KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC
© 2003 LucasArts

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I've spent this past week pouring my life into KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC, trying to get our review of the game up not too late after the launch of the game. And there's something about this game, it's really the first game that I've been looking forward to playing each day this summer. Sure, there's been good stuff like DOWNHILL DOMINATION, but nothing quite as compelling as KNIGHTS OF THE OLD.

To put it in perspective, outside of games I'm reviewing, the game I'm spending the most time with this summer is still WORLD SERIES BASEBALL 2K3. Call me a sucker for baseball, but the game is just incredibly solid and I'm keeping up with the season (although my 59-game winning streak was finally snapped with a bad run in with Pedro Martinez and the Red Sox, along with a bad relief performance by my set-up man giving up a walk-off home run). I guess nothing this summer has really done that much for me, it reminds me of the movie business personally.

The big bang of this summer for both industries was plugged into the Matrix. Both the game and the movie were viewed by many as a disappointment and there really hasn't been many blockbuster titles since then. I guess I've viewed both industries with some sort of apathy. I enjoyed THE ITALIAN JOB, and WARIOWARIO, but both were light and fluffy. I've had some brief one-night stands with games and movies (most recently 28 DAYS LATER) but I'd say the biggest thing that's stuck with

KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC

© 2003 LucasArts

Thankfully, the summer season is basically over here, as I just got a build of one of the fall's hottest games, JAK II. The sequel to JAK AND DAXTER, JAK II is much darker, and resembles a cross of the first game, RATCHET AND CLANK, and GRAND THEFT AUTO. It's a lot of fun and I really think that it's going to be a mega-hit this fall. You'll have enough time to get into it before RATCHET AND CLANK II begins to steal your time.

Maybe I'm just getting to old for this. Heck, I've even gone back and fired up SUPER MARIO SUNSHINE with my girlfriend for a bit of fun. Hopefully KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC is just the beginning of a lot of killer games that I won't be able to put down. For next week's column, what games have you not been able to put down this summer and why? E-mail us at GamersThumb@cinescape.com.

GAMERS ANSWER

"If I had to choose, it'd be easy: RESIDENT EVIL ONLINE. I love the RESIDENT EVIL series, and ever since Capcom said that it was going Nintendo "exclusive", I shit my pants. THEN, I shit my pants even harder when I heard about this a few years back. Now, I have to wait a whole damn year to play this (hopeful) masterpiece.

The only saving grace: Spidey 2 comes out around the same time next."

-James Vance

"The three games that I would just LOVE to see are all sequals.

BURNING RANGERS from the Saturn

MANIAC MANSION from the NES

NIGHTS from the Saturn

TECH ROMANCER from the Dreamcast"

-Joyce Nordgren

TIDBITS

MADDEN 2004 has gone gold and will be on shelves in a few weeks... The next TOMB RAIDER game will be developed by Crystal Dynamics rather than Core because of the stagnation of the franchise... HALF-LIFE 2 has been delayed to a

SILENT HILL 3

© KONAMI 2003

ON SHELVES

For the horror fans out there, I have to go with SILENT HILL 3. It's really creepy and an excellent game. I've had it for a couple months and highly recommend it.

Gamers' Thumb is our weekly Video Game column.