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

"Examination: KOTOR 2 will easily please the meatbags that love Star Wars."

Attention all meatbags! The sequel to one of the biggest Star Wars games ever made is upon us, and it dons the name: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords. And in case you didn't get the memo, Knights of the Old Republic (the acronym being KOTOR) is a turn based RPG. Sorry if you were looking for real-time lightsaber battles. That being said it's not a problem at all.

STORY
Taking place 5 years after the end of the first game, we find the galaxy in turmoil. Evil Sith lords have gathered a new Sith Empire and are trying to dominate and destroy every living thing in their wake. They have even eradicated practically all of the Jedi, putting them on the verge of Extinction. And our hero (or villain) of the original game is nowhere to be found, and the world looks a lot bleaker. You assume the role of a new Jedi who was exiled from the Jedi council for disobeying their orders. The Sith want to eradicate all Jedi so that means you're next on their list. So the story of course eventually leads to you going up against these Sith Lords, so that you may restore peace and justice to the galaxy...or cause more pain and suffering depending on how you wanna play it. The story is easily the best thing about KOTOR 2, with tons of great revelations and plot twists sure to keep you on your toes. And the script is also freaking awesome. And yes I am a Star Wars fan.

GRAPHICS
The graphics in KOTOR 2 are stunning to behold. The thing I love most about the game is how alive the world is. You could be in a grassy field, and the wind is blowing each blade of grass back and forth. You could be in a spaceship in the middle of a battle, and see this great big dogfight happening outside the window. And you can be in a very heavily populated city and see all of the ships flying and people walking around. The environments are breathtaking...sometimes I'd stop playing just so I could stare at my locations. The characters themselves all look good, whether it be creepy old Jedi Kreia, or that living corpse Darth Sion, they all have a distinct look that makes them special from everyone else. And pretty much any species of creature from the Star Wars universe is here....even a Hutt. How do these Hutts have offspring?! But I digress. The story telling and cutscenes all look great as well.

SOUND
You know, everytime I review a Star Wars game I pretty much over the same things. One being that the music is great work from John Williams. But this time, it's completely different. ZUH?! Yes, the makers of this game actually made fresh, original music this time around! From what I've seen after beating the game, the only John Williams tunes in there were the opening and end credits. And the tunes they made up, easily acceptable to be apart of the Star Wars films. But the sound effects are not new and they are faithful to the content. Lightsabers still make humming noises, ships still fire those odd laser sounds, etc. And kudos to the voice actors of this game because you really made it easy to get into the story. Amazing top notch voice acting. And that's the audio in a nutshell.

GAMEPLAY
Now we come to the glorious aspect I'd like to call gameplay. And as a turn-based RPG it does all of it's jobs well.You start the game off with making your character. Male or female, black or white, and you also choose what kind of Jedi they are as well. The three types of Jedi you can be either make you well rounded, a better fighter, or a better force user. Choose your character wisely. And then you're dropped into the game. Like many RPGs you spend the majority of the game exploring new areas, buying weapons and armor from merchants, battling wave after wave of enemies for experience points, and meeting new party members along the way that can help you deal out some pain. It's a typical journey to find the things you need to save the world.

As with all RPGs the more enemies you kill, the more experience you get. Which comes to an interesting issue about KOTOR is that there are no random battles. You'll see your enemies coming from a mile away and once you kill them, they're gone for good. In other words, you need to choose what stats to level up wisely because except for area on the planet Korriban, the enemies disappear and leave forever. A shame I know. And when you level up you don't have too much experience to hand around, so when you upgrade your attributes for example, you can only add 1 number to either Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, etc. Then you gotta wait till the next time you level up to add another number....assuming they let you upgrade the attributes for that certain level. Cause when you level up, it chooses what you upgrade, be it force powers, skills, or anything else.

A big draw of the game and one that I am a sucker for is the fact that you can be either good or evil. I love my alternate endings, and I like being evil even more. So naturally when I played I took a big plunge to the Dark Side. Of course this affects the plot and the reactions people give you, but it does affect the battles a fair amount too. For example, let's say you're a big dark side user. Now you can learn any force power you want, and some force powers are divided into light and dark. Like heal for example is a light side power. If your really dark, you'll find performing heal wastes a good chunk of your force power. If you perform force lightning, a dark side move however, you'll find it wastes little to no power at all. And let me say right now, being a Sith Lord with force lightning makes you feel like god. So if you don't care what side you are, keep into consideration that most light powers are protective or defensive, and most dark side powers are deadly aggressive attacks. So if your a defensive player, choose the light. But if you wanna even out the amount of energy you spend, do both good and bad deeds and remain a neutral character then. Having dark and light sides makes the replayability great...more so because you can be a man or woman too. That's 4 different ways to play the game right there.

The story is great, and battling enemies is gold. I've heard complaints that the game is much easier than the first KOTOR, but I never noticed that myself. You'll still find yourself in tight situations if you ask me. My one major complaint about the game is the load times. They are way too frequent at times and long too. Like anytime you wanna go into some city's cantina, just to talk to one person, you load to go in, load to go out. It's a big time suck. The game does have a bad habit with lagging every now and then too which you never wanna see when your in a strategic turn based battle. And I'd also say the story won't be for everyone as there is a ridiculous amount of dialogue in this game. I've shown this game to many of my friends, and they just couldn't handle how much talking goes on in the game. I mean it's one of the best features and all, but it's a BIG feature that will never go away. Talking to people = lots of time.

The game may also feel way too familiar to gamers who played the first game too. I mean you visit some of the same planets, and the battling is pretty much exactly the same. The one change this game has is that now you can influence your party members to join whatever side you're on. For instance, if you tell them what they wanna hear and your a dark side character, they will fall to the dark side because you gained their influence. With influence over your characters you can make them tell you stories they'd normally never tell, and they'll help you out in ways like teaching you how to repair and fix stuff. But easily the best thing that can happen from gaining someone's influence, is that you can teach them how to become a Jedi yourself. Yes, other party members that start out normal, can learn force powers and use them to your advantage. A nice feature to add if I do say so myself. The game is awesome. You'll spend more than 20 hours on it and it's truly one of the better things to grace the Star Wars license.

IN THE END...
It's one of the better Star Wars games available. In my opinion it's not as fresh or breakthrough as the original game, but that doesn't mean it's of poor quality. The game's story is deep, the action is fun, and turning to the dark side has never been better. A great game all around.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/18/07