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It could have been a very great game...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: June 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

...if only the idiot CEO of Lucasarts hadn't rushed Obsidion to release the game during the holiday rush. This gave has AMAZING potential, and gamers waited for months at a time for the stupid Lucasarts to release a patch. They finally did but it wasn't very good.

Remember when Lucasarts was a good company? I can't be the only one. Old games like Escape from Monkey Island, Rogue Squadron, Dark Forces, Shadows of the Empire,...all so much fun.

Then we went into the second generation and we got more good results: KOTOR 1, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, Star Wars Obi-Wan, Bounty Hunter...gaming never was so fun.

Then we entered the grim third generation. Games like KOTOR II and Republic Commando. Games that had good potential but behind all the good looks of the boxes and the great descriptions, there's a greedy, evil CEO with a smile a mile wide sitting behind a desk laughing his head off.

Why, you ask? He's greedy, I said it before. All he cares about is cash. Cash. Cash. Money. He prices KOTOR II at $50.00 when it first came out when its worth about $15.00.

THIS GAME IS SOOOOO CHEAP. It crashes a number of times, and has various other glitches. For instance sometimes when I use a medpac, the medpac's gone but my health bar stays the same. Once I bought 5 grenades, spending 80 republic credits on each one...and then due to the glitches I only was able to use one.

I can't believe I bought this game. I was so excited for the new KOTOR game. I bought it, and...BOOM. I stared blankly at the screen as it crashed over and over again. Installation wasn't any problem but, hell, it took me two days to get the game running due to all the crashes!

Blame yourself if you waste your hard-earned money on this game. Lucasarts may as well sell boxes stuffed with crap. They'd get better reviews, I'm sure of it.

If you want a fun game, here's a list of GOOD Lucasarts games, BEFORE they were evil and greedy:

Rogue Squadron Series
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Bounty Hunter
Clone Wars
KOTOR I (My all-time favorite game)

Thanks for listening to my anger. Oh, and one more thing...by looking at the game KOTOR II was, I hope there's no KOTOR III. Why? The original KOTOR is simply classic. It cannot have sequels. True classical games and movies don't have sequels, because all the sequels seem to...well, suck. (With the exception of the Star Wars films, of course...)

Overall, buy the first one and take pride in knowing you hold in your hands the best game that ever was.

Bugs and an incoherent story..

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: March 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Hello from a 15 year old,

I think that KotOR1 was one of the greatest games ever made,and so any game that claims to be a sequel has some very huge shoes to fill. My first thought was that with a sequel (this is more of an expansion, by the way..as an expansion it would've been okay), the designers could focus on the storyline and side-quests and create engrossing encounters, since they did not have the distraction of dealing with the graphics and so on. That did not prove to be the case - apparently, many systems which handled KotOR1 fine don't work with KotOR2, and as far as I can tell (with the PC version, on an nvidia card), I see very few technological improvements with the engine. Another issue is that the music tracks are *MONO* (yes, you heard me right) 10 kilohertz tracks encoded as 48kbps mp3s. What a travesty! This was not the case with the first game, which had 128 kbps mp3s.

Now, coming to the story - you start out playing a character who is not amnesiac, but yet you don't know his back story. You get to discover this by talking to people around you - the amnesia trope's huge advantage is that you have the feeling of playing a character who is discovering himself, just as you are discovering the game. The approach they take here didn't work for me - perhaps it does for some others, but it prevents identification with your character. The dialog in the game is rife with "loops" - which were very occasionally a problem in the original game, but not to this extent. One huge advantage of star wars is that it deals with archetypes - the rogue with a heart of gold, the cold but compassionate princess and so on - the first game had these archetypes and more (ah, Bastila!). They tried, and failed, to revise this by making the characters "more complex" in this "sequel". One of the first NPCs you meet is a guy named Atton, who plays a Han Solo type, and very poorly, I might add - but occasionally, he steps delivers some spiel which is completely out of character, and you know they're trying to graft some traits onto him to make him appear more complex, but it never works, because it's not a seamless blend. He just felt like a paper cut out to me. There are also a fair number of typos in the dialog - would it have been too much trouble to run the dialog through a spell checker? And, I haven't finished the game yet (I'm about 3/4 of the way through), but I was so let down that I read a few forums to see other people's reactions - apparently the ending is even worse, and it was basically half finished and cut for budget/schedule reasons. Sigh.

