was, but part of me wanted to roll my eyes. Why was everyone looking at me like I was some sort of intriguing alien every time I did anything concerning Xboxes?

Just then, my mom met me at the counter. She smiled at the salesman and then said, “She tested games in L.A. all summer and she’s going to school at USC so she can follow her dream of being a video game producer.” Uh, thanks Mom. I think this made the salesman a little uncomfortable, as he explained his own interest in games and how he had been taking classes at the local community college. My mom wished him good luck and we left the store.

The next morning, we drove to the airport so I could fly back to L.A. I had bought way too much stuff, so I had to carry on my Xbox 360 along with my purse and a tote bag. I went to go through security and put my purse and tote in the machine, followed by the 360. I hurried through the metal detector in my socks and was about to grab my purse when I was called back. I had to run back through so I could take my 360 out of the box. Torn between leaving my purse unattended on one side and 360 unattended on the other, I hesitated a moment. Then I ran back to the 360 and took it out of the box as quickly as possible.

“Please remember, we need all DVD Players, laptops and Xboxes to be scanned separately!” shouted the TSA officials. I’m sure no one else had an Xbox, but the all decided to say it, just for me.

“So, are you hooked?” asked an older TSA man.

“Actually, it’s what I want to do for a living,” I said, smiling.

“So how much was that thing?” he asked.

“$450!” I shouted as I ran through the metal detector again, relieved to be reunited with my purse.

I didn’t have enough time to hide the 360 in the simple, strong canvas bag my mom had loaned me until I reached my gate. I was definitely proud of my console, but the little boy who shouted, “Look Mom! An Xbox!” reminded me of my desire to carry such a high-profile item under the radar. That one console had definitely drawn more than enough attention to me already.