Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of games based on the license. There have been more than 50 games (!!!) set in George's universe and, whilst some of them have been fun, very few of them would be played even by the hardest of the hardcore fan for more than a couple of weeks. Either ridiculously poor (see: "Yoda Stories" on PC and Gameboy) or just lighthearted and shallow shooter fun (see: "Rebel Strike" series), very few of them have been standout grade-A titles (see: "X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter" on PC). For those of you who were looking to participate in-depth in a Star Wars story, despite the dozens of games available, you are out of luck. Or rather, you were, until now.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a Role Playing Game (RPG) set, as you likely have worked out for yourself by now, smack-bang in the Star Wars universe. The story follows the exploits of [insert your name here], a [insert your character class here] who has recently been assigned to the Endar Spire - a ship which is currently (as the story opens) under heavy Sith attack. Within a very short time of taking control of your character, you will need to fight your way clear of the boarding parties and get the hell off the ship - before it is completely destroyed.

Set some 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Republic verges on collapse. Darth Malak, last surviving apprentice of the Dark Lord Revan, has unleased an invincible Sith Armada upon an unsuspecting galaxy. Crushing all resistance, Malak's war of conquest has left the Jedi Order scattered and vulnerable as countless Knights fall in battle, and many more swear allegiance to the new Sith Master.

Creating a character (done at the beginning of the game, naturally) is very very easy indeed. You can get in and tweak almost every facet of your character if you want to, or let the computer decide based on generic preferences and your player class. Loads of options for the RPG nut yet completely accessible for the first time role player.

For the most part, you will adventure through the game with a group of AI-controlled players in your party. The actual members you have at your disposal will vary from time to time and knowing their individual strengths (and weaknesses) is an important part of the strategy you need to employ in order to survive each skirmish with the enemy. At any stage, you can switch between members of your party and you can swap things around in the group inventory to best portion out the spoils you find along the way. Just be careful in the inventory as you can easily remove a party members weapon without realising and they will therefore be of no real use to you should you encounter some nasties before you notice what you did. The selection of party members you have with you is made when you leave your base (you have a hideout of some description at every major location in the game), allowing you to plan for specific encounters or just drag everyone with you wherever you go - your choice.

Combat, by default, has a very intuitive interface - when you see a "bad guy" (with whom "fight or flight" must be decided), the game pauses to allow you to decide what to do and setup your party. You can disable this pause if you want to, but as it is, it works very very well indeed. During this pause, you can elect to dive right in to combat or flick around your team and set them up with the weapons and strategy which you feel best suits the current situation. Want to run in with your light sabre whilst a party member hangs back with a rifle? Perhaps get everyone to stay back and barrage the enemy with blaster fire? Choose as you will, based on the exact circumstance you find yourself in when the "bad guys" show up.

Once combat actually begins, it is entirely automatic - that is, you don't press buttons to fire your weapons and nor do you have to aim. You can, at any time, step in and change the target (if there is more than one enemy to engage) or change the tactics of your party. But the actual combat itself is classically RPG - whether you hit or not will be decided based on your location, the enemies location, your weapon, your skill with that weapon and so on. Hardcore RPG players will love this and, while it might be a little counter-intuitive for action gamers at first, it will quickly become second nature as the game progresses.

Throughout the game, you will have numerous encounters with NPCs (Non Player Characters). These encounters, along with pushing the story along and giving you missions to complete, will give you the opportunity to make decisions which will ultimately affect your transition to either a light or dark Jedi. Do you keep handing over your cash to the myriad of "hard luck" characters you meet? Or do you tell them to hit the road? These decisions (and millions more) will dicate the kind of Jedi (and thereby, the kind of skills you get and reactions people have to you) that you will ultimately become. This one feature, by itself, will ensure that most serious gamers will want to play through this twice - as a goody two shoes and then as Mr Bad Ass.

Levelling up can be as complicated as you want it to be. Like the character creator, there is screeds of depth available for the RPG stat-heads out there - but there is also an "auto level up" feature, allowing you to let the game make these choices for you. This feature increases the accessbility of the title to non-rpg nuts a thousand fold, whilst allowing said strat-heads to get their hands dirty if they want to. Three thumbs up here!

Throughout the game, you will get numerous opportunities to participate in non-standard activities; it's not just about running around and either killing or talking to people! From racing hover bikes around to shooting lasers out the port side of your space ship to duelling for entertainment in a gladitorial arena through dancing (!) for fun and profit, the variety value is huge and the actual segments short enough so as not to get boring or feel like a gimmick.

The game does have a few issues, however - there are some AI issues (your party members wont get out of your way, for example, so you will need to switch into them and move them yourself) and conversation occasionally feels stunted (you can't say what you want to say so are forced to say something out of character to get out of a conversation) and the game does feel like it could have done with a bit more time in QA. That said, the bugs are small and none are insurmountable - you'll be happy to have this game now than to suffer a delay whilst these tiny things were fixed up.

The graphics for the title are beyond compare - no Star Wars game has ever looked so lush and very few other games carry off this level of detail or graphical flair. It is simply gorgeous, with generous detail and artistic flair evident throughout. Not only is it fun to play and the best Star Wars game ever, it's a great disk to demo the killer abilities of your shiny new Xbox. Full marks here, both in graphical splendor and appropriateness of same. Excellent.

The Audio quality is, like the graphics, in a league of its own. The voice acting for a start is lightyears beyond anything heard before. Considering the vast quantity of spoken dialogue in the game, this is no mean feat. Combine that with an awesome musical score, killer ambient noise and amazingly frantic in-game battle sounds and you have yourself a title that DEMANDS you have decent stereo equipment and the volume switched all the way up. Fantastic!

Is it any fun though, you ask? You're damn right it is - the combination of fantastic sound, visuals, story and actual fun that makes up this game is second to none. It is an amazing experience that no discerning gamer should go without. If you aren't into RPG gaming, you should still give it a shot - this might be the game that helps you make the leap into the genre. If you couldn't care less about Star Wars (an understandable sentiment, if you base your stance on the recent movies), you owe it to yourself to experience this story. This is the game to have this holiday period for Xbox owners and there is NOTHING coming up that could oust it from the top spot.