Bugs - too many to name, but I'll describe the first really annoying one that I ran into - you can find many more elsewhere; in the PC version, the first planet you go to has a swoop racing game. This is set at a cantina which is about 10% as interesting as the cantina on Taris from the first game, with totally bland NPCs who have about 2 lines of dialog - which you invariably terminate abruptly with "I'll be going now" (talk about unimaginative dialog). Unfortunately, the game never acknowledges that I've won a race - I've got a time of 44 seconds, which was the second best track record, but while it shows up in the records when you ask the racing official (who is again, a cardboard NPC with no personality - compare to the ones in Kotor1), you never actually win anything. Perhaps there's a workaround for this, but eh - this sort of thing should've been caught in QA. Oh, and essentially all the random NPCs walking around in the streets have about 2 lines of dialog which they cycle through - in the original one, they had more than that and some of them were downright funny.
Anyway, I've gone on for too long - I'd say play KotOR1 again, or check out another Bioware title if you want some good roleplaying gaming.
- D

Eh...ultimately, disappointing by comparison

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: September 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Not enough tweaks to a pre-existing engine to resolve annoying "features" like inability to check party stats while on Ebon Hawk. Also ship lacks "doable" things (weapons, shields, hatch door controls, etc.) and lacks a lab table which of course, should be in the med bay. Fact that party members are not available while on board and/or cannot be independently controlled, silly.

Story: Started great, deteriorated into a confused morass of unresolved subplot threads; characters except for Kreia, weakly developed; excess of droids; stupid Malachor droid mission was pointless; ultimately, though player is supplied with 10 different crew members, neither the story, settings, missions nor is interesting enough to support much replayability. Dark side characters still have disappointing choice of needlessly cruel and downright silly choices for "dark" points, though KOTR2 has significantly more "plot" related dark missions than its predecessor. "Romance" is so absurdly transparent it is evidently more obligatory than a genuine part of the (discernable) plot. I say, either beef it up with some genuine romance dialogue/interaction (nothing graphic please) or just fuggedaboutit.

Graphics: Same as KOTR= Great
Sound: Excellent
Acting: Excellent overall

has flaws, but still a remarkably good game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 18
Date: April 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It could have been the best RPG (role-playing game) of 2004; it had the potential to be one of the best RPG ever; it wasn’t; but it came close. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords (Kotor II) began as a great game, played like a good game, but ended as a major disappointment – the game was so awesome that I was still in a disappointed mood even after two days I beat the game. Despite several flaws and a horribly rushed ending, which detracted from its game play and nearly killed my appreciation of the story, Kotor II considered in its entirety is still an amazing game. In fact, it was over 90% what I expected it to be in its expansiveness, excitement, and overall fun factor.

In terms of game play, Kotor II is superb and does not really differ from the original game. Not only are controls and the game outlook design essentially the same as the original, the game itself plays pretty much like the original too, with around 40 hours of playtime. The game play is still essentially run around cities, streets, corridors, or the wilderness to gather information, interact with NPCs, and do optional quests, then finish the required quests which inherently requires the player to venture deep into hostile infested areas and engage in the entertaining activity of slaughtering enemies. While running between areas are tedious and killing enemies over and over again does get repetitive, the traveling usually never takes longer than a minute and cutting through 15 mercenaries in 10 seconds with a double bladed light saber never really gets old. Much like the original, the combat system still remains the same, which is real-time but allows the player to pause anytime to assess the situation, change targets, use items, or use Jedi abilities.

Some new features have also been added in Kotor II to make its game play even better. The inclusion of labs and workstations used to create and breakdown items, while not absolutely useful or necessary, does add another method of procuring items and lessens dependence on credits. Additionally, an influence system has been implemented to gauge each party member’s reactions toward the player character. Essentially, how much influence the player character has with a party member is how much respect, trust, and admiration the party member has for the player character. A high influence means the party member will be more willing to share personal background information and become closer to the player character’s alignment faster. At the very best, this adds another dimension of realism to each party member character by disclosing their history. Giving insight to characters’ background information allows for understanding of their personality and explanation of their behavior. Some other major additions in Kotor II are new prestige classes, feats, force powers and items. By far the coolest are the new prestige classes, which allow the player later on in the game to specialize and become even more powerful. The secondary additions – feats, force powers, and items – allow greater room for the creation and development of characters and of course become great help in making your character extremely powerful. While none of these additions are necessary to the game, they still add, albeit slightly, to the game play of Kotor II.

