Choose wisely you must

It’s strange.

Why doesn’t “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” rival “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” as one of the best games ever?

Seems like all the ingredients are there:

* You have the ability to play as a character you create from the alarmingly popular “Star Wars” series, this story set 4,000 years before Anakin and Obi-Wan come around.

* You get to fight the battle between good and evil -- the light side and dark side of the force.

* You get to interact with all kinds of creatures like Wookiees, Gamorreans, Rodians -- even droids.

So what’s the problem? This should be a slam dunk.

Maybe the problem with “KOTOR” is that the worlds created in the game are too expansive -- there are way too many choices for paths on your adventures. Maybe it’s because the graphics aren’t as good as you’d think they should be. Or maybe the fact that being a standard role-playing game keeps it from reaching that level.

The story puts your character in the middle of a conflict between the good-guy Jedis and the bad-guy Sith Armada. You’re taught how to control your character by Carth, another good guy aboard your ship. Soon you make your way to an escape pod and crash-land on some planet called Taris. The story line is a little hard to follow at first, but then so were the prequel movies.

Once on Taris, you can choose your character’s objective by deciding which of the different responses to a question you will use. Basically, Carth asks if you’ll help him find this Jedi master person. Tell him yes and obtain that goal. Tell him you want to get off this planet and presumably your objectives change.

By choosing one answer over another, who knows what you miss? Would I have had to duke it out with Carth in a monkey knife fight to go on a selfish quest to get on the next thing smoking? I’ll never know.

Your choices also affect whether your character chooses the light side of the force or the dreaded dark side. Pop off to a merchant who owes the local crime boss money, and a fight breaks out. After you kill him you get the ominous message “dark side points gained.” So does this mean you’re on the path to ruin? Or are you on your way to being the all-powerful ruler of the galaxy? Much like the choices one makes in life, you’ll never know how it might have turned out.

The game would have been better if it had a little more ease and control over the characters. Changing weapons before battle means pausing the game, un-equipping the last weapon and re-equipping a new weapon; sometimes that means changing the weapon in each hand.

But even with its faults, “Knights” is still a great waste of time. With all the different characters to interact with and multiple objectives all running concurrently, you can overlook the clunky fight mode.

Makes you wonder what could have been ...

Clones in action

If “Knights” is all thinking and reasoning, then “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” is all smash and grab.

Based on last year’s “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones,” “Clone Wars” has all the action of the film with none of the political talk.

You begin play as Mace Windu -- Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the film -- with the mission to lead the Republic forces into battle to rescue Anakin, Obi-Wan and Amidala. In the movie, he just showed up and started the fight; in the game you have to get him there.

You drive a souped-up tank across the deserts of Geonosis shooting and crashing into every obstacle in your path. The tank controls are refreshingly easy -- push control stick forward, tank goes forward, push stick back ... ah, you get the idea. Surprisingly, when you are out on foot, the controls are a little sloppier. But at least then you have a lightsaber to chuck around.

The graphics are cool almost to the point of visual overload. And maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like the second time through a level -- after dying the first time -- the same tricks didn’t work on the bad guys. It was like they learned what I was doing.

There are also some fun-looking multiplayer games to try out when you get tired of the “turn-your brain off and blow everything up” story.

*

Games

“Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”

Good: Many different choices during game play (almost too many).

Bad: Clunky fight controls.

Details: Xbox platform; $49.99; rating: teen (violence).

“Star Wars: The Clone Wars”

Good: Easy to control; lots of eye-catching explosions and laser blasts.

Bad: At times, too many explosions and laser blasts.

Details: all platforms; $49.99 -- $19.99; rating: teen (violence).