Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) certainly had the hype. So when I finally got around to starting it this past weekend, I was pretty disappointed initially by some of the controls and some pretty serious instability. Most especially its tendency to crash, hard lock my machine, or experience 30+ second freeze ups while in the save/load menu. For whatever reason, these problems seem to have faded as I've progressed through the game. The interface isn't great, being a console port, and I have some issues with the way it chooses the currently active "target" object in the scene. The most recent saved games should show at the top, not the bottom. And don't get me started on the motherfucking mini-games (the card game in particular... I hated these things in Final Fantasy 8 and I'll continue to hate them in other games.)

However, I can definitely see why it has become so well received by gamers. So far it's been a really good gaming experience. Good graphics, realistic human models and animations, a pretty good capture of the Star Wars universe (even though it is many years before the movies). The plot lines haven't been all that original, but they've been well implemented. Can't wait to finish it.