[SimeSublime]

Note: This first post is a rundown of the game, with no spoilers involved. I cannot vouch for any other posts made

Rather then drag out the old KoTOR thread, I figured it would be better to start a new one for KotOR 2 one and leave the old for discussions on the first game.

I just picked this up the other day(which, incidentially, is why I haven't posted on the forums for a few days)and think it's great. I'm about half way through my third optional planet, playing a male light side Jedi Sentinal/Weapon Master, and his silver lightsabre cuts through almost any foe .

Technically, the game is fairly similar to KotOR. The bugs persist, and the menus are a horrible green, but otherwise it's easy to pick up and play.

Now for changes. There are now new feats and powers. New feats include a bunch of blaster feats(such as point blank shot), as well as FP/HP regen and some unarmed fighting feats. New powers can let you deflect blasters without a sabre, or shout your enemies to death, or even the vaunted Battle Meditation itself(and let me tell you, this power is awesome to have). Skills have changed a little as well. The game gives you the ability to craft items at workbenches, and each of you skills(except persuade)aids with the creation of different types of items. This is especially useful at the early stages of the game(if you can't find a vibrosword, you can build one)and in the late stages(where you can make really good items). You can also create stims, medpacks, shields, grenades and whatnot. I'm unsure of the level cap, but I'm level 22 at the moment.

Items wise, the games gotter interesting. There are a lot of new items which make the old weapons and armour appear quite weak. Of special note is items which increase your attributes(STR, DEX, etc). They appear fairly regularly. Implants are now determined by you CON, rather then feats. So, to use a given implant, you need CON of 12, 14, 16 or 18, depending on how good it is. Thirdly is item upgrades. All upgradable items have different slots. For example, vibroblades have the blade, hilt and handle. Unlike the last game, there are many different upgrades which can go into the blade place, each of which have different effects. But, the same upgrade will do the same if placed in any vibroblade. As I mentioned before, if you have the requisit skills and parts, you(or your companions)can build any of the upgrades. Oh, and Jedi Robes have be improoved greatly in this game. Rather then the selection of light, dark, and a few special light aligned ones, there is now a host of robes which have different effects, assuming you can find them. My main complaint is that most swag is generated randomly throughout the game, so sometimes what you're looking for may be a bit hard to find.

Now, on to the story. I'll try to write this out without spoilers. You're character is a Jedi who fought under Reven and Malak as a general in the Mandalorian Wars. But, instead of joining them in their fall, you left after the destruction of Malachore IV and returned to the Jedi Counsel for judgement. You were banished, and hence you are refered to as "The Exile". So, the Exile became comepletely cut off for the force and has been cruising around the galaxy for the last few years trying to keep out of sight. In that time things haven't been great. The Republic is trying to rebuild after the Jedi Civil Wars(Reven and Malak's attack in the first game), and the Jedi have vanished, leaving the Exile the last one left. And as such, he/she is now the target of not only Sith assasins, but also bounty hunters for the Exchange.

To my mind, the plot seems to tie in with the first game quite well. Early in the game you get to report on you're view on Reven, to help you're story grow. And the current set up is quite interesting, and I'm eagerly awaiting what happens. The NPC's in the early game tend to annoy me, but you get better ones later on. As for characters from the old game, I've so far seen Bastila, Carth, Canderous, HK-47 and TM-84. They actually have plausible roles, too, rather then the Boba Fett type cameo I was afraid of. Oh, there was a reference to Jolee thrown into the mix for fun, thou I doubt he'll arrive, due to Dark Side reasons from the first game.

Overall, I'm really getting into it, and suggest those of you who liked the first game give it a go.

[OneWithStrange]

Thanks for the heads-up, I certainly will be buying this in the next few days. I see there are a lot more features and improvements than I was led to believe.

-Ben

[Helena]

Well, I'm glad you like it, but I'm afraid your review doesn't alter my views in the slightest. I've read spoilers for the story, and I truly hate it (for so many reasons that it would take a Chefelf-style list to explain them all) - not to mention that I've heard plenty of less-than-complimentary things about other aspects of the game as well. So I hope you lot enjoy the game, but I'm not going to spend money on KOTOR II simply to confirm that I hate it.

[Laughlyn]

A copy for the uni paper review has just been delivered (at midnight!). Dude seemed very unhappy to be parting with it. Guess he was going to have the job if I declined again. Like i'd miss the chance to play KOTOR2 and take a few pot shots at Lucas in the process....

Oh I don't believe this, The X-box has packed up! GL must have heard me.

EDIT: technological failure.

This post has been edited by Laughlyn: 15 February 2005 - 07:00 PM

[SimeSublime]

How sad. Helena, if you could do so without any spoilers, but what non-plot related bad things have you heard?

