Rumor: Knights of the Old Republic May Be iPad-Bound

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Rumor: Knights of the Old Republic May Be iPad-Bound


The word on the street is that maybe - just maybe - a "critically-acclaimed Star Wars RPG" is on its way to the iPad.

An Aspyr Media newsletter sent out yesterday to subscribers may have given them a little more insight into the company's plans than it intended. It was an ad for a "Memorial Day Madness" sale featuring a half-price deal on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and its DLC, but the header above it referred to something entirely different, stating, "The critically-acclaimed Star Wars RPG is now available on iPad." According to IGN, to whom a copy of the email was sent, that can mean only one thing: KOTOR.

Why that particular game? For one thing, Aspyr is the company that ported Knights of the Old Republic to the Mac; it's also got a couple of games of its own on the App Store, most recently Sushi Mushi [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sushi-mushi/id535887754?mt=8], so it obviously knows its way around iOS. IGN also claims that the email jibes with other KOTOR-related rumors it's heard, and let us not forget that it wouldn't be the first hit BioWare RPG to make the move to the platform: Baldur's Gate made a very successful mobile transition late last year.

Finally, there's this one very simple question: What else would it be? We all have our favorites but if you ask gamers to name an acclaimed Star Wars RPG, the one that's going to come up far and away the most often is Knights of the Old Republic.

It's a solid idea - KOTOR is well-remembered and tuning it up for the iPad would be a good way to squeeze out some fresh revenue without having to actually, you know, come up with a new idea - and re-releasing one of the best Star Wars games ever made on a new platform would certainly seem to fit with Disney's long-term plans to revive and monetize the franchise. It's still a leap, yes, but it doesn't sound entirely unreasonable - and that's why they call 'em rumors.

Source: IGN [http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/05/21/knights-of-the-old-republic-coming-to-ipad]


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mechalynx

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Mar 23, 2008
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Is any of the money going to EA/BioWare? If it's solely to Disney/Aspyr, I'm game.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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It's actually a good business idea if they can pull it off. A lot of iPad owners might want to get into it to justify the purchase of that thing. Porting these old games to tablets when game mechanics allow for it is not a bad thing.
 

Aeshi

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Dec 22, 2009
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I didn't think the iPad had the power to run something like KotOR.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Aeshi said:
I didn't think the iPad had the power to run something like KotOR.
You underestimate current handhelds and portables. KOTOR isn't that hardware intensive on modern systems, and the only real challenge I see is making the game widescreen, since it was released back when 4:3 was still the dominant format.
 

Soviet Heavy

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DVS BSTrD said:
Shit I wished I'd played the original now.
Go to Walmart and grab the KOTOR Collection for twenty bucks. Comes with both the original and the sequel, and despite the fiddling to work on modern systems, still allows for the tremendous modding scene.
 

Basement Cat

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Jul 26, 2012
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If the rumor is true and if KOTOR does well maybe Disney will touch with Obsidian to re-release KOTOR II.

If so it will be interesting how Obsidian deals with all of the bugs from KOTOR II. I wonder if they'll take advantage of the independent modding's that have become available on it. Given that most of the independent modding fixing KOTOR II's bugs drew from programming that was included on the original release's disks but not available due to programming limitations Obsidian could likely whip up a decent revised version of KOTOR II quickly enough.

And rumor is that they want to do KOTOR III as well.

Hmmmm...this could be the start of something interesting. ^_^

[small]I know that I shouldn't get my hopes up but I can't help it, here.[/small]
 

Fordo

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Oct 17, 2007
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thinking of the logistics... is it usual to try to port a multi-gig game to something with a pretty limited amount of memory? According to gamespot the game requires 4 gigs of memory. That's a pretty large chunk if you're running a smaller sized iPad.
 

