If you like RPGs you should play Knights of The Old Republic

This summer on star wars day I decided to give Knights of the old Republic (KOTOR) a try. I like star wars franchise but I'm not too deep into the lore ,so initially , I was a bit undecided about the game but took a chance since I have heard from so many people that it's one of the best RPGs ever made.

After finishing the game I've got to say that it's reputation is definitely well deserved. The game leans heavily towards narration and your choices can have long lasting impact on how the story plays out.

Combat is real time action but you don't control characters directly rather issue commands via a pause menu. It takes a while to get used to but works very well especially on mobile touch screens.

I felt that some abilities are way overpowered. Especially the light side ones that buff your characters and grant them extra turns.Even a dark ability' like destroy droid can clear out some of the toughest opponents in a few turns.

From what I understand this game is based dungeons and dragons ruleset. You are given so much freedom to build your character class that can be a bit overwhelming for some players. I'm no stranger to RPGs but I found having a guide to help me make the best choices for my character made the game more enjoyable. Experimentation in this game could otherwise become very time consuming because there is no way to redistribute skill points.

KOTOR has one of the best plot twists that I've ever seen in a video game and it easily exceeds the thrill that you'd feel while watching a movie or reading a book. Playing it in real time deepens the connect you have with the character especially when you are actually controlling the events and are responsible for their actions.

Even after 2 decades KOTOR maintains its cinematic quality. I'd like to talk more about the story but it would only spoil it for those who haven't played it. I'll just leave you with this — it significantly expands star wars universe to beyond sith and the republic and tells you a tale of far more ancient and powerful empires. It's a grand space adventure full of political intrigue in the shadow of an overarching threat that keeps you marching on.

It took me 33 hours to beat the game but rarely did I feel stuck. Every thing is so intentional and the fact that game is able to maintain its pace for such a long time really is a testament to how well it was originally designed.

The only part of the game that I disliked were turret sections. The shooting is very clunky and it often took me a few tries before I could get through them.

KOTOR 1 is no longer available on play store but you can buy a copy on steam and then find an archived apk online if you prefer to play on mobile.

Comments

Why does collapsing a bubble with a sound wave produce light?

My thoughts on a reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/AskPhysics/comments/1lwxxc3/comment/n2jx8gp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button The collapsing of a bubble with sound wave leads to the emission of light in a phenomenon known as sonoluminescnce. The bubble collapse is rapid and the gas inside the core doesn't have time to exchange heat with the surroundings as it's compressed rapidly leading to what is known as adiabatic compression. This compression heats up the gas to very high temp. The exact temperatures are inferred from the spectrum of emission which is thought to be a blackbody. But some sophisticated models have also been developed that put the temp in the range 5000k-20000k some even higher. There's also debate on whether the bubble emission spectrum is truly a blackbody or is it line emission or bremsstrahlung? Personally I think its a mix of all three. The pressures create...

WeWork India Sustainability Summit 2025 Tackling Technical Challenges in Green Building Innovation

I thank we work India for organising sustainability summit 2025 to help drive real change towards decarbonising the commercial real estate sector. I gained valuable insights from the esteemed speakers especially around policy and regulation in this space. My own thoughts kept pulling me towards some of the more technical challenges which are quite significant. The current strategy of making buildings sustainable focuses on reducing the carbon footprint of a building during its operation and construction. In the operational stage the challenge is to ensure that the building can run on green energy. Heating and cooling are the heaviest users of energy and thus obvious targets for decarbonisation. Since buildings these days scale vertically it's impossible to cover the energy requirements from rooftop solar panels. Unless solar panels can be installed vertically along the facade, the surface area would be too limited to generate any significant power. The idea has been tr...

Can you compress water and turn it solid?

A question asked on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1n02vlg/ Yes and this has been experimentally confirmed. Shock compression of water has produced different forms of ice crystals. SOME REFERENCES Experimental evidence for superionic water ice using shock compression https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-017-0017-4 This particular form of ice melted at 5000K at 200Gpa. https://www.llnl.gov/article/44081/first-experimental-evidence-superionic-ice An interesting tidbit from the research is in this paragraph >Using diamond anvil cells (DAC), the team applied 2.5 GPa of pressure (25 thousand atmospheres) to pre-compress water into the room-temperature ice VII, a cubic crystalline form that is different from "ice-cube" hexagonal ice, in addition to being 60 percent denser than water at ambient pressure and temperature. I'm not really sure at what temp this compression was performed but ice vii is known to exist at room temp at high enough pre...

What IMC 2025 Revealed About the State of Telecom

IMC 2025 lived up to its reputation as India's most anticipated communication event attracting big industry players—Intel,Qualcomm,Mediatek,Ericsson,Nokia along with research institutions and startups. All the 7 layers of the networking stack from the PHY to APPLICATION were well represented by various organisations. Mobile operators serve as the face of the network but we often forget that they are powered by a long list of manufacturers and service providers. IMC gave them a platform to showcase their products and directly engage with customers. 5G is already here and very predictably there were talks around whether it has delivered on the promises it made. Speakers shared their thoughts and while the general consensus was that 5G did bring about somewhat faster speeds and a bit of lower latency the massive promises that it made especially around remote healthcare AR,VR and smart cities have all been forgotten. mmwave is no where to be seen or even heard of. It's qui...

