Ever since star wars was first introduced to the internet and comics there has been an explosion of side stories in the expansive and imaginative galaxy which as far as I'm aware of, goes un-named. The touching and tragic tale of Anikan Skywalker was the main story behind the movies but it wasn't long before people wanted more.

Sadly, what people want isn't always right and so the public began to critisise the franchise. However, one gem in this collection of coal stood out, Knights of the old Republic. Yet, I won't be talking about this gem and instead focus on it's underappreciated sequel KOTOR 2.

The game has recieved harsh critisism for not being nearly as good as the first but i disagree. Perhaps I'm biased considering I played KOTOR 2 before the first but I doubt that really matters so without furthur stalling here is my personal review of Knights of the Old Republic 2.

I was surprised to find i could decide how my character looked as well as their class (I was new to RPGs) and shocked i was also allowed to choose what they say. Sadly, this can work against the game since gamers don't wish to scroll through every possible sentence the character can say (this was improved upon in Mass Effect).

After a brief tutorial where you control a familiar little droid, if you played the first game, you wake up in an empty asteroid mining field. At this point you meet Kreia, now i liked Keia alot, she offered sage like guidance but didn't stick to any perticular side. For example, on one planet a begger asks for money, you can either help him or threaten to eat his children. If you help him Kreia points out that by giving him money you have made him a target and so he is beaten and robbed, so by helping you only caused more pain. If you threatened him then he becomes hateful and attacks an innocent person in which Kreia remarks "through small acts of cruelty, greater ones are born."

Scenarios like this actually taught me something which is always a big bonus for games.

Each character in the game i actually grew attached to, each was different not only in their skills but their personalities would sometimes clash which leads me to my favourite aspect of KOTOR 2. Everywhere you go you can only take 2 allies and each will react differently to certain situations. Take for example Kreia and everyones favourite, HK-47. On one planet you run across an angry mob, If you stir things up and cause a riot HK-47 will applaud your actions and prepares to blast some meatbags. Yet, Kreia will butt in saying you should avoid this because it is none of your concern. Frankly, HK-47 was always more fun to have around.

But different characters did more than just offer advice on different situations. Take for example GO-TO, a floating, black orb robot which looks exactly the same as the one in "A new Hope". When your tasked with retrieving some weather-devices and what-not, the guy offers a decent amount of money for them. If GO-TO is in your party he points out the guy is ripping us off and is worth much more. This aspect of the game brought me back again and again with different party members to see how the situation would change.

Yet this was also incredibly frustrating.

Somehow, the game felt like it was holding out on information it didn't want to share. There were hints all throughout the game of finding a battle droid factory yet i never found it. After some research i discovered they had to cut this from the game which was very depressing, considering i played through 3 times already trying to find the place.

The battle system i was frankly disappointed with. It felt much like World of warcraft where you just press a single button to perform a single move with no skills required whatsoever. That's all i can say about it.

Frankly, i was confused with KOTOR 2's critisisms. Sure it didn't have the mind blowing plot twist present in the first game, but it had interesting and likeable characters just like the first. Admittingly the double cross was easily predictable, but that might be because you can learn about it if you have enough 'influence' with this character, which is something the first game didn't have.

Overall, I think both games balance the other out. With KOTOR 2 improving on various aspects of the game and KOTOR 1 setting the story. My only critisisms is to the battle systems and the belief that this game can ever be a decent MMO. But who knows, maybe some things in life sound bad on paper only to be proven wrong in practice.

The main problem with KOTOR 2 was the Peragus mission at the start. There were also a few missing plot elements.

It is still a good game, where KOTOR 1 failed, 2 succeeded, and vice-versa.

I believe there's a mod/patch for the Assassin droid factory for the PC version of KOtOR 2, I think they just didn't have time to get it into the final game, the code is there, just not ordinarily accessible.

Good review though, I too enjoyed no.2, if not more than the first in some ways.

http://team-gizka.org/

The Sith Lords Restoration Project.

Taken from the Team homepage:

Knights of the Old Republic 2, we feel, is a fantastic game. It's also undoubtedly a wounded game: a lonely game that knows it's incomplete as it is but just can't bear to admit it to itself. It's okay, KOTOR2. We're here for you. Shhhh. We're here.
If you're here, you probably know that KOTOR2 had a lot of cut content, including some very important scenes near the end. If you didn't know: KOTOR2 had a lot of cut content, including some very important scenes near the end. You can read a lot of it and listen to some sound clips here.

We're adding back in as much of the cut content as is possible. We are dedicated to forming a coherent story out of these sound clips and occasionally-ambiguous action descriptions, so unfortunately, we cannot include every single cool thing that was cut. But, we will still have plenty of coolness, including:

The long-lost HK Droid Factory! (not the same as the Droid Planet M4-78)
Several ways to murder Visas!
A whole new group of people who want to kill you!
Multiple endings! (no, really, actual endings)
Various ways to be responsible for the deaths of all your party members!