In terms of role-playing capability, Kotor II offers the same relatively obvious paths of light, neutral, and dark as in the original game. However, there are a few minor occurrences in the game which makes it seem the choices aren’t so cut and dry, and that one’s actions, no matter how helpful or hateful, always have indirect consequences that cannot be foreseen. For example, on Nar Shadda, a beggar approaches. If the player character helps him by giving him money, a scene shows the beggar being beaten by another beggar who becomes jealous and takes the first beggar’s money. And if the player character refuses to give him money, a scene shows the beggar full of hate beating and taking another random beggar’s money. These sequences do at times add a certain realistic feeling in the game. However, while they are interesting, they happen so infrequently as to be nearly insignificant. And most quests end predictably, where your actions directly influence their outcomes, with no undesired side effects. Given most of the role-playing comes from the player character’s actions and choice of dialogue, there are more than enough ways for the player to express his character’s will in role-play. What’s more is that alignment in Kotor II actually has directly consequences that affect game play. The dark path of the game has several major differences from the light path besides abilities, ranging from the storyline to how party members react towards the player character. Likewise, the gender of the player character affects character reactions as well. A male character even gets a different party member than a female character. Furthermore, the way the player creates and levels up his character is only restrictive in requirements, so the player can effectively build the Jedi of his dreams, able to gain selective skills and specialize in many of the plethora of feats and force powers. As the player character grows even stronger, prestige classes become available which allows more specialization. All this makes the game’s replay value high as the thorough player may want to try both light and dark sides and experiment with all characters classes.

Other strengths of Kotor II are its sounds and dialogue. The sound in the game is fantastic and helps immerse the gamer in its game setting. Not only is the music in the game in the same star wars classics style, but it also reflects specific circumstances in the game as well. For example, the music is peaceful and enjoyable in city environments but becomes quicker and tenser in combat and other tight situations. Besides the music, other sounds such as blaster fire and light saber activation all suit the star wars theme and accurately match the circumstances occurring in the game. In addition to music and environmental sounds, voice acting for character dialogues also enhances the gaming experience greatly by immersing the player into the environment of the game. The only thing that I found annoying was the voices for alien characters, as those sounds extremely repetitious, but this is endurable.

Since Kotor II is so much like the original, it carries the original’s flaws as well. The graphics appear out-of-date, sometimes the combat runs sluggishly, and often character moves look repetitious. The major problem with the graphics is that it’s not as sharp as other games and face texture looks terrible, but overall, the graphics is still good enough for the setting to be appealing. For example, the landscaping of the worlds and the vistas look vast and are quite attractive. Fortunately for Kotor II, being an RPG, its graphics is not a major hindrance to its game play and foremost value of role play, since the importance of a RPG are concentrated in its storyline, character development, and combat system. For me, Kotor II ran smoothly for most of the game and only stuttered slightly during combat intensive moments with lots of enemies. Even then, that was only for a few seconds and did not seriously hinder game play.

Another flaw in the game that detracts from its perfection is the AI in combat. Even on the hardest difficulty, for most parts, fights are absurdly easy and can be won in seconds. The few challenges in the game however, can be overcome by exploiting AI bugs. For example, sometimes the AI responds slowly. So by saving after the player makes an attack and loading, the player can make another attack before the AI even responds. This trick, although tedious, can be used infinitely times during difficult solo combat situations so that the enemy never even gets its turn to attack. One more flaw in the AI is sometimes party members behave stupidly. Some examples are party members walking over a mine while another is disabling it, or a party member using normal attack when a better attack from a feat is available. What’s extremely irritating also is that the auto-level up almost always chooses the most useless feat for a character. For instance, Handmaiden (a soldier character who specializes in hand-to-hand combat) in auto-level ups got ambidexterity when she needed dueling feats, and got to 2nd level in all types of melee attacks (improved power attack, improved flurry, and improved critical strike) but had nothing at the master level. She even had feats improving her skill with ranged weapons which were totally useless since she fought best with fists. Of course, this problem can be solved simply by personally leveling up characters and the other AI problems are really more inconveniences and annoyances than anything seriously detracting from the game play. The main character the player controls most often is usually powerful enough to overcome nearly all obstacles alone anyway.

