KOTOR TONIGHT

I love Mass Effect: Andromeda. I know, I've said it a buncha times already, but I actually think about wanting to play it when I haven't played it in the last 24 hours, and that's unusual for me. That's kinda my litmus test for whether or not I love a game.

Still, I'm really excited to start my KotOR stream series tonight!



It's gonna be really interesting having those two games juxtaposed for a while, since KotOR came out of BioWare back in 2002, and MEA, also from BioWare, just hit. One can actually see the basic framework for the Mass Effect series in KotOR, since that dev team went right into the first Mass Effect from there. It'll be fun playing those side-by-side.

A big part of the reason that I'm so excited for my KotOR (1&2) stream series is 1) I haven't played them in several years, and 2) KotOR rescued gaming for me. I'd been a JRPG guy up to that point, but Japanese dev, especially roleplaying games, had gone a direction that I was not digging, and KotOR acted as the lifeline that I needed, and it led me to a much larger world.



Also, Star Wars is one of the things in this world of which I am the most fond. The Old Republic setting, in particular, really resonated with me. It's thousands of years prior to the films, which unshackled BioWare from having to work in or around the film lore. They went to the comics and referenced the Tales of the Jedi series, which is FANTASTIC AND YOU SHOULD READ, and this gave them a great jumping-off point.

There's also a great KotOR comics series called 'Knights of the Old Republic' (imagine that), and it is nearly as good as the games.

When I play through the first KotOR, I'll be playing only with a few mods that let me set the resolution to 1920x1080. When I get to KotOR2, it'll be heavily modded, so that I can play something that resembles a completed game. It'll be modded to support 1920x1080, but it'll also have the cut content restored and finished, some of which I've never seen. This is going to be a blast!



The schedule, right now, is Thurs and Fri nights at 2000 central. I'll probably also sneak in some weekend sessions when I can. I suppose adopting a more strict schedule could help my regular viewership. What do you think?

While I'm playing, I'll be dropping some fun knowledge about the development, the in-game lore, and my own personal stories about previous playthroughs, how I first heard about it, funny tangential stories, and the like. You're gonna love it, I promise.

I'll be streaming on Twitch, and then pushing it to YouTube after each stream is done.



So, again, that'll be tonight at 2000 central time. We'll start from the beginning, and it'll probably be the first time that a lot of you see KotOR in a modern resolution. Also, for those that are interested, it is going to be a canon playthrough. Our KotOR 1 protag is going to be a male, and the KotOR 2 protag will be female. I'm also going to try and make choices within the bounds of the canon. Well, the canon within SWTOR, anyway. As you may know, Disney deleted the expanded universe, including all the excellent Old Republic stuff.

Regardless, I look forward to seeing anyone that wants to hang out and talk Star Wars or KotOR tonight!

-Blaine