Bastard of the Old Republic

It was far better. I encouraged her, delighted she was on my side now, and convinced her not to serve with that pussy Malak, but to stand at my side as we took over the galaxy together. And together we turned on Jolee, killing him dead. I hate you, old man.

Getting back to the Ebon Hawk with Bastila, my party was not quite so keen on our new attitude. Carth, spotting Jolee missing, asked what had happened. I boasted of our killing him, and Carth freaked out. The question of everyone's loyalty was raised again, with Carth determined he would not fight with us. Of course the droids were on our side - they had no choice, and HK was way ahead of us anyway. Ordo was even more delighted to stick around, proud as ever to be with a great military strategist. But Mission was not so keen. Destroyed by my conversion, she swore allegiance with Carth, and called Zaalbar to join her.

Zaalbar explained that he could not, bound by his life debt to me. She was devastated, her fourteen years not preparing herself for such terrible betrayal. When it became clear I wasn't going to let Mission go without a fight, Carth ran for it, calling Mission to run with him. I intervened. She told me I'd have to kill her, but I had a better idea. I'd get Zaalbar to do it.

Of course Zaalbar said this was too far, that he would stand by me until the end, but he would not kill Mission. Of course, I'm a Jedi, and I have that Force Persuade power on my side - when I want people to do something, they tend to find themselves wanting to do it too. While Zaalbar certainly didn't want to, he couldn't not. Apologising to a terrified, desperate, begging fourteen-year-old child, he raised his weapon and killed her on that beautiful beach.

Well, she disagreed with me. What's your problem?

Oh, okay, I admit it, it's f***ing hideous. It's tortuously terrible, and makes encouraging slavers on Kashyyyk seem trivial. Mission is by far my favourite character in the series. She is so brilliantly written, neither patronising teenagers nor ignoring their foibles and irritations. I cannot think of many more brilliantly portrayed teenage characters in anything, and I adored her sparky ways. I had put Zalbaar through hell, treating him worse than anyone else in my party, turning him against not only his own father but his entire race. And now I'd forced him to kill his only friend in cold blood.

So sure, I went on to defeat Malak, took control of the Sith, and waged bloody, hideous war on the Republic. Sure, I took control of the Star Forge and used its terrible powers for astonishing evil, wiping out countless millions of people. Yeah, sure, I went on to do all that stuff. But I had Zaalbar kill Mission, and I don't think there was a more evil moment, not only in that game but in any game I can think of.

Knights of the Old Republic is an incredible game. Incredible for so many reasons. Its writing is of such a remarkably high standard, the performances are wonderful, the story is epic and brutal with a magnificent twist, and it still looks really impressive six years on. KOTOR is so much more than making some binary choices over whether to be good or evil. This experiment might have reduced the game down to such, forcing myself to only pick the revolting choice. But despite this, despite cutting myself off from the choice that thrives throughout, it was still blooming with nuance and fascinating thinking. I've come away with nine thousand words of stories to tell, and there's great chunks I've completely skipped over.

Here's the most interesting observation that came out of it all for me: I didn't have relationships. One of my favourite things about Knights of the Old Republic, and one of the things I'm most looking forward to in the forthcoming MMO, The Old Republic, were the relationships I formed with the characters. Talking to them, probing them for their pasts, their troubles, their passions, I bonded with those people. This time, nothing. The closest I felt to anyone was Bastila at the very end of the game. I made sure I still had the conversations with the characters to learn about them, but I made sure to be as awful to them as possible. Telling Mission I didn't care that she missed her brother, or that I thought she was being an idiot to be upset about the destruction of Taris, were terrible things to do. I made no friends.

Have I changed? Well, I'm not quite sure. Playing through Mafia last week, I remember finding myself feeling tempted to shoot my own guys to find out what would happen. Not just to see how the game would react, but because I wondered if it might open up new opportunities to be a worse character. It was an instinct I'm not sure was there before. However, I feel quite certain that given another KOTOR I would make the kindest choices without hesitation. Because, you know, if you're nice to people they tend to react positively, and it generally creates happiness. I like happiness! I don't like it when I'm the reason Wookiees kill their teenage best friends.