Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Review

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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Review by JenFebruary 2004

If ever there was the perfect “bridge” game for the adventure gamer wanting to cross over to RPGs, this is it. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has a high questing-to-combat ratio, doesn’t require much in the way of reflexology, and is adaptable to all manner of playing styles.

The premise is nothing special, just your typical save-the-galaxy fare. You start off with what amounts to the battle tutorial, in which you must escape a Republic spacecraft that has been boarded by the opposing Sith over the planet Taris. Bastila, a Jedi shipmate whose Battle Meditation ability will determine the outcome of the [cue music: da-dah da-da-da-daaah-da] Star Wars, is captured by these Sith. After you learn the controls (easy, and you don’t have to be very nimble-fingered as long as you know where to find the “pause” button), you crash-land on Taris and wake up in a strange apartment with a strange man in your room, the rakishly handsome yet disarmingly humble Republic soldier Carth, who becomes your first of nine possible party members. You set out to free Bastila, who has been captured and taken to a different part of the city.

As you progress, you will visit several other planets in the galaxy, er, Galaxy with a capital G, I meant to say. It is the individual stories on each of these planets that really shine, as well as the character development. Your party members, in particular, and many of the NPCs are fully fleshed out, living, breathing, human beings (or not). Each planet has its own political system, its own environment (although all are strangely Earth-like), and its own indigenous species (although all are strangely humanoid).  The overarching story, as well, despite its trite underpinnings, will keep you moving right along, and it delivers a couple of big surprises.

Battling is a combination of real-time and turn-based, which is to say that the D&D-style dice-roll fights play out automatically—you can pause between each turn to choose a particular attack or item if you like, but if you don’t take any action, the battle will continue to its conclusion without your input. In the first two-thirds of the game, the usual turn-based strategies do matter a little (on the easy setting); in the final third (except for the end game) it was practically impossible to get killed. I’d just put down the controller, get a drink or a snack or go potty or what have you, and pick it up again once the fight was over.

Combat comes in three levels of difficulty: easy, normal, and hard. And you can change your selection anytime during the game.  I started off with the “normal” setting and was doing just fine, but the battles were too long and too repetitive, so I switched it to “easy.” (I’m a lover, not a fighter, tee hee … although sometimes there is something supremely satisfying about kicking video butt.)

For the most part, combat really is an ancillary component of the game. The only reason for it, I think, is to serve as a vessel for delivery of experience points and items, and like as not to extend the play time—without the fighting, the game would be considerably shorter. There is not an overabundance of battling and, except in the areas populated by hostile wild creatures, enemies once killed stay dead.

If you find the prospect of the typical RPG stats management daunting, no worries—KOTOR gives you the option of auto-leveling or selecting the areas where you want to focus your abilities. I don’t dig the D&D, daddy-o, so I opted for the auto-leveling throughout the whole game.

There are quite a number of conundrums. Unlike most RPGs (at least the few that I’ve played), in KOTOR your tasks are not all fetch-and-deliver. There are actual puzzles—some unique and some familiar. Unique ones include the numerous times you must “spike” a computer and disable this or that in a “dungeon;” the familiar includes a Towers of Hanoi game and some number sequences (although among these latter were a couple of sequences I’d not seen before).

It is obvious Knights of the Old Republic is a big-budget game, and this munificence was extended to the hiring of voice actors. Included in the closing credits were Ed Asner and Charity James, although I must confess I did not recognize either of their voices whilst I was playing. Music, too, is top-drawer, including snatches of the original Star Wars movie music.

You can play either a male or female character, and you can play evil or angelic or any degree in between. You get light points or dark points depending on the moral choices you make in certain situations. On the whole, the game plays out much the same no matter what direction you take. There are different endings depending on whether you embrace the dark or the light, and there are some different weapons and armor usable only by one or the other. I played as light; after a while I started wishing I had chosen dark instead. Sometimes it’s good to be bad. Besides, the dark side gets better stuff.

I played the Xbox version. I’ve heard tell the PC version includes some additional material. Although the game played nearly flawlessly, I did hit one pretty big bug that entailed replaying an hour or so of the game, after doing something slightly different near the beginning of one of the dungeons (again, I use the word loosely; there are no actual dungeons in KOTOR).