[Chefelf]

Well, I'm glad you like it, but I'm afraid your review doesn't alter my views in the slightest. I've read spoilers for the story, and I truly hate it (for so many reasons that it would take a Chefelf-style list to explain them all) - not to mention that I've heard plenty of less-than-complimentary things about other aspects of the game as well. So I hope you lot enjoy the game, but I'm not going to spend money on KOTOR II simply to confirm that I hate it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're going to turn your back on the franchise based solely on poor reviews you've read? I picked up the game because I had to out of loyalty to the first one. Granted, I'm only about 5-6 hours into the game right now but I'm having a BLAST playing it.

Why be all cynical about it without even playing it? Do yourself a favor and rent it to see if you like it. After all the negative stuff I'd heard about it, I was worried but I figured that I'd get a decent complaint article about it if nothing else. Save your cynicism for things you know to be crap from first hand experience. Save your strength, there'll be another time.

And this business about being worried because BioWare is not handling Kotor 2? Rubbish. You'd never be able to tell if everyone hadn't talked about it. I admit to being skeptical at first, but it's so similar in so many ways to the first game.

I dunno, maybe in the next ten hours of gameplay I'll be completely turned off, but so far it seems like you could at least get a fun RPG with a good story. The opening plot is a lot of fun to play through and the new "influence points" system is a neat twist.

It's nowhere near as innovative as the first game (because it closely resembles it) but it's perfect for KOTOR fans who wanted some more.

[Helena]

How sad.  Helena, if you could do so without any spoilers, but what non-plot related bad things have you heard?

OK, here's a few:

It's full of bugs, broken quests, and the like.
It's far more combat-focussed than the first game and full of 'dungeon-crawl' gameplay (probably not a problem for many people, but the main reason I liked the first game is because it wasn't like that).
The 'influence' system is handled very poorly and means that many characters are not properly developed.
The main villains are completely uninteresting and far too easy to beat.
The ending is very poor and leaves many important plot elements unexplained.

And that's just a sample. I can't say first-hand how true these things are, but many of the people who made these comments also said they loved the game at first, but found that it completely fell apart later on.

You're going to turn your back on the franchise based solely on poor reviews you've read? I picked up the game because I had to out of loyalty to the first one. Granted, I'm only about 5-6 hours into the game right now but I'm having a BLAST playing it.

It's largely out of loyalty to the first game that I'm refusing to play this one. Like I said before, I've read a lot of spoilers for the story, and it appears to me to make a complete mockery of just about everything that happened in the first game (and come to that, the Star Wars universe as a whole). Chefelf, try to imagine how you felt when you first watched TPM - that's roughly how I feel about the plot of KOTOR 2. It's nothing to do with it not being made by Bioware or anything like that; I'm just not prepared to ruin the first game for myself by having to accept this as what happened next.

[Chefelf]

And that's just a sample. I can't say first-hand how true these things are, but many of the people who made these comments also said they loved the game at first, but found that it completely fell apart later on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A lot of people that said they loved the OT, loved the PT. I'm not going to go around trusting their assessment of the prequels, that's for sure.

I don't know. I see your point and your cause to be skeptical (I was skeptical as well) but I don't really think you have the right to speak so critically of a game you've never played.

If you play it an hate it then, by all means, rant up a storm about the game's inadequacies. Maybe it will turn out to suck when I get farther in but so far I'm finding it to be fun. I'm also finding that, so far, I'm glad I didn't let negative reviews turn me off.

I can agree to one thing, it's certainly not revolutionary. It's mostly just like some people that had the KOTOR engine, made an extension of the first game (because, largely that is what it is). However, that's not an entirely bad thing if you take it as such.

[Helena]

I keep trying to explain that the main thing putting me off the game is the story, which I do know something about despite not having played the game. I might be willing to put aside the other negative aspects if it wasn't for that, but everything I've heard about the plot - and I mean everything - makes me want to scream obscenities and throw things at my computer screen. Yes, I fully admit that it's prejudiced me against the rest of the game, but since I don't even like RPGs in general that's just not a big issue for me. I'd rather buy another game which I know I'll enjoy playing than one I almost certainly won't - especially if it risks spoiling the original game for me.

I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of the game, but personally I am far happier just not playing it, just as I'm happier not reading all those crappy post-RotJ books that have Luke going to the Dark Side and some kind of Borg-like aliens taking over the galaxy. That way I can simply ignore the things I don't like rather than letting them drive me crazy. It's great that you like KOTOR 2 so much, and it may be a superb game for all I know - but I simply don't want to play it, and it's really no use trying to persuade me otherwise. Sorry.

[Jordan]

You're going to play that game. And if you don't, you'll pay, BIG TIME!

