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

"A good sequel, but it falls a little short in comparison to the previous game."

Well, what is there to say about Knights of the Old Republic II? It's the highly anticipated sequel to what truly deserved to be the game of the year in 2003. If Lucasarts had not been so pushy, and given another year of development for Obsidian, there could have been a lot fewer glitches, some more complicated gameplay, and maybe even been able to correct the obvious gaps in the game's content.

Presentation:

Graphics: The game is rather dark, and you can notice that from the beginning of the main menu. This darkness extends a bit to the story, but we'll get to that point a bit later in the review. Since the first game had a lot of bright, open environments, this game was probably expected to as well, it really doesn't. The first area lacks in background, and to be honest the other backgrounds just aren't as good as the original game. Overall it looks like a lazy job, like the character portraits. Some of the longer lasting characters are rather ugly as well. Overall they don't really interfere with anything too often, so they get an 8/10.

Sound: There's not really much to say. The game's soundtrack is good, dialogue as usual for the series is excellent, and there really aren't any real problems with any of the sounds that are in the game. Overall, a 9/10. Hard to comment on, really. I didn't analyze it to deeply.

Cutscenes: They have the same models as the actual game, and the same animations as well. There really isn't much effort put into them, unlike the first game which had a remarkably better plot to supplement the cutscenes. Overall they're just dry with the exception of some of the dialogue being very well-written. A 7/10 and overall 8/10 for the whole category of presentation values.


Story: Well honestly, the presentation hinders it a bit, with the cutscenes being what they are. Quite honestly I'm glad that they went in a completely different direction than the first game, which had a story that never changed in focus throughout the game. It does a good job being a sequel, and you get to see some familiar faces. You even get to choose for yourself some of the cameos that happen, even though you don't know it. The story's focus is changing from the very beginning of the movie, it turns from survival, to finding resolution to some of your character's past experience, to something else entirely. Without spoilers, that's as far as I can see myself going into the story. It's satisfying, and worth playing through the game for in itself. 8/10

Gameplay: Now I had some mixed feelings about this phase of the game. The combat stays much the same, as do the controls. Depending on which version you're using, the controls will be different. I personally prefer the fast-acting PC controls that involve clicking instead of cycling through one omni-present menu screen. Both have fluid controls and combat, in all versions, so there's no room to complain. All that there is to complain about in the combat, is that there are glitches in it. For example, there is a trick where you can use a force power, hit A to use an attack, then it will have you casting it again. So you get the effects of the force power and your enemy gets the damage from the attack. While there are glitches in it, very few of them actually hinder the player. There are several spots where you can obtain infinite experience, infinite light and darkside points, and infinite credits. While no game is glitch-proof, this one definitely has more than its fair share. There's even a lot of content that was left out, and you can tell that it was supposed to be there.

None of these are game killers, but a lot of them can frustrate you quite a bit throughout the course of the game. To be honest, it's kept mostly the same from the first one, but it's far more buggy and less stable. Overall, I give the gameplay a 6/10. It's a little lackluster, to be honest. Please note this: It is not the fault of the developers, as they were rushed by Lucasarts to get the game out by a certain holiday, when it clearly wasn't ready.

So, what do I say about this game? Buy it. Nowadays it's probably less than twenty dollars, and you can easily squeeze about a full day of combined playtime in a single playthrough of the game. Whether or not you feel you want to play through again is your choice, but if you like it you probably will want to see the light and dark side plots respectively. That concludes the review, I hope you found it fair, and not too judgemental.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/08

Game Release: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (US, 12/06/04)