Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Key ideas represented:

• Games adapted from licensed properties need to do more than just follow the story, they need to engross the player in the environment and give them new narrative experiences.
• The most common form of film-to-game adaptation is the direct adaptation, these are also the most criticized.
• Videogame adaptations of licensed properties suffer from poor funding, in hopes to create a better profit margin.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) is a game from the classic mold of the Western Role-playing Game (WRPG) in its approaches to the many facets of RPG gameplay. Simulated dice rolls dictate many actions from combat to diplomacy (a lasting artifact of its tabletop roots), players navigate dialog trees to solve problems where a blunt instrument is unwise or unwanted and combat is managed in real time with the provision to pause and issue orders (much like the system used in bioware's earlier Baldur's Gate). What sets KOTOR apart, however, is the license which it uses: Star Wars. And despite being a licensed game, it remains one of the most highly rated games of all time across all platforms. How does it avoid the middling to horrid fate of, say, Saw or Space Chimps? The answer is rather simple.
KOTOR is an indirect adaptation. It uses its license only as far as it needs to, paying tribute to the mythos, but doing away with nearly any relationship to the narratives provided in the past. KOTOR tells its own story, occuring long before the events of the films. Present is familiar iconography, such as the duality of the light and dark sides, droids, wookies, blasters and lightsabers, but gone are Luke and company.
Additionally, Bioware created KOTOR absent of any major event for the Star Wars property. Without having to race against the timeline of an imminent release of a new film, the developers were free to create without braving the lash of a commercial deadline. Furthermore, as an independently wealthy company, Bioware was able to purchase the license themselves without the financial strain of corporate profit margins.
Every decision involved in the creation of KOTOR was clearly made with the both the property and the game in mind. From the perspective of fans and industry pragmatists this is a clear road to success. Sadly, however, independently wealthy developers with talent and time are rare in the industry. As rare as games as important as KOTOR.

Drawing on sound effects and imagery present in the films, KOTOR actively evokes the aural and visual icons found in the films. Additionally, the themes and key locations of the universe are kept intact throughout the experience without any great deal of meddling. This is further facilitated by the game being set long before the films, giving the creators great leeway in developing their setting.

Tried-and-true gameplay mechanics found in previous Bioware games (as well as other WRPGs such as Fallout) include branching dialogue trees. This both offers an interesting channel for narrative and an engaging gameplay device requiring the player to make simple, clear decisions from a set list. Star Wars, being a chiefly narrative property with a well-developed backstory, is a perfect partner for such RPG conventions.