Party members include three other Jedi, one of them being that snot Bastila (ooh, how I wished I could’ve reached into my TV and fattened her lip once or twice); a couple of robots, er, droids, I mean; a mercenary; that damned goody two-shoes Republic soldier Carth; and a big ol’ hairy Wookie and his interspecies gal pal, a perky Twi’lek named Mission (“Twi’lek” means “Two Blue Snake Butts Growing out of Your Blue Head,” I think).  Most of them are weak. I wound up choosing the same two for almost every outing, that bitch Bastila and my favorite bad-ass humanoid droid, the stylishly metallic HK-47. Sometimes I was forced to do a mission by myself, and sometimes I could not choose these two characters (your party has a three-character maximum) for whatever reason and had to use a lesser character. Like that damned Carth. Actually, that damned Carth was a halfway decent buttkicker.  I just did not like him much. No sirree Bob, not much at all.

All characters level up at the same rate, so even if you leave some behind on nearly every mission, when you do need them, their stats are there for you. The weak ones are still weak, though, so I guess all things are relative. I think part of the problem was that I put all of my weapon and armor upgrades into the characters that I used the most and then had nothing left over for the rest of ’em. I suppose I could’ve taken stuff back from the strong guys and given it to the weak guys to make them the new strong guys, but hey, I am always one to take the easy (read: lazy) choice.  It comes with the Fat Chick territory.

Now for the bad stuff: the turret. The turret is the only negative thing I can come up with. Several times, you must man the despicable turret and shoot at enemy spacecraft. Even this would not be such a bad thing if it were not for the reverse controls. Whoever thunk up reverse controls ought to be strapped to a chair and forced to actually play something with said reverse controls. For those of you who have never been blessed with this curse, “reverse controls” means simply that you move the joystick up and your gun or what have you moves down. It doesn’t sound very hard, and it probably isn’t for most people, but that is one dichotomy my brain simply cannot accept. Anyway, while I did survive all of the turret-manning (the time limits are exceedingly generous), it was the one part of KOTOR that was not fun for me. I loathed the turret with every fiber of my being.

There are two or three other minigames in addition to the turret, but the rest of them are optional. In fact, I don’t think you ever have to play the card game, Pazaak. You do have to play a racing game one time, but that first time there is a huge advantage built into the game and you’d be hard put to lose. There is also a boxing-ring type game near the beginning. You can win or lose money by playing any of these minigames, or you can skip them altogether, like me.

Knights of the Old Republic is fast-paced, linear, and consistently entertaining, and the goals are always clear. There are not very many side quests. I did almost all of them and the whole game still took me only around 50 hours, short by RPG standards.  That suits me just fine, though, since that’s about the longest I can maintain an interest in any one game.

I haven’t played a game this long that was this much solid fun all the way through since Anachronox, and KOTOR is a helluva lot less buggy. I was sorry to finish Knights of the Old Republic, and I am pleased to give it our Gold Star with no reservations whatsoever. This was a nearly perfect gaming experience, at least by my standards. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Bioware Publisher: LucasArts Release Date: November 2003 (PC); July 2003 (Xbox)

Available for: Windows Xbox

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

100% DirectX 9.0b compatible computer Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP Intel PIII 1 GHz or AMD Athlon 1 GHz (1.6 GHz recommended) 128 MB RAM (Win98), 256 MB RAM (WinME/2000/XP) (512 MB recommended) 32 MB OpenGL 1.4 compatible PCI or AGP 3D hardware accelerator with hardware transform and lighting (T&L) capability (ATI Radeon 9200 or better, NVidia GeForce4 Ti or better recommended) 100% DirectX 9.0b compatible audio device 4X CD-ROM drive Keyboard and mouse DirectX 9.0b (included) 4 GB free hard drive space

Where to Find It

GoGamer PC 39.90; Xbox 46.90

Prices/links current as of 02/03/04Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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29 Responses to The Long, Sordid Tail of DRM

  • Meho

    Good one.

    Of course, it will be very interesting to see the battle between crackers and UBI’s cryptographers. PC version of Assassin’s Creed II is already circulating the warez scene, although as yet uncracked. Everybody seems to think it will be cracked in a couple of weeks time at worst, which, admittedly is better for UBI than what usually happens (games cracked before release). Of course, I won’t be buying it because I find this practice unnacceptable (and I do have the console version anyway) but the success of this game and its DRM might mean quite a lot in the future. Of course, we ARE moving towards the age where you will be required to be connected to do any playing at all, whatwith the Gaikai and OnLive systems rearing their heads on the horizon. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, eh?