The story in Kotor II begins intriguingly. It starts several years after the original ends and tells an equally original and dramatic tale. There are still the “normal” and “expected” conspiracies, plot twists, mysteries, and surprises. And the player is not only trying to figure out the identity of the main character, but also the identity of his/her companions – it’s one big mystery and the suspense builds up as puzzle pieces slowly come together to form a whole. This journey of self-discovery begins immediately when the game starts and lasts through the majority of the game, creating a continuous cliffhanger. Along the journey, the player encounters numerous conflicts between different factions of which the player must take part and resolve; the player is also immersed in the occurrences of the star wars world among many situations that have parallels to the real world. For example, one conflict involves a merchant hiring the player character to eliminate the merchant’s competition across the street. Another bigger conflict involves Czerka’s (large corporation) attempt to plunder a planet’s resources for profit and a much weaker environmental group’s attempt to save the planet. And of course there is the main conflict between the Jedi and the Sith. Although not all conflicts are strictly good vs. evil, the way the conflict is resolved is generally distinguished between the light and the dark side. Thus, all types of conflict exists in Kotor II (person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. society, society vs. society, person vs. self…), which allows its story to be multidimensional, containing the plot itself, sub-quests with their own subplots, the background information of all the characters, and character development. Moreover, the plot itself is multilayered as well and character development goes deep in analysis of characters’ motives, thoughts, and reasons behind their behaviors. Playing Kotor II is like reading a really interesting science fiction novel: as the story unfolds, it becomes more exciting and complex as the story goes along.
So what’s the problem with the game? As I mentioned in the last paragraph, Kotor II is interesting because it’s one continuous cliffhanger since puzzle pieces slowly come together to form a whole. As the story progresses, puzzle pieces gradually form a whole with holes, and by the end of the game, those holes should be all filled. Except in Kotor II, when the ending credits appear, those holes still remain and the game feels incomplete. There is no satisfying feeling after the conclusion because the ending is awfully inadequate. I was unsure what I achieved in the game after playing almost continuously for a week. To be precise, the game ending feels rushed. While the story of Kotor II is comparable to that of the original, Kotor II’s ending felt meaningless to the point of being anticlimactic. It can be said that the ending leaves the player with the final impression of the game – and the ending of Kotor II was truly a disappointment.

But despite several minor flaws and the rushed ending, Kotor II is still an adventure to play. Imaginative and intriguing but also open-ended and comprehensive, Kotor II has excellent game play by combining role playing values with action. While the game is somewhat overrated due to expectations in comparison to the first game and the disappointing ending made the game feel incomplete, Kotor II is still, in my opinion, a worthy RPG. Indeed, it will keep you entertained for hours and hours, just know that at the end, you might get SOME answers – but for sure you will not get all the answers you seek.

In this game's defense...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: March 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Ok, most people who have played this game and have enjoyed this series know the almost legendary story behind what the hell might have happened when this was developed. Many reviews have already outlined why the game was not finished (money, basically, although Lucasarts has been infamously hush hush about the whole thing), so I won't go into detail about that.

Now, while 3 stars is good, I believe this game deserves a little bit more credit. While the story of the original KOTOR was great, it was very goody goody if you played light side (the standard canon side), meaning that if you played it right everything would work out all right in the end and la dee da everything's good in the galaxy again. yay! Even as dark side, your evil character was treated almost cartoonishly by the other characters (why would you ever do something like that?!)

However, I far prefer the overall tone of KOTOR II. It was much darker and more serious. Yes, while I missed some of the witty playful banter of the original, I just loved the cynical banter of Atton and the Exile's snappish remarks to Kreia far more. While most are frustrated immensely by the fact that the dark tone almost makes it seem as if your actions are pointless, I found it much more interesting and added a realistic depth to the otherwise unrealistic Star Wars universe. Yes, you can be good, you can train others to be good, you can try to rebuild a broken order, you can try to be good and merciful to your party members, but would it really make a difference in these dark and horrible times? Times where the Jedi are all either dead or gone? Not right now. It's a continuing struggle, one that is build up for the next part of the series (which is why it would be a horrific shame if Lucasarts is abandoning KOTOR). I've heard it said before, and I'll repeat that in some ways the criticisms of the storyline in comparison to KOTOR are similar to early criticisms of the Empire Strikes Back. While they are different stories, it can be said that if by some miracle they decided to make a 3rd in this series, the reviews on KOTOR II could be better in hindsight (depending on how Lucasarts handled the story).

