Knights of the Old Republic begins in epic Star Wars fashion, with your custom-designed character narrowly escaping a devastating space attack by a Sith fleet and central villain Darth Malak by ejecting via escape pod. While the overarching meta-goal—in one version of the story, at least—revolves around saving the galaxy from the Sith, the joy lies not in the end results, but in a wildly open-ended journey that will leave even the crustiest gamers breathless.

The nonlinear missions, quests, character subplots, minigames, weapon load-outs, character improvements, and space battles would fill every single page of this magazine, so here's the short version: From completing seemingly inconsequential tasks that loop back around later in the game to gleefully wading through the Diablo-esque slew of weapons, items, upgrades, and armor, there's more game in KOTOR than you can wrap your mind around. At least the first time through.​