  • Spike

    I went to the Ubisoft website and looked at their list of published games.  It seems that the last of their games I played was the last Myst game in 2005.  In fact the only Ubisoft games I’ve played have been Myst games.  So I don’t see that their new DRM crime-against-my-privacy will have much of an effect on me.  But I hate the idea.  It’s an “Off with their heads!” kind of development.  Reminds me of the idea that people will put up with lost privacy in exchange for security.  In this case the security is only to benefit Ubisoft.  Yes, I allow my privacy to be violated every day – each time I visit Amazon, or read Google News -the list goes on and on.  BUT THOSE ARE MY CHOICES.  I also have a choice about where and how I spend my money, and I’d refrain from buying a game that allows so much intrusion into my computer/life.  A game that tells me how I must live my life even in the smallest of ways such as always being connected to the internet is a game I can forgo.

  • Jason O

    Consoles CAN be connected to the internet 100% of the time, but there are still many consoles that never go online. Modern Warfare 2 sold over 11 million copies, yet XBox Live only shows 840,000 users that have been on-line with it. That’s not played online, that means they played the game in any mode while connected to XBox Live.

    Games that have required an internet connection and were multiplayer only have a history of vanishing quickly from the console marketplace. Phantasy Star ONLINE did much better on the Gamecube then it did on the XBox. What was the difference? Oh yeah, you could play PSO without an internet connection on the Gamecube, the XBox version require a live account and an internet connection. That’s hardly the only example but one that is near and dear to my heart.

  • Bennet

    No, no, you don’t get it! Ubisoft’s “always connected” requirement isn’t DRM, it’s value-add for you, the beloved customer. Just like the Albertsons supermarket chain requires employees to plaster obnoxiously bright orange “Thank you for shopping with us!” stickers on your Coke and milk not because they think you’re stealing them but to express their sincere gratitude for your patronage.

    Maybe my memories of a time when consumers paid for a product and got the product, unadorned by FBI warnings and impossible to open wrappings and authentication servers that can vanish at any time without warning were planted by aliens. In the current cultural climate it’s certainly difficult to believe that time ever existed.

  • Meho

    But Steerpike makes a good point: business model, retail model is lagging behind the times. And developers, instead of researching ways to use the existing systems to sell more games rather research new ways to piss off their paying customers.

    Seriously, in my opinion, pirates pirate games because they are better value than retail games. Not just in the sense that they get to spend less money on them, but they get them faster, do not have to go through any hassle with DRM and have full control over the game. I think that Gabe Newell put it best saying that Valve sees pirates as customers who haven’t been served yet.

    I think UBI and their ilk should look for ways to make retail games more valuable to their customers than (free) warez copies. Yes, stuff like achievements/ trophies helps a little, sure. There are other ways too and one of them is resale value. But, oh, what a surprise, used games market pisses publishers off MORE than pirates do. In fact most of the current DRM schemes are only effective against resales. EA’s ten dollar project and all other free DLC on day one initiatives. So, honestly, I’m afraid that UBI’s online-all-the-time-or-no-service DRM is basically only going to affect sales of used games. The crackers are going to bring their games to pirates eventually. I believe that draconic DRM schemes such as this will only inspire people like GeoHot, Dark Alex and Yoshihiro to spend more of their time on circumvention. Their street cred is going to be huge after all…

    What Valve seem to understand is that playing games through Steam should make playing MORE valuable/ comfortable than not playing games through Steam (which is, at the end of the day a DRM system). Being able to instal a game on as many machines as you want and not having to have a disc in the drive is exactly what pirated games give us too, but with Steam you also retain all your stats, friends lists, achievements and everything. So it’s BETTER than playing pirated games. I only hope that UBI wake up and realise they have to ADD value, not just subtract freedoms.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not really sure I see their DRM as a huge problem.  If my PC is turned on, so is my internet.  I’m fully aware that my name is probably on a million data bases already, and although it might be annoying knowing that Ubisoft have implemented such a security feature, if you don’t physically notice it, I don’t particularly care.

    I’m currently playing Myst at the moment, having never before.  What an odd game…

  • Meho

    Well, you know, just from a philosophical standpoint: if the game is unplayable as soon as you don’t have Internet connection (which, I’m afraid, happens to me more regularly than I am comfortable with) for no other reason than making sure you have paid for it then to me this is pretty much unnacceptable. Requiring a connection for something that is a function of the game itself is OK, but enforcing it just for the sake of protection of the publisher, sorry, no sale.

