Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

"No KOTOR1, but still decent..."

The first Knights Of The Old Republic was a great change of pace from the Star Wars norm. It wasn't an FPS, it wasn't another 3rd person/flight sim where you take one more pass at hoth, it was an RPG that let you get a glimpse at the Star Wars universe's past, talked about only in the Expanded Universe books.

Graphically, it didn't amaze, but it was decent. The story was well paced, and well written. The characters were voice acted very nicely, and they had a definite personality. As the game progressed you got to see more of them. The endgame while not the best ever, was decent, and at a part where many games fall apart, better then most.

So while I think Obsidian definitely has a chance with producing better games, I'm a bit disappointed by KOTOR2. Disregarding the bugs (which depending on your setup/luck, are numerous...) and the odd graphical slowdown (I experienced some very heavy lag around steam/gas effects, and with no option to set particle effects in graphics, it really doesn't matter what you're running at) it just doesn't quite meet up to the first game.

Graphically, it's near identical to the first game. Nothing outright amazing. Characters are reused with a semi-frequent rate for some of the generic yet unique NPCs, and it's a bit disconcerting to see someone with the same exact head that was an NPC in the first game. Some areas are very plain,, and some others are nice to look at. Late in the game I got the chance to look out a starship, and you can see the planet below, and the ships fighting in the distance. Not a bad sight, but other areas are just long and winding with little variation. They have added the interface resizing to fit your resolution, which was lacking in the first game. At 1600x1200, the menu still fit into a 640x480 sized box, with gigantic metal plates used as filler for the rest of the space, now, the interface takes up the entire screen. However, they're removed the new item filter, instead, new items have a border surrounding them until you click them. If you're like me and you pick up everything and rarely sell it, you'll probably end up with a LOT of stuff with that border and the weapon, armor, etc. filters aren't the greatest to figuring out what you just picked up.

// I'm going to say a seven. It does nothing amazing, and a good deal is simply reused. Fighting looks good most of the time, and it does have a very open feel at times that a lot of games don't ever let you have. On the other hand sometimes it's uninspired mazes... Definitely average as a whole.

Sound. As good as the first I'd say, general SW world quality. Music was a bit annoying at times, and didn't seem quite as nice as the first game, and nowhere near as epic as the original Trilogy's.

// Average. Nothing we haven't heard before, and the music was just... well, generic SW music... A seven.

Gameplay. Definitely improved in some areas. Blasters are much more useful in general, with more powerful options available, and some feats that take the edge off being able to deflect them, or just doing more damage/hitting more often in general. Just because a character was a jedi I didn't feel the need to HAVE to put a lightsaber in their hand, blasters worked VERY well throughout the game. Also, unarmed is somewhat of an option. Many feats improve it, and a few gauntlets give unarmed damage (although they seemed to appear rather late in the game, where unarmed isn't really as nice as well upgraded guns/sabers.

Lightsabers have 3 additional upgrade slots, but didn't seem to be TOO much more powerful then what they were in the first game. There are two new colors, and the special colors that were added to the first PC KOTOR are now available as color crystals only. There is also a bronze color crystal, but it looks in the saber the same as the orange crystal.

Upgrades are better now, not just in how well they preform, but also in the way you can create them. Now, every skill besides Persuade factors into upgrades and items you can create at work benches. Items are taken apart in order to make them, broken up into two categories, Chemicals, and Components. Chemicals are used for implants (which now require Constitution, rather then a feat, which makes CON a lot more worth taking), healing items, grenades, and mines, along with a few other things. Components allow some basic weapons/armor to be made, along with a huge amount of upgrades. The aforementioned lightsaber ones, ranged weapons, and armor. Certain items can only have certain upgrades, most robes/light armor can only have certain types of over/underlays, and sometimes only certain levels within those. Heavier armor consequentially can receive better upgrades. Sabers have six slots, one color, two crystal, a power pack, an emitter, and a lens. Ranged have the same as the first game, but some weapons that wouldn't have gotten upgrades can often get at least scopes.

The game has a lot of random drops. I went through the entire game not picking up more then one regular lightsaber, instead ending up with around 3-4 double bladed ones, and 3 short ones. A bit annoying, but it's nice to have that randomness thrown in.

There are new force abilities, but nothing that amazing. Saber stances were added, although some aren't really huge differences, but some do decent shifts in ability to make switching around a bit something worth doing. Many new items, and a number that return from the first. Nothing seemed overpowering in and of itself, but with high end upgrades weapons can be VERY powerful. Implants can do much more powerful effects, and some of the high ones are very good. Droids have a whole bunch of new stuff, from a few new weapons exclusive to them, new armor, new upgrades (often Attribute boosting), etc. Items seem to boost attributes in general a LOT more, and with the right equipment you can have skills boosted a very nice amount. While mostly physical skills, a goodly number upgrade the mental ones.