While the game is tragically incomplete, what story there is is a convoluted mystery that keeps you wanting to constantly play, and a VASTLY improved system of gameplay. It was hard for me to go back to KOTOR because of all the little things that were still there in the gameplay that annoyed me, things that the sequel patched up nicely (The lockers, etc. that don't show themselves as being emptied for one, and an improved weapon and inventory system). There has been much criticism of the influence system by many for different reasons. I for one, loved it. It adds a whole new level of difficulty of the game (which it needs since KOTOR II's fighting is horribly easy, but more on that in a minute) and makes it so much more involving with the characters, rather than having everything presented to you on a silver platter like in the original. Some have complained about not gaining backstories before and have blamed it on cut content, when rather they just didn't take the time/didn't pay attention to ways to gain influence with their party members. Some characters (Bao-Dur for one) are really difficult at times, and if you don't gain influence before a specific time you'll lose the chance to learn more about them for good. Each character has a different set of rules for you to try and gain influence with them, but there are many guides online that detail how and when to get it. There are several ways to play this game, and even if you play it over a few times, there will still be things you'll miss. This isn't a bad thing, it just means that the game is easily replayable.

You care about the characters too. The reason why you'll be pissed off at the end like the rest of us is because you want to know what the hell happens to them. This is basically the majority of what was cut in the game. After the first 2/3 of the storyline you see an obvious difference and can tell where the gaping plotholes lie. But keep in mind: you do actually care about the characters. You want to see what happens to your little jedi/minions. This is something that is difficult to do in any story, especially most video games. But this rpg hits it on the nail: You want to know what the hell happens! You need to know! And you'll go crazy over not knowing! I just think that Obsidian needs more credit for accomplishing that.

In comparison to KOTOR, the story of TSL is much more complicated and far larger in general. If you think about it, KOTOR was a very simple story. It was very good, but it was straightforward and I couldn't help but feel that I had spent how ever many hours playing this game when the story could have been summed up in a couple of hours at most. I loved KOTOR, but my personality just tends toward the expansive dark mysteries of KOTOR II. I'd prefer feeling like my character was in something bigger and didn't know what was really going on, rather than do the exact same story format that KOTOR did. The best sequels can stand on their own in a different type of story, and that's what TSL tried to do.

As for romantic subplots, The Sith Lords tried to do something very different than from the original game. They decided to do a love triangle between you, the Exile, and two of your followers that practically worship you while being bitter about all the sexual tension (what? you *are* the last jedi, :-D). Unfortunately, the result of this was part of the cut content, and was supposed to actually have some sort of result rather than being left unresolved. But this is reportedly also being restored.

Now, my rating is based on the game as it will be when it's completed. I'd still give it a 4, for getting me horribly addicted, wasting my time for a week straight, and making me get on Amazon a year later just to babble about it to people who are thinking about buying it. There's good news: the team of modders at team-gizka.org are creating a mod that will restore the cut content and make the fighting more challenging at certain points. While there is no set due date, the mod is coming along (albeit slowly) and is in the middle of beta testing. The Sith Lords was an ambitious project of Obsidian, they had a much larger, much darker story, with dozens of mini subplots to deal with on top of improving gameplay and getting the game out in time for the Christmas Season. if you look at the insane amount of what was cut, you can appreciate what The Sith Lords was meant to be (even though it is still great fun and a good game without the resolution). Now, the modders are hoping to restore it to the original vision, and make so that it's no longer the-Flawed-Masterpiece-That-Could've-Been.

Honestly, I now recognize that most of my anger and exasperation at the game a year ago was not because it wasn't a great game, but because it wasn't finished. I was addicted and needed more. I needed that cut content! And that just shows how good it really is.

Also, as a 19 year old female gamer, I just can't believe how much I could love a game character as much as Atton. It makes me giggle just thinking about it.

As for bugs, the released patch fixed all the major ones. And there are other patches that modders have released all over the internet. They're not hard to find, just check out the forums on Obsidian and modder sites. You can google it. More bug fixes are also coming with Team Gizka's restoration project.

Finally, just give Obsidian and Lucasarts a break. They made a great game, unfinished, but fun. And that's what it's really all about.

Reaches for the Stars and falls short.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: May 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In my review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I stated that I'd given the game nearly 100 hours of my life (to play both dark- and light-side characters and endings) and didn't begrudge them.