  • Lewis B

    True Meho.  I had 40 minutes the other day before I went out and thought I would have a quick skirmish on Dawn of War II.  Steam (despite my love for it) wouldn’t launch the game because for some reason it kept freezing and refusing to connect or launch in offline mode.  I couldn’t actually locate the source directory either to boot the game up manually. So, I didn’t get to play and instead spent 40 minutes in a fit of rage cursing Valve and all who work under them. 

    Not exactly the same situation, but not hugely dissimilar.

  • Gregg B

    I’m really not concerned about the privacy issue simply because that illusion is just that, and doesn’t really comfort or unsettle me. My problem with this whole thing is that internet connections can be temperamental at the best of times and the idea that if the connection falters I will lose my progress (and thus my invested time which I’d argue is more valuable than my money) then quite frankly Ubi can fuck off. I’ve been pretty placid up to press with DRM simply because it’s not seemed that intrusive but this will affect the paying customers more than the pirates. It devalues the product and I fear it will push otherwise paying customers to download cracked versions that don’t suffer from this shit. Which, of course, will play into Ubi’s hands.

    Am I right in believing all this stems from the hideous retail model that just refuses to die? Physical retail creates pressuring deadlines, costs considerably more due to increased physical production (and overheads in staffing and floor space), it’s inflexible with stock limitations and shelf space dictating the range of titles available in any given store and by the sounds of things is the sole reason for this ‘tail’. If you look at Steam, it isn’t always the newest games that sell the most due in no small part to their sales and weekend deals.

    “I wonder if we’ll ever get to a point where a person would be just as likely to invest in a beloved classic as a hot new release.”

    From my experience there are a lot of people who simply can’t stomach old looking games, even some of my friends who’ve been playing games since they were young have turned into total graphics whores. Seriously you want to see the totally underwhelmed look on their faces when I show them XCOM for any period of time. We’re at a stage now where graphics are so advanced that for a lot of people going back so far to sample an allegedly classic title is simply too much. Thankfully GOG is doing a fantastic job of making these titles as accessible, and valuable, as possible.

    EDIT: Spot on Meho. My point exactly.
    See what I mean though Lew? Time. Valuable stuff. A quick skirmish on DoW turned into a 40 minute skirmish with Steam.

  • Mat

    This seems like an awful idea.. or at least one which sounds like a good idea to somebody somewhere, but in reality is unworkable.

    Since I’ve been a paying internet customer I have lived at 3 different addresses and used around 5 different ISP’s. I have ALWAYS had problems with my internet connection. With my current set up it tends to go down if a menacing looking cloud passes overhead..

  • xtal

    Some people may like to play a game offline now and then; this is especially easy with older ones before the dawn of activation codes and online authentication. While those aren’t that annoying, having to maintain a constant internet connection just to play a game that you paid for, which is not specifically a MMO, really bites.

    Gregg B said:
    “Am I right in believing all this stems from the hideous retail model that just refuses to die? Physical retail creates pressuring deadlines, costs considerably more due to increased physical production (and overheads in staffing and floor space), it’s inflexible with stock limitations and shelf space dictating the range of titles available in any given store and by the sounds of things is the sole reason for this ‘tail’. If you look at Steam, it isn’t always the newest games that sell the most due in no small part to their sales and weekend deals.”

    I agree with this. Just a few years ago I couldn’t see myself paying for intangible, digital goods. Fast forward to now and it’s really my preferred method of computer gaming, whether it’s GOG, Steam, or elsewhere, I find it’s the model that works best for the customer. If I’m not mistaken, I believe once upon a time that was who the industry was trying to serve, no? The customer?

  • Cesar

    You know, I’m from Brazil and there piracy is HUGE. Maybe for that reason I feel for the industry and understand the efforts to stop it. However, I suspect this crack delay would have a very minor impact in markets like Brazil. People can’t afford the games, so they wouldn’t pay full price anyway.

    It is a shame that we don’t have privacy anymore. The other day a friend of mine on XBox Live sent me a message to congratulate me on a goal I scored in Fifa 10. I didn’t know but apparently not only you can see I’m playing Fifa, but you also see when I score and my avatar cheers! While that sounds very cool, it is also very disturbing. But like Matt points very well, privacy is already gone. And since I don’t have it anymore, why not help stop piracy?