The party AI seems a bit lackluster. And at times outright faulty. A number of instances had my guy running the opposite direction from where I had clicked, and the following AI on companions sometimes doesn't work very well, so you end up with your party rather separated because they didn't follow you. A few times I was forced to move my character forward manually because he refused to move towards the selected opponent. Very annoying when you're getting shot at. You can pause it at any time, but when you click something it really should actually move... Also of note, the interface seems to be a bit unresponsive at times, not accepting clicks, or ignoring commands.

Late in the game, enemy diversity gets rather irksome. You'll just end up fighting a lot of the same guys over and over again. They won't be necessarily that hard, or even an endurance feat to get passed them. Seems like unnecessary time stretching in order to make the game longer.

A new addition is influence. Rather then meeting exact conditions or talking solely, you progress with characters by gaining influence. Rather then huge events, influence gaining events tend to be minor ones you recieve -Side points for completing, and if you have the right character with you can gain or lose influence based on the action you've done, usually with a small quip or question from that character. Also, a standard set of dialogue options can also get you influence. More influence allows you to progress farther into the characters dialogue tree, and losing it constantly can effectively shut out you from ever really interacting with the character beyond just having them in your party. To be frank about it however, I'm not a huge fan of the system. The events you gain influence from are small, and the addition of the character you gains from it tends to be just as insignificant. While it does add to replay factor by making it harder to gain influence with characters that don't fit your chosen side, it really just made the characters affected by it that much less worth using. Also, it felt like all the influence was working towards was just a single scene where a whole mess of story comes out for that character, and you get some sort of "reward" for reaching it. While having something given to the character is nice, after they reach that point their conversation pretty much ends beyond a few events throughout the game. Overall the characters don't talk at much at all outside the ship, and rarely to each other. While the first game didn't necessarily have MORE diologue, it felt like it paced out what was said better, you couldn't just get enough events to hit the reward amount and then never have to talk to them again.

// Overall I'd say the gameplay improvements are a welcome addition, although influence seemed to ruin the diologue pacing. Depending on how many -side events you do, you'll have some characters saying pretty much everything they'll have to say in a very short time, or others won't ever say anything again. Even more, some characters just don't have anything to say... However, the balancing of blasters made the game more interesting, and random drops DO add to replay value. Also, while the pacing isn't as nice as I'd like, the characters often DID seem to be more interesting then some KOTOR1 characters. So, I'm going to say an eight.

Story. It felt at times to be very much like the first game. It has it's moments, but the twist felt disappointing, and the main villains were far too disconnected from the finale/endgame. The fact that the weak twist tied in with removing the villians from as central a position as they should have didn't help. As I've said, the characters were interesting, and even the boring astromech droid seemed better. The delivery of characters arriving was jarring at times, and I think they could have been worked in better. The ending itself was just... disappointing. Really, it didn't seem to matter what side you picked, and that was something KOTOR did at least decently. The game starts like the first, recovering powers as the result of some event. I think it's getting a bit odd after awhile, and it'd be nice to see a different approach beyond, "you forgot them". What WAS interesting was that lightside and darkside seemed a bit less SOLID as they often appear to be, the absolute righteous path doesn't always mean the result will be good, although overall being good is what you expect it to be, as is being evil. Still, nice to see that you can't just pick the "right" choice and get the proper response.

// I'm going to say a six. I liked the first, and the second... just doesn't match that. It copies it in parts, and with the dropped elements at times it felt like it wasn't done as well as it should have. Also the antagonist was just not as epic as I'd have hoped, and the characters while having a level of depth I think KOTOR1 might not even have had, the influence system really screws with pacing among your companions. It's still a relatively decent story, but somethings seem done for no explained reason, and the delivery isn't always the best.

Overall, it's worth playing if you're a Star Wars fan or a fan of PC RPGs. It might be best to wait awhile for it to start getting patches, although some people play the game more or less without a hitch, but others are stuck due to game problems. It probably would have been better as an expansion pack rather then a full new game. While it's definitely full length, the additions beyond story, characters, etc., aren't that far from the original. Not many PC RPGs are coming out as often as they used to, but it would have been nice to at least match the first game's level, which was on the whole, very entertaining.

So, to conclude, it's something worth of being in the Star Wars universe, and better then a number of other SW games I could mention. However, it simply fails to meet up to it's predecessor, and while a good length in comparison to many of today's games, feels like it would have been fairer priced around expansion pack/second tier games (roughly $30-40USD). A good concept was done well in the first, and the second had the potential to do just as well. The gameplay of either of them isn't amazing, but the story and the feel were great. However, the first did it right and the second seems rushed... So all in all, an average seven

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/18/05