Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Released on iPad, Review

Update: The game has been released on iTunes for $9.99, so you can grab the title and try it for yourself!

Original:If I had to guess, based on this review that IGN has just penned, BioWare’s early 2000s classic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is about to be released on iOS. The review focuses on how the game survived the translation on the touch platform, and apparently it did so pretty much unscathed, judging by the 8.8/10 score. Here’s a snip:

Navigating the menus and sorting equipment is also made mostly better by the advent of touch controls, except for a few instances like the Powers menu in which the icons are fairly small and the text is more difficult to read. The controls for conversation, on the other hand, can be slightly distracting. Since dialogue options correspond to a large, bubble-shaped numbers on the side of the screen, I had to find the proper response and then take a moment to finger-hunt for the correct number to go along with it.

If the new controls have one Achilles’ Heel, though, it’s in the movement. Running from place to place involves dragging and then holding a finger to guide your Jedi in the proper direction. This inevitably blocks a significant chunk of the screen with your hand, and worse yet, makes for awkward running in general. It was not uncommon to find myself hitting pieces of the environment or my fellow party members, and then needing to turn and fumble my way out of that spot. This isn’t a problem during combat, at least, since movement is automated. A trio of brief turret sequences present similar imprecision, since tapping to shoot and dragging to move can’t be done simultaneously. A virtual stick may have actually been preferable in this case.

Well, we’ll have more news when an official announcement pops up, but usually you don’t write reviews based on a rumor.