Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
Easy for you to say...
For me, a good RPG has to have all of the usual elements; plot, characters, level rewards, a plethora of items to collect. But for it to truly stand out it must be able to suck me into its world and make me completely forget the other life that I normally lead. Bodily functions and the lives of other people should become nothing more than blips on the periphery, things to be attended to at six in the morning when your vision has become terminally blurred. And without fail, this hook will be baited with a juicy morsel of a story. You'll gently take a nibble to see what it's like and then before you know it you have been reeled right in and can feel the last gasps of your other life drain from you on the bottom of that boat called RPG addiction.
KOTOR 2 has all of these elements by the bucket. Set a few years after the events of the first game, KOTOR 2 tells the story of the aftermath of the Jedi Civil War. If you haven't played the first game don't worry, as KOTOR 2 regularly takes the opportunity to offer the player as much history and back-story as they care to digest. Much of it is told through optional dialogue with NPCs, so old-timers won't have to sit through hours of unnecessary exposition. Veterans will be pleased to hear that both the Ebon Hawk and HK-47 make a return. The rest of the characters are all new and make up for an impressively wide spectrum of personality types. Many of the PCs you pick up along the way show definite antagonism towards others in your crew and the inter-character banter helps to not only cement their individualities but can also spur the player along a course of action that they may not have otherwise chosen. For example, one prissy Jedi's remarks and attitude very nearly made me decide to abandon my quest for the light by cutting that uppity Jedi down to size.
The writing in KOTOR 2 is of a uniformly excellent standard, so instances where you can feel yourself being influenced by the unwinding plot are many. The writers have crafted a superb story that envelops players, making them feel part of the universe. Both the light and dark side routes can be easily taken and there's enough subtlety to allow for a neutral style of play to be a viable choice. Your personal feelings towards characters will have a subconscious affect on the way you play the game. When you combine this with some laugh out loud humour and philosophically stimulating ruminations I can easily say that KOTOR 2 is the best written RPG I've played in about five years. I think the true depth of the game would only become apparent if you were to play a second time round and choose some different options. A prospect that I am giving some serious thought to.
The voice acting that accompanies the dialogue is somewhat hit and miss. Almost all of the major characters earn themselves a voice actor of some talent yet a few are pitched all wrong. At times it was apparent that the script was being read blind, without the actor having a good grasp of how their dialogue would be combined with the work of the other voices. Apart from this and the occasional total mismatch, (uber warriors the Manadalorians are voiced in terrible approximations of Yorkshire and Australian accents) the voice acting complements the script so well that I often found myself letting the words play out rather then skip forward once I'd read the dialogue. There are nuances and inflections that the written word cannot get across so well, and as I've said many times, the writing talent at Obsidian practically commands the player's respect. It's no surprise that Obsidian is made up of developers who created what many - myself included - consider the best RPG of all time, Planescape: Torment. They have managed to create a plot and characters which give the player an incredible freedom of choice as to the type of gameplay experience that they want to have.
Comments
I dont doubt this is going to be a great game but i have just one problem- its been sitting at the side of my computer for over a week now because IT IS THE MOST BUGGIEST RELEASED GAME I HAVE EVER NOT PLAYED!
After three attempts, it finally managed to install (taking over 1 hour in total). Now it's installed, it wont even run!! And there are thousands more with the same or similar problems- just have a look at the obsidian/lucasarts forums.
For £30, i would expect the people involved to do a proper QA job on it, but as seems usual, the money hungers bast**s released a game they hoped would sell on the success of its predecessor, and i'm one of the fools who fell for it :-(
Any news on a Mac version being released?
Yo!!!!! Very good game!!!!!
when i bought kotor1 i though it would be like a first person or at the least a 3rd person shootem up ( as i didnt read up on it)
but after an hour i was very plase as its like shenmue in some respects.. and i will defently be getting kotor2
It's cool
Bitty
As far as the game is so far, after having it almost a week, it is fantastic. Not bugs installing. Just one and it was in a cut scene. I bought it at Best Buy for $40 bucks, while every where else it was listed for $50. I am totally satisfied with it and it follows the storyline of KoToRI really well. I rank it as A+! Go out and buy it.
It might have been worth the asking price if they hadn't cut so much material from the game in order to meet their shipping date (the Droid factory, HK47's subquests, and most of the endstories that dealt with your and your partymembers' fates), but without that material it's a pretty flawed (and buggy) product. Wait until it comes down in price, until the game is patched, and until the modding community (if the developers aren't able to get the ok from Lucasarts to do a content patch) adds the ending that the game currently lacks.