I'm going to buy it soon, but first I want to upgrade my cpu, I'm sick and tired of playing fantastic games on low settings.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 16 February 2005 - 11:15 PM

[SimeSublime]

I disagree with you on the dungeon crawl. KotOR hardly had any dungeons, to my mind. It was a lot more skill focused then then first. Awareness, Persuade, Computer Use and Repair come up all the time. I've played through a few dungeon crawls *cough*Diablo, Lionheart*cough* and I can honestly say whoever thinks KotOR is a dungeon crawl is full of it. Bugs wise, it's mostly the same as the first game. Random freezes. But like the first game, if you save in a couple of slots, you should be allright. It's true about the influence thing. That can be annoying if you don't want a certain character in you're party. The bosses, well they are easy. But then I may have just made a really good character. Who can say, I never used shields, grenades or stims in either games, but some people tend to rely on them. The ending wasn't bad, I thought. And rather then saying 'left things unexplained', I would say it 'set up the third game'. And finally the plot. I liked it. I haven't read the Star Wars novels, so I can't vouch for them, but I think it picks up nicely after the first game. That being said, in my first play through I set Reven to light side. I don't know what happens if I set him to dark, but I'll soon find out. To be honest, I thought you put too much focus on the first game. I mentioned before hand in the KotOR 1 thread my arguments for this, but to sum up a lot of the first game mentions events taking place in the background that nobody is sure about. And Jolee flat out tells you that the battles of the time always seem more important to the people fighting them then the battles of the past.

[Helena]

To be honest, I thought you put too much focus on the first game.  I mentioned before hand in the KotOR 1 thread my arguments for this, but to sum up a lot of the first game mentions events taking place in the background that nobody is sure about.  And Jolee flat out tells you that the battles of the time always seem more important to the people fighting them then the battles of the past.

What 'events in the background' are you talking about? Yes, there are things in the original game that people don't understand at first, but just about all the issues I can think of are perfectly well resolved by the end of the game. And stop giving me the crap about what happened in KOTOR 1 not being important: there is no way you can sensibly reconcile two endings so diametrically opposed to each other, and I consider the attempt lazy, completely implausible and, frankly, insulting to players' intelligence.

Let me explain how things stood for me at the end of KOTOR: The Star Forge was destroyed, as was the Sith Academy on Korriban. Darth Malak, Darth Bandon, Saul Karath and pretty much everyone else in the Sith high command had been killed. A large part of the Sith fleet had been decimated in the final battle. And Revan and Bastila, the two most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, had returned to the Light Side to fight on behalf of the Republic.

Now I'm perfectly willing to accept that the war wouldn't just end there and then; it might well drag on for a couple more years. What I am not willing to accept is the idea that, in some kind of ludicrous deus ex machina in reverse, a whole load of super-powerful Sith suddenly appeared out of nowhere and contrived to magically reverse all the Republic's gains, whilst Revan conveniently disappeared off somewhere in order to allow them to do so. You're free to swallow this BS if you want, but as far as I'm concerned this simply did not happen, full stop. (And that's without even mentioning all the other aspects of the plot which I can't stand.) I'll say this one last time: I don't accept the story in any way, I'm not going to play the game, and you might as well stop trying to persuade me, because all it's going to do is get me more and more annoyed with you.

[Kirby]

Well... yeah having everything go handy dandy and destroying the sith fleet with your bare hands does kinda make it hard for the next generation to have a big intimidating bad guy, but remember how far back the Kotor was, and remember that all you did was destroy their big factory that made the sith's victory fast and inevitable, now it is just slowly but surely biding its time till Vader comes along. Galaxy is a big place, look at the scale of the situation

Then again I haven't played the #2 (my computer could barely handle Kotor #1) so right now I'm just talking out of my ass.

[OneWithStrange]

Does KoTOR 2 assume the player chose light side? If everything was honky-dorey in the Star Wars universe after Malak and the Star Forge was destroyed, why a sequel? Things make much more sense assuming Revan went dark again. It'd be cooler to boot.

-Ben

[SimeSublime]

The game assumes nothing. At the start, Atton talks about the Jedi Civil War(that being Reven and Malak's war), and you chip in with Reven's gender and what he/she did. The game then stores that data and uses it later. I played through with Reven set to light side, and the plot works fine. As she asked me not to, I'm not talking to Helena anymore, but addressing anybody else interested. Basically, ignore her. I can't say for the dark side, but setting Reven to light side works fine for the story. The Sith are not attacking the republic anymore. Infact, the new Sith have nothing to do with it. The Republic is broke and devasted after the Mandalorian and Jedi Civil wars, and is just trying to rebuild itself. The Sith in question are simply hunting the Jedi, and nobody else. Of the two Sith Lords, I know Darth Sion was on Korriban when it turned on itself. He didn't just come out of nowhere. Plus, when you consider who his master was for the last four years, as well as other plot related aspects, it's not surprising how they built up their force. I don't know where Darth Nihlius was during the wars, but he gained his power in much the same way. These sith do not reverse the Republics gains in the slightest. Hell, if anything, the Republic has lost a lot. All their bothered with is rebuilding. So, like I said, this post is not directed at Helena, and I don't expect a responce. I just want to point out that(at least to me)her post missed the point of the plot, so don't take it as a reason not to play the game.

That all being said, I'm not sure how they'll work it when I set Reven to dark side. I can't see that working out quite as nicely. But I'll let you know when I get to it.