    On the other hand, the plurality of solutions is a different matter, it becomes a hassle. I think the solution should be platform dependent, not publisher dependent. In Brew phones, the control is embedded in the system and you cannot use an app if it cannot be verified, which means if you are not connected to the network you can’t play.

    Unfortunately that cannot be applied to consoles, there’s a considerable number of devices outside the internet umbrella. But if the game constantly checks if you are online and tries to authenticate the copy, online piracy will suffer a big hit and the technological move towards full connectivity will make the practice more and more efficient over time.

  • Andrew

    Not going to buy the game, long tail or not, it sucks to have that kind of persistent connection needed for offline play. Not even just startup authorisation either. I must admit any Game For Windows Live games can be similar (Dawn of War 2 being one of them necessitating it) although most of them allow offline profiles, and most of them allow the saves to be moved easily between any online or offline accounts.

    Oh, and if you’re disconnected it won’t kick you out of the game too, even Microsoft didn’t get that wrong.

    I don’t even understand how privacy comes into it, my main issue is twofold:
    – The above note about simple, offline play (and disconnects for blips in service)
    – The fact it isn’t just your connection that is necessary, it is THEIR connection and servers

    The second point as a partial game historian leads me to wonder how many years (not decades) the servers will be there. Publishers have removed much more necessary servers quickly if they are a cost liability (or they want to push people onto a newer game…). Downtime is also, considering some of the services require payment (Xbox Live for instance) devastatingly poor considering the user base sizes, especially on high load days (and I wonder if we’ll see “Assassins Creed 2 unplayable at launch due to server overload” at all, heh). Lucky it’s “just games” though, no worries if we only have 99% uptime right?! 😉

    (Also, frankly their Assassins Creed 1 port was poor until they patched it, where at least then it was playable (in full on 16:9…for some reason), which makes me wary of any PC release of a console game they do. I wonder also if they still have unskippable cutscenes, I’ve not checked it out on the consoles).

    The fact they’ll never have enough sales of this PC version due to the earlier console release to either say this is a roaring success or roaring failure. It’s the longest end of the tail in the first place. Or they’ll lie about whatever happens anyway. It’s utterly bizarre…I just don’t understand it.

  • Meho

    Cesar: I’m in Serbia and here piracy reigns supreme (much worse than Brazil, I imagine) but still, this is pure and simple bullshit. I purcahsed BioShock 2 today, for my PS3 even though I’d prefer to play it on my PC just because of the stupid DRM that won’t let me control the use of a game I pay for. They can fuck off with that. So, my purchase was influenced by DRM, depsite the game being more natural to play on a PC. Protection measures should not create this kind of bitterness in a human being.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    The issue of server overload on release days is significant. Think about it – a game like Modern Warfare 2? Or any other hotly anticipated release? Of course the servers would go down. It’s not cost-effective to install a server infrastructure capable of handling Day Zero traffic. That would royally piss people off.

    Ubi and others who use draconian DRM typically insist that if they ever go out of business or shut servers down, they’ll issue patches so the games can be played offline.

    Around the holidays here, big stores like Best Buy station a guy at the exit. His job is to go through your bag and consult your receipt to make sure you haven’t stolen anything. That’s a very similar ideology to this one: treat all consumers like thieves in hopes of catching the few who are.

  • Lewis B

    Considering most MMOG servers cannot cope on launch day, I see it as a gaurentee that when the next Modern Warfare is released, if they do follow through with this, would see many unhappy players.

  • lakerz1

    This new DRM policy will totally be screwing me over because I have a wireless internet setup, but my signal is a bit weak so here and there it drops out for a 10-15 second period before it reconnects.  Plus my wireless router is a bit wonky and will just stop working once in awhile until I cycle power to it.  So, until my setup changes, I will be forced to avoid all Ubi PC games that use this.

  • Igor Hardy

    I seriously doubt a person which would normally pirate a game, will pay money for it just because she has to wait a short while longer for the cracked version. This can work only for very cheap games – like 1$ cheap.

  • Meho

    Just for those keeping tabs: the Russian version of Assassin’s Creed II has apparently been successfully cracked, with a fix for the saves too. Of course, I don’t KNOW this for sure but that’s the word circulating through the grapewine.

  • Cesar

    Brazil is a strong competitor in the piracy rates. 95%-97% if I am not mistaken.