BlackStar42

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Fordo said:
thinking of the logistics... is it usual to try to port a multi-gig game to something with a pretty limited amount of memory? According to gamespot the game requires 4 gigs of memory. That's a pretty large chunk if you're running a smaller sized iPad.
I have KOTOR 2, and if Task Manager is to be believed it's really not that memory-intensive at all. The real problem is you can't install the restored content mod on an iPad.
 

vansau

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May 25, 2010
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Oh, Aspyr. The company who ported KOTOR to Mac and then didn't update the game so it was unplayable on the newer machines with Core Duo processors for several years. Needless to say, I'm a little nervous about this.
 

Owyn_Merrilin

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Aeshi said:
I didn't think the iPad had the power to run something like KotOR.
Actually, that shouldn't be a problem at all. The iPad can spit out graphics roughly on par with the Xbox 360 and the PS3, and it would probably surpass them if it ran its games at 1024x600 and upscaled them, the way most 360 and PS3 games do.

What I'm wondering is, what other classic Star Wars RPGs are there? Or Star Wars RPGs period? There's the tabletop game, but the way the article is written, it came across as there being another videogame version.
 

PrinceOfShapeir

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Owyn_Merrilin said:
Aeshi said:
I didn't think the iPad had the power to run something like KotOR.
Actually, that shouldn't be a problem at all. The iPad can spit out graphics roughly on par with the Xbox 360 and the PS3, and it would probably surpass them if it ran its games at 1024x600 and upscaled them, the way most 360 and PS3 games do.

What I'm wondering is, what other classic Star Wars RPGs are there? Or Star Wars RPGs period? There's the tabletop game, but the way the article is written, it came across as there being another videogame version.
One could make a case - a bad one - for The Force Unleashed or Jedi Knight being Star Wars RPGs.
 

Aeshi

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Dec 22, 2009
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Owyn_Merrilin said:
Aeshi said:
I didn't think the iPad had the power to run something like KotOR.
Actually, that shouldn't be a problem at all. The iPad can spit out graphics roughly on par with the Xbox 360 and the PS3, and it would probably surpass them if it ran its games at 1024x600 and upscaled them, the way most 360 and PS3 games do.

What I'm wondering is, what other classic Star Wars RPGs are there? Or Star Wars RPGs period? There's the tabletop game, but the way the article is written, it came across as there being another videogame version.
There's Jedi Outcast and it's sequel Jedi Academy (pretty sure Aspyr did the Mac port of the latter, too.)
 

deathbydeath

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DVS BSTrD said:
Shit I wished I'd played the original now.
I suggest KotOR 2 instead. If you can play both, then play the first one first, but if you have to pick one, go with The Sith Lords (on PC with the Restored Content mod).
 

dangoball

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Copper Zen said:
If the rumor is true and if KOTOR does well maybe Disney will touch with Obsidian to re-release KOTOR II.

If so it will be interesting how Obsidian deals with all of the bugs from KOTOR II. I wonder if they'll take advantage of the independent modding's that have become available on it. Given that most of the independent modding fixing KOTOR II's bugs drew from programming that was included on the original release's disks but not available due to programming limitations Obsidian could likely whip up a decent revised version of KOTOR II quickly enough.

And rumor is that they want to do KOTOR III as well.

Hmmmm...this could be the start of something interesting. ^_^

[small]I know that I shouldn't get my hopes up but I can't help it, here.[/small]
Well, I hate to be a killjoy, but if I remember correctly EA now owns the right to any SW games for two years or so.
 

weirdee

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Apr 11, 2011
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I think this version might actually be easier to play, because the menus and the buttons feel like they'd work better with touch controls rather than using a cursor or a dpad or even hotkeys to scroll through them.
 

Kahani

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Soviet Heavy said:
despite the fiddling to work on modern systems
Works fine on Win7 with no fiddling required. By a weird coincidence, I just reinstalled it last week. Doesn't even need compatibility mode.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Kahani said:
Soviet Heavy said:
despite the fiddling to work on modern systems
Works fine on Win7 with no fiddling required. By a weird coincidence, I just reinstalled it last week. Doesn't even need compatibility mode.
I'm talking about working Widescreen. I'm still having troubles getting KOTOR2 to run in anything other than 4:3 with massive black bars on the screen side.