Star Wars: The Best of PC (Empire at War, Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Battlefront, Republic Commando)

While the title may be a misnomer to some (given the fact that the X-Wing & TIE Fighters games are not here), you still get five great Star Wars games for a great price. Knights of the Old Republic is a fantastic RPG that fans of Bioware will love (If you've played Dragon Age, you have a rough idea of how it plays). Over 20 hourse across six planets, fighting to stop the Dark Side, or to succumb to it. This game also employs a morality system, in which certain actions give you Light Side Points, or Dark Side Points. Your alignment affects the story, what items you can equip, and what Force powers may want to have (as Force powers of the opposite alignment cost more to use). Whenever an enemy appears on screen, the game will pause, allowing to target enemies. During this time, you can set up to 5 actions you want every character in your party to do. Battles can become challenging later on, so getting the Force powers to buff your characters or the items can help you turn the tides of a battle. Star Wars Battlefront is a team based first/third person shooter in which you play as a trooper in the Republic or Sith armies, re-enacting key scenes of the Star Wars movies, such as the battle on Naboo from The Phantom Menace. You pick from one of 5 classes (usually with a standard trooper, a sniper, and explosive trooper) and go in. Some levels have side objectives to do, but usually the objective is to simply kill all members on the opposite team. One thing to note: you don't count on your side's number of people, So if everyone dies but you, you still lose. Republic Commando is a squad based FPS where you play a Clone in an elite squad fighting for the Republic. Unique to this games are the commands you can give to your squad mates, telling them to do things like capture points, heal, and take cover to avoid damage, or tell them to go to a perfect sniping position. Empire at War is an RTS, and since I don't care much for RTS games, I didn't play it all that much, but it seemed to have the genre staples. Amazon fails to mention that this game also comes with a 5th game, Jedi Knights II: Jedi Outcast. This is a FPS/Third person action game. The game plays like a standard FPS when you have a blaster weapon, but when you have a light saber the game changes to a third-person view. Along the way you get access to force powers, which can devastate enemies. All in all, this is a solid collection of fun games worth getting. All 5 games are worth more than what this collection is worth, so really there no reason not to jump on it. PSA: Some may experience issues installing these games on newer hardware. The Lucasforums has a Workbench section where they help people with such issues. Here is a link to how to install KOTOR on Windows 7/Vist: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=194324 I personally had no issues installing and running these games on my Windows 8 machine, but from what I've heard, it's random.

I originally got this Star Wars Best Of PC package about 3 and a half years ago (I know, a long time to wait to write a review, but better late than ever)as a gift for my oldest son (Who is just shy of 14 now, 10 at the time). He ended up playing all 5 games but the one he really took a shine to was Republic Commando. Two of the games was just a little to strategic for him at the time (Battlefront and Empire At War)and did not get played as much. The other one he liked as well (Probably because it was a FPS like Republic Commando)was Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast. I just got through re-loading these games on my sons new gamer PC and got them all working under Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64 bit and my Garage PC which is running Windows 7 Professional SP1 32 bit (See Specs below), and yes including Republic Commando (See fix and explanation also below)that has the problem of kicking back to windows when starting the actual game on the newer PCs. The Graphics on Battlefront, Empire at War, and Republic Commando are still exceptional despite thier realitve age (Some of these games are going anywhere from 7 to 9 years old) and well worth the $7 to $8 dollars a pop for them. With my son being older I think he will enjoy them more than when he was slightly younger. Overall, Great Games for the money with hours and hours of entertainment. Star Wars - Republic Commando fix: The following Fix should work for the following Windows Operating Systems running the newer Video Cards from 2008 on... Windows 2000 Professional (Have not tested the game on this OS but should work) Windows XP (32 Bit) Windows XP (64 Bit, Have not tested the game on this OS but should work) Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit) Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit) 1) Run Republic Commando as administrator (If you are not already logged in as one by default). 2) After selecting your profile, click Options > Graphics 3) Set the Bumpmapping setting to "Low", It should have originally been on "High". (Any other option other than "Low" will kick you back into Windows) Please Note: Leave all other graphic options either in default or high for best game graphics experience. 4) Close Republic Commando 5) Restart Star Wars: Republic Commando and it should work just fine. Explanation - When LucasArts was designing this game originally the game code made use of a graphic card option called "Bump Graphics", which were available on most of the Video Cards during that time (crica 2004-2005), However starting with the higher end ATI (Now AMD) Radeon HD 3000 series Video Cards that option was removed and no longer supplied on the updated drivers. about a year or two later Nvidia followed suite with thier Video Card and Drivers. I found the actual fix and why in the Lucas Art support Forums by doing some Googling. System Specs: My Sons Desktop Intel Core Dou 2 Quad socket 775, 6mb cache processor Intel DP43TF MOBO 8GB of DDR2 800mhz PC6400 RAM 750W Antec PSU 750GB SATA HDD 24bit 5.1 Creative Sound Card 1GB intergrated Intel NIC ATI Radeon HD 6450 PCI-E 1GB Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (64 Bit) 27inch LCD VE276Q ASUS Monitor System Specs: My Garage Desktop P4 3.4GHZ HT socket 478, 1 MB cache processor INTEL 865 PERLK MOBO 4GB of DDR1 400mhz PC3200 RAM 680W PSU 300GB SATA HDD 24bit 5.1 Creative Sound Card Edimax Wi-Fi Card 1GB intergrated Intel NIC ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP 512mb Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (32 Bit)