I gave The Sith Lords 50. I begrudge somewhere around the last 15.

It's easy to be overly harsh with a game like this. KOTOR (as I'll call the first game) was a masterpiece, a smoothly flowing story with hours of well-written dialogue, interesting characters, a solid and fun system, and an excellent overall feeling of interacting with a dynamic universe that you as a player could make a real difference in.

TSL (the second) builds off of a virtually identical engine. So, half the work was practically done for Obsidian already, right?

Well...

From the outset, let me state I never experienced any of the hardware failures that have plagued some players. Nor do I share the feelings of some that TSL managed to take the same engine and make a worse-looking game. Visually, I'd call the games about equal.

The game begins promisingly enough, with the player cast as a sort of Jedi exile injured and virtually abandoned on the Ebon Hawk, the Millenium Falcon-like starship of the first game. Characters are introduced, the plot thickens, the search begins.

Early on you will start to discover the changes between the two games. Items are now composed of elements, and can be broken down and recomposed into new items, if the skills necessary are available. Items found in the game are now more randomly determined and distributed, theoretically giving the game more replay value, Diablo-like. There is also a new role-playing contrivance called "Influence"; basically, if your character acts in ways another character approves of, you increase your influence with that character, and they're more likely to tell you of their back-story or otherwise act on your behalf.

Also, story-wise, TSL takes a slightly different tack. While KOTOR had you rediscover the hero's lost past, TSL lets you define your own past to a degree as you tell other characters your own back-story.

Strange, then, for all how the new options and ideas seem to have been created with the notion of giving the player more freedom, it ends up feeling like less.

The ability to breakdown items is interesting, if you go for that, but I suspect most people would rather throw thermal detonators than make them. It's there if you want it, but no particular loss if you don't, and given the skills needed, I suspect most players won't spend a lot of time with it.

The random items are, in a word, ridiculous. They do an excellent job in harming the player's suspensions of disbelief. "Oh, look... This random box contained *another* [armor piece] of [famous Star Wars' character's third cousin once removed]... Pile it with the others, will you?"

The Influence question is more problematic. Meant to lend more depth to the conversations, it instead makes them feel less organic and more like another kind of hidden number-crunching, like combat. Given the player is already trying to guide his responses according to a Force morality, to deny players the meat of portions of the story based on their responses seems unnecessarily cruel, and actually takes away from the role-playing aspect rather than allowing the player to indulge in reacting the way they feel their protaganist would. Further, reading FAQs available online indicates that the system is highly susceptable to abuses in places, and my own experience has lead to some baffling turns (you've radically altered your life to follow me, turning your back on all you knew before, but you're still not going to tell me the last of your backstory?!)

And while the idea of telling others your story is neat, where your story heads is less so. Without giving too much away, KOTOR's story amounted to: "This is who you *were*. Knowing that, now, who do you choose to be?"

TSL is more "Everyone is reacting to you this way because of what you are, which is *this*. So, now what?" (Or, if you wanted to be more harsh, "Whatcha gonna do, cry about it?") It's less satisfying. More reactive than decisive.

After putting in a significant amount of time, you will get to the portions of the game that I'm sure have been amply commented upon in other reviews. The portions where you say, "Someone had a skeleton outline and a tight deadline, and ended up slapping fragments together to meet that deadline." I reached to a point where I literally asked, "Why am I boarding this star cruiser?" To face the villain, of course. Now, if only it ended there. Like many sequels, the desire to improve upon the predecessor means that TSL just keeps going, long after there is pleasure to be gained by doing so. And in this case, long after solid content was generated to justify the extension.

So you'll face the villain, and defeat them in a rather confusing and vaguely exposited way, and then you'll face another villain, and another, both rather anti-climactically, and then there's some more exposition, and then you fly off (roll credits.)

Huh?

Sadly, while that description is accurate, it doesn't quite capture the full drudgery of the final hours of the game. You see, having become an incredibly powerful character, you will now wander through a series of rooms seemingly strung together with cut-and-paste, filled to the brim with identical dark jedi and their flunkies, to *reach* those anticlimaxes.

(sigh)

There are suggestions of a great game here. There are plot threads that could have been truly intriguing. There are moral ambiguities that are commented upon, but never integrated. There are relationships that could have, should have gone interesting places... But apparently they didn't get time to get written.

