Feel the force flowing through you

For me, good computer games provide a near-total emersion experience. I get to control characters as they strive for their objectives, I feel their frustrations and their triumphs. When I finally have to walk away from the computer for such irritating needs as food, toilet and sleep, I find that six hours or more has passed in a flash.

Great computer games need to give me more. The most satisfying are those where I get to dip my toe into well-loved worlds from TV (Star Trek), Film (Blade Runner) and even literature (Discworld: Noir). The universe I most like to pitch my cyber-tent in has to be Star Wars.

I bought 'Star Wars: The Best of PC' in 2007. It claimed to contain '5 of the greatest Star Wars games ever'. I recommend this collection as there is not a weak game in it. You have an eclectic mix, consisting of Empire at War, Battlefront, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Republic Commando and Knights of the Old Republic.

Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) takes place 4000 years before Princess Leia downloads the Death Star's plans onto R2-D2. This means the narrative has a degree of latitude from the protocols of the Star Wars universe. For example, the Sith is a far more overt presence in KOTOR than in the films.

This is a good place to begin looking at the actual game. The player's character, whose name and gender you decide, begins the story having just survived the crash of a space ship. They have no recollection of their past, which means no particular leaning towards good or evil. The player's actions influence this and, as the story unfolds, you can favor the good path of the Jedi or the dark path of the Sith. These choices in turn, will influence the attitude of characters you interact with and the powers you wield.

During the course of the game, other characters will try and help you and others will try and kill you. The Jedi masters will teach you to use the force, while the Sith lord Darth Malak tracks you across the galaxy.

Any product of the Star Wars franchise should have certain features guaranteed: interesting and exotic locations, interesting and exotic characters, clever technology, and lots and lots of fighting. KOTOR delivers bucket loads of all of them.

The action takes place over several superbly rendered environments. Your character will travel from the depths of the ocean, across majestic deserts and through deep space. You hop around these destinations onboard the Ebon Hawk, which is where the characters in your party will wait until you need them.

You can be accompanied by a range of characters but, with only a limited number of slots available, choosing them will require careful thought. These characters include loyal droids, wise-cracking mercenaries, and headstrong women. Each has a variety of special abilities and you will need to call on all of them at different stages. Remember, they too have their own position on the Jedi / Sith scale.

You will need to find, fix and manipulate a variety of gadgets to progress during the game. This might be as simple as finding a key card to a restricted area, or you might have to locate the power plant for a pod-racer in order to challenge the local champion.

As well as searching rooms, this involves talking to other characters. Some of these will send you off on quests and sub-plot arcs in order to retrieve information or objects for them. You select what you say to these characters from menus, usually containing four choices. If you say the wrong thing, they will become uncooperative or even try and kill you.

Finally, the battles you fight. As with the classic films, these range from dog-fights between space ships to the elegance of light-saber duels, with every kind of gun-shooting, stick-wielding melee in between. The majority of the combat takes places place with your selected group against an enemy of two or three members. It is turn-based, but you can pause the action to make adjustments to your characters' attributes.

KOTOR had the depth and scale to be a worthy addition to the Star Wars canon. It was also a phenomenal piece of computer entertainment, as it's truck-full of awards attest (see Wikipedia entry for details). It feels fresh, even in 2008, which is an awesome achievement given its release in 2003. There is a warm predictability about being in the Star Wars universe. The characters in KOTOR align fairly easily with those in the original films and the Ebon Hawk is obviously the ancestor of the Millennium Falcon.

This is also true of the plot which unravels as predictably as the original Star Wars film. Luckily, there are many twists and turns in the plot, and the player is able to influence the decisions taken. The final plot twist is superb and I guarantee you'll want to go back and play it in different ways.

I'm very glad the sequel to KOTOR has now been released. I just need time to play it!