Steel composites integrating diamonds and carbon nanotubes

Incorporating hard materials like diamond or carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into steel presents unique challenges, particularly when using traditional melt processing techniques. Diamond, for example, is extremely difficult to integrate into steel via melting due to its thermal instability. However, diamond is routinely embedded in steel surfaces for cutting applications. In the electronics industry, steel wires coated with diamond are used to slice silicon crystals into thin wafers. Two main techniques are commonly employed for embedding diamond in metals: 1. Electroplating: Diamond powder is suspended in a metal ion electrolyte, usually nickel. When an electric current is applied, nickel deposits on the metal wire, trapping the diamond particles in place. 2. Sintering: For more demanding cutting tools, diamond can be embedded on metal surfaces using sintering, which fuses the particles to the substrate at high temperatures without melting the metal. Similar challenges exist when attempting ...

Update on the ASM committee meeting on the State of the Art in Material Upcycling for Additive Manufacturing

May 15 2026 I thank ASM sustainable manufacturing committee for organising a highly informative talk by Dr Sweta Baruah on the topic of Materials Upcycling in Additive manufacturing. As it stands AM is far more material efficient than traditional manufacturing processes— producing less waste than subtractive manufacturing techniques (milling/turning/drilling/grinding). Yet feedstock cost in AM remains high due to energy intensive processes used in its manufacturing. Typical powderisation techniques using gas or water atomisation consume much energy as do wire extrusion processes. The desire to cut down the input energy serves as a powerful motivator to develop processes that can lower the cost and make AM more sustainable. Traditional melt processing technologies for making powder or wire help with the reusability of waste streams and reduce energy input because compared to fresh feedstock there is no need for crushing ,chemical treatment,reduction etc. Yet...

Perspective from EU Research & Innovation (R&I) Days 2025

I thank the European Commission for organising European Research & Innovation (R&I) Days 2025 and giving me a chance to participate in the event discussing the future of European research. Europe has had a long and storied tradition of science with philosophers like Locke,Hobbes,Descartes,Spinoza laying the groundwork for a scientific revolution producing the finest scientists who pushed the boundaries of human knowledge ,ushered the industrial revolution and birthed the modern world. Yet today the EU finds itself at crossroads struggling to retain talent and capitalise on its inventions. Horizon Europe defines key enabling technologies that could propel the EU far ahead of its competitors. Past Records show that Europe has the capability to do it. Its achievements in electronics,semiconductors,wind energy and development of advanced composites like GLARE are a testament to its enterprising citizens. Europe has made strong contributions in open source software and while some of...

The Promise of Physical AI

11 Mar 2026 Yesterday at the 60th Edition of Cobotalks organised by I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics Technology Innovation Hub of IIT Delhi, I had a chance to attend a talk on physical AI by Dr Santanu Chaudhary, Former Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi. This talk came just weeks after the India AI impact summit but I was excited nonetheless to learn more about some of the academic aspects of AI. Dr. Santanu emphasized that while chatbots have taken over the mindspace there is more to AI than just interactions with a server on the cloud. The chatbots represent a more general-purpose intelligence, they are quietly disrupting several industries in the ‘knowledge-work’ space but physical AI is narrow task specific intelligence that has applications in industrial automation and handling tasks that are either too dangerous for humans or too much of a chore. Autonomous vehicles are a great example of physical AI. They have demonstrated that it is...

A Celebration of India's Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme milestones: Pairing policy incentives with turbulent Innovation

A Celebration of India's Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme milestones: Pairing policy incentives with turbulent Innovation 17 Nov 2025 After the incredible success of semicon India this September, India cellular and electronics association organised a lunch celebrating the success of Electronic components and manufacturing scheme at the Taj in New Delhi. Minister for Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw, was joined by Minister of State for Electronics & IT Jitin Prasad , Secretary S Krishnan, Secretary Sushil Pal and various industry leaders who are helping to build a semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in India. It was a unique opportunity for me to observe the collective decision making that goes into developing policies shaping the industry. Through exchange of ideas the policy makers have mapped in great detail the components that need to be in place for the initiative to succeed. The list was quite comprehensive including PCBs, oscillators, lith...

Reflections from Semicon India 2025: Beyond Moore, Toward Plasma

Absolutely electrifying experience at the Semicon India 2025. I got a chance to interact with representatives from Imec,Tokyo electron, SMC,LAM research,STI,Canon,AMD,Micron,Canon, ASML,Zeiss and learn about their expansion plans in India. I was really excited to learn about companies manufacturing SIC crystals to meet the demands of the power sector. Manufacturers were highly optimistic about its chances claiming that it outperforms GaN in both cost and efficiency. Another surprise was learning about glass surface patterning through electrochemical discharge. It was especially encouraging to see enthusiastic participation from students eager to learn about the semiconductor industry and drive the transformation in the coming decades. Among the thought leaders AI unsurprisingly remained a topic of much discussion — though concerns were raised around its sustainability & the need to decarbonise the manufacturing process. The conference provided a much needed thrust ...

Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Search This Blog