If I never had played KOTOR, I'd still think TSL was a flawed game. But I wouldn't see it as as much of a tragedy of over-reaching and deadlines. Scrap the item composition, the influence, and just give me real conclusions with the characters who've been watching my back for all these hours, and I would have been happy. Alas, it wasn't to be.

There's still some great stuff here. The dark, melancholy tone, the reams of dialogue which must still surely have taken many, many hours to write and coordinate, moments of excitement and grandeur and real, interesting choices.

A pity it ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

I still have to recommend this game, especially if you can get it for $15 or less. But don't play it if you haven't played KOTOR. And if you only play one, KOTOR should be it.

The servant has *not* eclipsed the master.

A Void, Empty Echo of the Original.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 17
Date: February 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

(NOTE: The following review will be for the female-Exile path, as I have not played the male version and don't intend to sit through this game a second time to see how it plays out. This also contains SPOILERS. You have been warned.)

The words 'void' and 'echo' were used no less than twenty times (probably more) throughout this game to describe the new Sith threat. However, it also describes the game as a whole.

When I started playing this, I was so -enthralled-. I had waited for about half a year to get my hands on the much-anticipated sequel to, IMO, the greatest game in existance. I was playing it nearly non-stop since I bought it. Now that I've finally made it to the end, I'm left with nothing but an unsatisfied, empty feeling in my gut.

Voice Acting: Most of the voices were excellent. I had some trouble with a few of them, though. Mandalore's voice seemed to change from talking through a helmet and talking without the helmet a couple of times, despite the fact that his outfit never changed. A few of the NPCs spoke so quietly I couldn't hear a word they said. There were -MANY- times the words did not match the subtitles.

Game play: My computer had the -recommended- components, and it locked up every other time the loading screen popped up. There were tons of glitches, and some problems just due to bad programming (like people standing up or falling down when they aren't supposed to in the movies, force shields disappearing when you're talking to people who are captured, mouths moving when that character isn't the one talking, etc).

On another note, there was hardly -ANY- direction. In this one, you're pretty much just walking around without a purpose, hoping to bump into whatever the heck it is you're looking for.

Characters: At first, I would've said that the cast of the second was even better than the first, but I still have a few reservations. I'd give up Mira to have Bastila again any day. Kreia was annoying, and it seemed no matter what I said, I lost influence with her. HK-47 was -terribly- underused in this one.

Romance: Terrible. Although it was great in the beginning, the tension build up and just didn't go anywhere. When I first met Atton, I was thinking, 'Boy! This guy is -so- much better than Carth.' But complete LACK of conversation made the tension dull a little quick. Where in KOTOR, Carth was giving Revan the 'I want to be your reason for living' speech, in KOTOR II around the same place, Atton was still skulking in the dark, leering at the Exile and bad-mouthing the Disciple but never confronting the issue. The character of the Disciple got farther than Atton did by actually -admitting- his feelings for the Exile to Atton, and it makes it hard to believe that -Atton- is in fact the female character's main love interest. It was pathetic, to say the least.

Storyline: Oi. So it started off very well. I kept playing, getting farther through the game and waiting for the climax. I was thinking up conspiracy theories in my head. Could Atton, or even Sion be a resurrected Malak? Was Kreia secretly Bastila or Revan, either disguising herself with the force, or somehow twisted by this new emptiness that plagues the galaxy? With all this talk of echoes, is Nihilus just an echo of one of the other characters, a second living embodiment created by the force? So many different possibilities, so many different ways it could go. But eventually, I got to the end, and it went -nowhere-.

After 96 or so hours of playing, I was left with nothing. There was no resolution, no answers. Where was Revan? I don't know. Did Atton really deal with his past, and does he love the Exile? I don't know. What relation did Kreia have with Revan, or with the Exile? I don't know. What was the point of playing this entire game? I just don't know.

And now, I was left with only broken promises, built-up excitement that came crashing down on me. There was no satisfying ending, no answers, no nothing.

And I refuse to believe that this ending was somehow justified simply for the promise of another sequel. KOTOR I had a perfect, satisfying ending, and it still left -plenty- of room for a sequel. Whereas I've replayed KOTOR three or four times, I can't even bring myself to play the sequel a second time, just to be grossly disappointed again as I reach the end.

