Written by Jeff Buckland, 12/20/2004
Played on:
Xbox
Many who have gone through Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic say that it's the best thing to happen to Star Wars since the original movie trilogy. Now, that's a bold statement for someone who's only seen the movies to actually believe, but after going through the first game, I'm one of the people who agrees with this sentiment. You can probably deduce that I expected a lot from the sequel to KOTOR, and I wasn't about to give Obsidian Entertainment any slack on this - KOTOR was an absolutely brilliant game, and I don't care who makes the sequel. It needs to live up to the name and deliver at least as good an RPG experience for me to be satisfied.
This sequel comes about a year and a half after KOTOR hit stores, and it's pretty obvious even ten minutes into the game that Obsidian has kept many KOTOR conventions constant here. The problem is that the first game's overall story was so powerful that not only would Obsidian have trouble making anything that KOTOR fans would actually like, but also that they must deal with the open-ended plot elements of the first game. Many things had to be written and designed this time around so that those who did the game as a good guy or bad guy (and as a man or a woman) have a place in the sequel. This means that a ton of overlapping spoken dialogue was created, as well as other tidbits just to cover the major events of the first game.
On top of this, Obsidian clearly honors the major revelation in the first game by actually not spoiling it in the sequel. While this was the noble thing to do from a game design perspective, it seems that it wreaked havoc on the sequel's introduction. You'll wake up with amnesia - yes, this handy old Bioware-favorite plot element comes back - and must piece together what's happened not only in the days leading up to your predicament near the planet of Peragus, but in the five or so years since the events of the first game.
When I first started playing KOTOR2, I wasn't impressed by its low-key, slow start. The setting, a mostly-dead mining station out in the boondocks of the galaxy, didn't help the situation. This lethargy continues for a few hours before the game really picks up, and I fear that those without the attention span (or the fan dedication that the first game created) will give up on KOTOR2 before it really starts to shine. But when it does, you can expect to see a great story, beautiful new places to fight in, engaging, dynamic characters, and tons of cool new equipment to play with.
One thing you'll begin to notice early on is that the original convention of choosing between two extremes on the moral spectrum has been loosened up. Now, you'll have more conversation options, and far fewer of them are the monosyllabic "huh?" type of replies seen in the first game. Your character will show his or her intelligence, insight, and good-evil alignment with the answers you can choose from, and many of these make much more sense. There's also the fact that if you choose to travel with Jedi most of the time, they won't both complain at you every time you do something evil. In fact, Kreia - the old woman who becomes a new teacher for you - is liable to berate you for just about any overly good or evil act. It's tough love from her.
The influence system compounds all this. Sure, you could turn a couple of your party members to the dark side in KOTOR, but this was merely a single plot event, a single turning point in the story. Now, the change is gradual, and you can affect many of your party members. Not only will you be able to learn more backstory from them by increasing your influence with them, but they'll also then be more likely to swing towards your alignment. You can even train some of these characters to be Force sensitive and get a few Jedi powers of their own! All of this does come at a cost of not interacting with the other members of your party, though, so repeated play-throughs are necessary to see all of the new stuff you can do with the rest of your group.
I've just written a page full of stuff and haven't even gotten to how the game plays. If you've played the first one - and I'm betting that you probably have - then you're likely going to be happy to find out that little (at least, in this respect) has changed. You'll have a mix of Force-using and conventional-weapons characters, and can take yourself and two other characters at a time into battle. This time, though, you'll get more opportunities to use the special abilities of the characters at your disposal, and you'll have to act alone as one of these characters quite a few times. You'll also be required to make more use of your secondary abilities, utility items, and other bits and pieces. It's tougher to just wade through everything swinging a lightsaber at anything that stands in your way.
KOTOR2 uses the same adaptation of the 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons rules that the first game uses. Those who have never played either game have got to be wondering if this system actually works, and in a fully 3D game at that, and I can say that I find it works perfectly. There are a score of tactical and equipment options for you to choose from, and the Force powers and lightsabers manage to integrate right into the D&D rule system easily. Those of you number-crunching types will certainly find an edge can be had in this game, but those who don't care about that stuff can still beat the game without too much difficulty. http://www.atomicgamer.com/admin/articleAdmin.php
Much of the game's mechanics will feel familiar to players of the first game, and even some of the enemies are back and are just a bit too similar to last time. Revisiting planets from the first game will surely mean coming back into contact with the original wildlife again. Sith soldiers are also back, and many of them haven't been changed one iota - their animations, attacks, and weaknesses are all back. But not every revival is unwelcome. The return of your ship, the Ebon Hawk, is done just right, and some of the playable characters from the first game will pop up during cutscenes for just a minute or two. And the corporation that everyone loves to hate, the Czerka, are back in full force as well.
Some conveniences from the first game have returned, like the ability to switch planets if you're bored and come back later. At the same time, some of the other nice things from the first game have been removed. You can no longer press a button to return to your ship, the Ebon Hawk, instantly. But Obsidian did replace it with something that's arguably better: you can now gain access to instant transport between the various areas on a single planet. Sometimes you can do this right from the start, and other times you'll have to finish a simple quest to be able to get transport. Either way, it really helps to curb all the running around you'd otherwise have to do to finish up your quests.
I think Obsidian likes droids a lot. Not only have they expanded the role of droids in this game, but they've also made them more powerful so that you'll actually consider using them in your party for reasons other than pure comedy. It turns out they were somewhat successful in this endeavor, although it's still difficult to deny the power of a double-bladed saber fully loaded with upgrades. The droid situation is helped out immensely by the return of HK-47, the hilarious assassin droid. He's still not a major powerhouse, but he's certainly a capable fighter with (yet again) some of the best voice acting in the game. I won't spoil some of the other new droids that are playable, but let's just say that Obsidian is staying true to Star Wars in some ways that the first KOTOR didn't touch.
KOTOR2 includes a ton of new options for working on your gear. While only a few items from the first game could be upgraded with various parts, it's the other way around now - most gear can be upgraded, and that which can't is either meant to be sold as little more than junk to the vendor, or it's intended to be powerful but static. Either way, I really enjoyed being able to make my own parts and install them into the many weapons and pieces of armor throughout the game.
And that leads me to the other excellent addition, which is a system that lets you break down the more mundane items you don't need anymore and build all kinds of new ones. This is based off of the various skills that the character you're controlling has; not only does almost every skill, like Security, Awareness, Demolitions, or Treat Injury allow you to make new gear, but the character you're doing it with has access to his or her own library of items to make. Overall, this lets you do something useful with that junk loot you get, and funnel it into something productive (rather than just selling the stuff and buying gear that's worse than what you've already got).
You can even go unarmed in KOTOR2 and actually make it all the way through the game. Characters like Bao-Dur and the Handmaiden are particularly strong in hand-to-hand combat, and the fighting animations mix in nicely with the action. These fights look best, though, when both characters are unarmed - it actually looks like a fairly decent martial arts battle. The first time I saw this I thought it was a bit lame, but I think that was just my fear of new things coming through. After over 60 hours spent playing this game, I can say with certainty that I now find unarmed combat to be a welcome addition to the series.