    Anyway, I don’t have a problem with the privacy issue. Not even with the assumption that we are all thieves. If you extrapolate that idea, you will conclude we shouldn’t have patrol cars on the streets. They assume people will commit crimes and have to keep watch. Homo homini lupus. Society isn’t perfect and even though losses are part of the model, no one is ready to lose out of good faith alone. I don’t mean to say DRM and police watch are the same thing, I’m just saying it’s not that simple to draw a line where it becomes offensive to monitor society.

    That being said, it is not acceptable to have a DRM impact gameplay at all. I don’t mind it authenticating my copy. But if I am offline it has to work. And if I loose connection during the game I shouldn’t be kicked out.

    And while the efficacy of the solution might be questionable under these circumstances, like I said in the previous comment, it only tends to increase.

  • Andrew

    “Ubi and others who use draconian DRM typically insist that if they ever go out of business or shut servers down, they’ll issue patches so the games can be played offline.”

    I have seen this happen to absolutely zero games ever. The fact that it is nearly impossible to sanction any work on IP if a company is in administration is the key. That and it is non-trivial to get around your own disk DRM by producing an installer that will work with your disk copy to install it.

    I’d love to be proved wrong…this is by far the most worrying thing of the deal, just installed Bioshock 2 and it has online activation (sigh)…worried I might need to download cracked versions to install it in the future!

    Oh, did you see the patch notes of the first patch? It makes the DRM very very very slightly “better” (I mean, better as in “still shit”):

    http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/17456/Assassin%27s+Creed+2+Patch+1.01+-+US

    “Game can now be continued from the exact same point when connection is restored”

    Ho ho ho. Ho.

  • Gregg B

    I like this bit:

    “Only those who purchased a copy of ACII or SHV legally appear to be affected. Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem.”

    Is it apparent pirates are having no problems yet? If they’ve properly cracked it then what I feared (above) is true. Last I heard was that the DRM apparently downloads levels or important files as you play. I don’t know whether this is true or not though.

  • Spike

    Meho beat me to it.  I just read a similar article on The Register.  I don’t suppose that the DDoS attack will make Ubi rethink its evil ways, but this might (I can dream, can’t I?):

    “Meanwhile Ubisoft’s much criticised controls have been broken by software hackers. A hacker group called Skid-Row managed to bypass DRM restrictions on Silent Hunter 5 less than 24 hours after the game was published. Skid Row has releasing a crack for the game based on this work, Zdnet reports. ®”

    Full article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/08/ubisoft_anti_drm_hack_attack/

  • Littermate

    Spike.  RE: The Register article
    There is a comment to that article that claims the crack for SH5 is not a complete crack and would only allow an incomplete experience, because not only are save games stored online but some of the game data files are stored online too, implying that the boxed game you buy is incomplete.  This seems plausible and effective IMO, because if I was demanding an internet connection for my software this is how I would do it.  It demands not only that a games code be cracked but that missing data files be supplied too.

  • Spike

    Having just read this article – link below – I’m thinking that DRM will be fine and dandy AND hunky-dory with me as long as the packaging it comes in is “green”.  Yep.  That makes it more palatable.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/1620105/ubisoft-green-recycled-case-digital-manual-sustainable-packaging

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    I would kind of like to buy games in potato cases.

  • xtal

    I was thinking… and remembered one of the most creative instances of “DRM” if you can call it that: King’s Quest VI! I looked it up and sure enough it is mentioned on KQVI’s Wikipedia page:

    A booklet titled “Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles” (written by Jane Jensen) is included in the KQVI package. Aside from providing additional background to the game’s setting, this booklet serves as part of the game’s copy-protection. The player will not be able to pass the puzzles on the Cliffs of Logic that guard the Isle of the Sacred Mountain without information from the booklet. The booklet also includes a poem encoding the solution to one of the puzzles in the labyrinth on the Isle of the Sacred Mountain.

    I guess that’s not very feasible today, what with widespread use of the internet around the world. I still think it’s more creative than the “thank you for your money, we intend to treat you like a criminal” method.

  • Bluebogle

    I played the KQVI game with the booklet. I was a kid at the time, and thought the booklet was so cool! It really added to the whole game’s experience.

    The quest for Glory games came with fun booklets as well, though I don’t remember if they had copy protection elements to ’em.

    Ahh, the good old days..

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