3. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC, Xbox)
Knights of the Old Republic is my second favorite Star Wars spinoff, and is the one I would most like to see come out in movie form. Granted, that won’t happen–George Lucas wouldn’t have many stilted, awkward love scenes to write, so it’s a no-go–but the storyline is so deserving of the big screen. I picked this game up on a whim without ever reading anything about it, or ever having heard of BioWare. The game made me a big fan, enough so that I trusted them to make a game starring a hedgehog that didn’t suck. Though you find more expansive dialogue trees and choices today, that feeling of being a white knight Jedi or a dark and brooding Sith is one like no other, especially for fans of the Star Wars universe. The title influences many games today, including the very recent inFAMOUS, which had a light/dark karma system and moral choices. It’s also home to one of the greatest twists in video games, one that, while apparent, still isn’t telegraphed that well even when you know about it.
I apparently had a lot of free time on my hands as a teenager, because one day a few friends and I decided to play through all of the original KOTOR in one sitting to see who could finish the game first. It qualifies as one of those best/worst ideas ever, with most of the “best” falling under the end-game portion where we may have been deliriously yelling at the enemy Sith falling under our awesome Jedi powers. If only my lighter than snow Jedi could have taken on my friends black as night Sith after we finished taking on Malak.
That reminds me of another thing: this was the first game I played where you could influence the storyline in a way that made you good or evil, and I still to this day have never been able to finish either KOTOR title as anything but a nearly perfect Jedi. Even if I start out with the intention of being evil, I can’t go through with it, and end up caving when a citizen is in need. Plus, Bastila digs the good guys, and who am I to argue with Jennifer Hale? She’s Bastila Shan, Samus Aran, (female) Commander Shepard and Naomi Hunter.