Is that it?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Well yes... Two thirds of the game are playable...and fun... But what hapenned with the last third? Is there something missing? Something rushed? This game is half shorter than the first Knights Of The Old Republic! This could have been a great game if the missing content had been added... Lots of quests unfinished, lots of worlds disappeared... Is that all? I bought the game because I am a huge fan of the first one... I expected a sequel greater than the first game but when I finished the game I couldn't believe that it had ended... So short... So disappointing... If you are a huge fan of the first game you'll definitely be very disappointed by this one... A lot of ideas were good... The main story was quite nice but the worlds you visit are a lot smaller, the quests are incomplete... It's not worth its price...

LA Screws up again

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game had too much potential to be one of the best games released in a while. But Lucusarts just had to put their two cents in and too much content was lost in the aftermath.

Judge for yourself here: http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=29764

LA should stop armchair developing and actualy let the game makers finish a product before it is released.

A Great Game, But Could Have Been Much More...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: May 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Before I start pointing out the pros and cons of this game, I'd just like to applaud Obsidian for what they did. Taking over the development from BioWare was no easy task, especially considering the original KOTOR won 48 Game of the Year awards. I think they did a very good job with this game. I will also keep this review spoiler free for those of you who have not played through the game yet.

Now the difficult part of reviewing this game. In a lot of ways, this game surpasses the original. The combat system is improved by the addition of new feats, force powers, and weapons. I really enjoyed the new prestige classes as they really tailor to what kind of player you are. If you wish to create a "tank" character who simply uses his lightsaber to mow down opponents, then you can do so. If you prefer to use Force powers more, you can also follow that path. This gives you a lot of freedom to structure the game to how you'd like to play it. I also feel the dialogue in the game is a lot better than the original. Some of the characters (one in particular) are truly brilliant.

The new influence system was hit and miss for me. There are only about 2 or 3 people who are actually worth influencing, and even with these people, you can beat the game without influencing them at all. Another niggle was that to gain influence, you have to say certain things to certain people. This means that you only have very few conversation options available if you want to gain influence. If you're curious about someone's past, you may not be able to ask them about it because you'd lose influence with them. This was very irritating to say the least.

The storyline itself was iffy. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but at times I just found myself completely confused. A lot of the time you have no idea what's happening, why you're doing something, or why this quest is important. I suspect Obsidian wanted the story to be darker and more philosophical, but I believe even they got mixed up somewhere along the line. It does get cleaner by the end of the game, so that's at least something.

The ending of the game leaves a lot to be desired. Normally, I get enough satisfaction from the experience so that and ending is just the cherry on top of a cake. All I ask is that questions are answered and there is some conclusion. You don't get either of these with this game. There are two reasons for this. One: Lucasarts rushed Obsidian to get this game out for Holiday season, which meant that Obsidian only had ONE year to make the game. In software development, this is an incredibly short time to make a game (most games take about 3 years to complete) Two: Obsidian purposely left the ending that way in order to set up the third game, which I have no doubt will be made. This is done by basically every company though, so not much to say there.

Also, this game is very buggy. Check out some KOTOR forums to see what I mean! Although I got very lucky as to not experience most of the bugs others have mentioned, my game would still crash periodically. It took me about 25 hours to complete this game, and it crashed probably around 20 times, and once in the middle of a boss battle! As annoying as these were, there are far worse ones. I encountered one where a quest does not trigger, even though it should. I won't say the exact details, but I was supposed to talk to a person in order to trigger an event. Yet when I talked to them, nothing happened. No event was triggered, and I couldn't get the quest, no matter what. Luckily for me, it was a bonus mission, so it did not affect my game adversely. At least there are patches for the PC version; the Xbox one is apparently even worse! My suggestion: Save OFTEN and make multiple save slots. You never know when something might happen (I ended up with 23 save slots by the end...what can I say, I'm paranoid!)

So with all this negative criticism, why give the game 4 stars? Because I still had a lot of fun playing it. The combat was extremely rewarding, and building my character into a powerhouse was awesome. As I said before, I enjoy the journey, not the endgame, and if I could go back in time I would have definitely played through this game again.

My final advice: If you haven't played the original, make absolutely sure that you do before playing this one!!! I cannot stress that enough. Not only is it a better game, but there are plot points in this game which will ruin the surprise twist of the first game, which would be a real shame, because it was an incredible twist. To those of you who played the original and enjoyed it, I'd say this game is worth playing through. There's a lot of fun to be had with this one.

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