It's a pisser when games get content cut and are relased in a less then fully functioning form so as to hit a particular sales period. And for LucasArts to not have fixed the PC version in the last three months before its UK release is inexcusable.
Fortunately, the reviewed Xbox version is as good as bug free. Let's hope they get everything in order by the time KOTOR 3 comes out.
Is there a Demo for this game on PC?
It's obvious this review didn't really complete the game. KOTOR 2 is chock full of plot holes, programming holes, dialogue holes. Clearly no beta testing was even done on this game.
starwars kotor 2 is a good game though the plot keeps you guessing.their were many improvments made on the over all gameplay.i was starting to get tired when i had to talk to mandolore his axcent was to austrailian.but still im ainxtios for kotor3
I cant beat kreia whats the ending? : (
if u dont want to know what teh ending is look away NOW
baisically u kill her and throw her down into a big pit thingy in malacore...
(to beat kria run and use force storm over and over!!!!)
Well surfer guy the ending depends on if you are dark or light. if you are light you fly off in the ebon hawk and if you are dark then you stay on malachor 5
is there anyone having a problem with dissapearing characters
This game rock. I've pasted it 6 times with both the male and female characters (without cheats)
i will never trust another review from sam gibson again. if you think this game is so great, try to explain away this:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?kotor2
this:
http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=29709
this:
http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=29527
and this:
http://forums.lucasarts.com/thread.jspa?threadID=31173&start=0
I think the game would get boring second time around
Tis game is awfull
I have this game. I'm still trying to beat it. It's fun, but it has some glithes. I mean, could'nt they have done some testing??? Idiots. Peragus is very boring too. It gave me a bad headache. It is a good game though. It's REALLY fun. IT'S VERY, VERY, EXTREMELY, SUPREMELY, VERY. VERY, ADDICTIVE!!!!
I have this game. I'm still trying to beat it. It's fun, but it has some glithes. I mean, could'nt they have done some testing??? Idiots. Peragus is very boring too. It gave me a bad headache. It is a good game though. It's REALLY fun. IT'S VERY, VERY, EXTREMELY, SUPREMELY, VERY. VERY, ADDICTIVE!!!!
I an stuck in a part where i am t3-m4 and I am versing the mining robots with shields and i am stuck and i keep dying what do I do?
this game is gud but i cant get past the sith acadamy
Both endings suck ive finished it like 8 times hoping that with different comments it would be a different ending what sucks too is that there are no unique robes or armors only 1 saber that ive gotten and it has been freedon nadds short lightsaber i didnt really used it so i sold it for like 650 creds heh i wish i had it in pc though so i could download unique robes and armor (patches) i found the first 1 more exciting then this 1 this 1 was too short. but i liked some new feats and all and the upgradable saber and armor well that is all if you have any info on unique robes plz email me Aze_zal@yahoo.com thx.
oh also Dancer palanca the sith academy is easy to beat if you remember the first Kotor. oh and for any dudes or Ladies having problem defeating Darth sion he is easy if your in Dark side with sith lord all you have to do is keep force crushing him and he will be easy or if your Light and are jedi weapon master he is fun to duel and Very! easy. Darth kreia is A bit Hard in dark side especially with the 3 sabers.. i defeated the sabers by running from them and force storming them heh oh and i started playing again for 9th time and i got stuck on a wall in nar shadaa Damn you.. MAKERS!!!
oh And im trying to dowload Kotor 1st but have no luck nor in google or yahoo websurfing If ANY! of you downloaded it plz the site would be gratefull just make a comment or send site to Aze_zal@yahoo.com PLZ IM DESPERATE!!!!!
The reviewer obviously didnt finish the game, otherwise he would have noticed that part of the game which was rushed and an example of poor storytelling - the ending. No character conclusions, no explanations and a cheapening experience after you had played for 30+ hours....shame on Lucas Arts for forcing the developers to rush the game so it could be out for christmas...as though people dont buy computer games during the rest of the year or something.
the story is so screwed up at the end i was really annoyed that it was nothing like the huge plot twists of KOTOR 1. i still dont understand what the hell happened at the end with me and kreia
wat the hell is a force wound?!
fu all
why didn't you used the jedis in the first battlefront?