I have to admit that I've been a Star Wars fan since the age of 7. I distinctly remember watching Empire Strikes Back in the theater and it blowing away my 7 year old mind. That and I'm certain I must have watched Return of the Jedi on video at least over a hundred times by the age of 10. In no way would I ever mention this to an actual person and expect to be considered a cool hip kind of guy. In fact I would expect that one's enthusiasm toward Star Wars and it's associated subculture is inversely proportional to the chances of one having sex in their lifetime. That said I must also admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the exceedingly long named Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: the Sith Lords for PC.
KOTOR2 is the story of the "Exile" and his/her journey from excommunicated Jedi outcast to Jedi/Sith savior/destroyer of the Outer Rim and presumably the Galaxy. As with KOTOR1, your character's actions and interactions shape the Exile's overall destiny of either becoming a virtuous Jedi Knight or an evil Sith Lord.
For those who have never played this type of game there are basically 4 game play elements:
Firstly and most importantly is the overall storyline. KOTOR2 plays out as follows, your character wanders around a locale, meets people/aliens and engages in long segments of pre-scripted talking. You listen and at certain points in the conversation are given the choice of a number of responses that usually cover the spectrum from "nice guy" to "complete jerk" statements. Of course the selection of these statements often effect your character and the finale of the story. Although this may sound quite boring it surprisingly plays out very well and as the core of the game drives the player further and deeper into the game with it's complex, twisty, and turny storyline and numerous subplots and mini-games.
Secondly the character development aspect and upgrading system for the Exile and all playable characters continually drove me to "unlock" new and fantastic feats, powers and skills. All the cool Jedi force powers are present and accounted for including personal favorites like Force Lightning, Force Wave and Force Bum Scratching. Of course progression of the Exile and other characters progresses often progress to combat with lightsabers. Weapons and armor are also fully upgradeable and modifiable. Items can be created and broken down given certain skills.
Thirdly what's a game without senseless violence? Although the combat system has received no change from KOTOR1 it is still quite effective and easy to use. Basically combat is loosely real-time but can be paused at any point to queue up attacks, powers and feats for all playable characters. This system is not what I would call action packed as the animations of the attacks are fairly generic and after seeing them for the 100th time is yawn inducing. Secondly I found that queued actions would sometimes disappear or not execute for no good reason. That aside, combat is engaging enough to complete the story.
Fourthly the bulk of game play is comprised of shameless looting. That's right, looting. Apparently the galaxy is filled with often unlocked containers with an array of useful items waiting for your character to steal. Don't worry if you can't open something you can either bash it open (really it's called bash) or have another one of your more skilled characters open it for you. Early on in the game this element is quite important as you find items and sell them to buy very important armor and weapons but after you create your first lightsaber the looting simply becomes a somewhat unnerving distraction. It didn't stop me from stripping the galaxy clean of all items but it wasn't pleasurable.
Technically this game is generally good. I greatly enjoyed the in-game graphics as the environments are often quite spectacular. Some of these locations are a revisit from KOTOR1 but I don't see that as a terrible failing, but it would have been nice to have all new environments. Glitches with the environment mainly revolved around all the buildings disappearing or game crashes when entering a new area. Starting up the game again fixed everything as long as you save often. Character animations are generally very good including their "oh so cool stances" and perfect complexions. Conversation animations are very detailed and use the in-game graphics engine. However, I found the cutscenes very pixelated and generally superfluous. Performance wise I found that frame-rates were smooth except when smoke effects were displayed. Of course your mileage my vary depending on your computer specifications. Infrequently graphical glitches would crop up in the character models. A particularly funny moment was when the Exile's arms and legs were all out of wack stretched at strange angles and warped all over the place. Running around was hilarious. Another was in a conversation with Atton and his face simply stretched like it was being pull down, revealing crazy open eyeball sockets and disconcerting floating eyeballs. It didn't seem to bother him though.
The audio and soundtrack are fitting and more than adequate for setting the mood and invoking the Star Wars feel. I just can't get enough of those lightsaber sounds (I believe this enthusiasm has just ensured that I will not have sex for at least a month). Voice acting is quite good with the exception of some of the alien languages. It appears that for some of the species they simply recorded 3 or 4 lines and a conversation will activate one of them. If I have to hear another Ithorian say "Fee don gell fah" I'll stab him with a ballpoint pen.
Overall there's alot to be had in this title. A long yet gripping story with a mildly trite ending, many playable characters, a truck-load of people to converse with, a heap of side-quests, Jedi lightsaber wielding action and a few mini-games. Good graphics, great audio and decent game play round out this title as a superb Star Wars game and a must-play for any Star Wars or RPG fan.
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