Current Build: 1.0b10

Home > Progress Reports > Overview

WIP 1: April 3, 2005
WIP 11: May 12, 2006
WIP 2: April 18, 2005
WIP 12: July 12, 2006
WIP 3: May 24, 2005
WIP 13: November 1, 2006
WIP 4: May 31, 2005
WIP 14: December 25, 2006
WIP 5: July 2, 2005
WIP 15: February 14, 2007
WIP 6: August 1, 2005
WIP 16: April 3, 2007
WIP 7: November 9, 2005
WIP 17: July 2, 2007
WIP 8: January 23, 2006
WIP 18: October 22, 2007
WIP 9: February 7, 2006

WIP 10: March 3, 2006

1.0c1 will be the public release.

Builds will occur approximately weekly.

The remaining bug count is NOT a countdown to release.

Tracking 990 known issues
Severity: Open: Resolved:
Block 0 5
Crash 0 8
Major 2 78
Minor 0 254
Tweak 2 164
Text 0 163
Trivial 1 201
Feature 11 101

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total 5 873

rejoice, soon we can play kotor 2 the way it was meant to be. in a sense.

I think people really felt with KOTOR2 that it was just unfinished - the lackluster ending, the occassionaly linear gameplay that made KOTOR fans empty inside, and the lack of depth in the locations and plot (apart from the characters - I felt KOTOR2's party members, combined with the influence system, was deeper than the deep abyss of deepness...yes, that is a real place) made people feel a little cheated.

Of course, KOTOR2 did a lot right as well, as you pointed out, and I believe the combat system was somewhat improved than the first - it was more challenging and felt more involved in my opinion, but two things really kicked KOTOR fans in the balls, the first being all that removed content, and the second being the bane of every KOTOR player's existance;

Nar Shadaa. Seriously. Awful. Planet. It was boring and horrible to look at and you either ruined the first part of the game by getting it over with or risked giving up on the game towards the end by doing it last.

So yeah, I agree that KOTOR2 did a lot right, and in my opinion it does add to the series and improves it, but those two things always leave a kind of bitter impression of the game.

Oh, and Credossuck, Gizka haven't brought out a report since October last year...I wouldn't count on them finishing it at all, I've been waiting for a couple years now, and I imagine KOTOR3 will be out before they've even finished the first build, let alone patched out any problems.

2 weeks ago the bug count was at ten and the forum is active.

they are alive.

The main problem I had with KOTOR 2 was that you could train up your party members to become Jedi, but there weren't enough lightsabers to go around. No matter how much I looked, I only found a couple of big ones, and some of those awful teeny-weeny ones that look ridiculous.

Most lightsabers you get in the game are random, anyway. You pretty much had to save before handing in any quest that had a saber as a reward, just in case you got a crappy tinysaber.

Bah. The thing we have to consider is Obsidian did an ok job with little time they had. But remember, where Kotor 1 failed Kotor 2 saved and vice-versa. (well I liked the fact that we could change weapon and fighting style).

The ending killed a bit the game, but I wont blame the rest of the game. They had some good concept, but still failed.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
The main problem I had with KOTOR 2 was that you could train up your party members to become Jedi, but there weren't enough lightsabers to go around. No matter how much I looked, I only found a couple of big ones, and some of those awful teeny-weeny ones that look ridiculous.

Strange, i never had that problem and i turned all my members into jedi =/

turn them into dark spires if lightning and waving so you dun need fckn sabers.

The Star Wars universe has a great deal of appeal. But I never really "got into it" until KOTOR. The game well illustrated the gravity of choice felt by Force users. Kreia is the greatest example and teacher of this gravity. To say that Kreia made the game for me would be something of an understatement. She's easily amongst the most powerful personalities in video games.

The influence system was great, but it was through Kreia's character that it truly shined; Kreia was a teacher and to gain influence with her you had to choose the response appropriate to the lesson. She wasn't a character you could consistently respond to in one fashion, like your other party members. You gained influence with Kreia by actually learning her philosophy, which was marvelous. Kreia epitomized those shades of grey that make characters believable. Her ultimate lesson was that "the way" is reached neither through light or darkness alone because the big picture is so much more than that.

I also appreciated that KOTOR 2 expanded on Revan as a person. In KOTOR, you found the facts and completed an epic quest as the original Darth (chronologically), but were left to speculate when it came to his motivations or past. KOTOR 2 helpfully fleshed these out to the point that you actually understand why he's seen as something of a mythic figure by the galaxy at large.

What bugged me about KOTOR2 was that once you've Influenced characters to become Jedi... that's it. That's the end of their story. I'd like at least an epilogue for them, maybe Atton regrets becoming a Jedi, is too tempted to go Darkside and turns against you in the end (if you're Lightside, which I always am).

That's another thing: the only way to be Darkside is to be an absolutely evil bastard, and I don't like it. There's hardly any actual moral choices, it's mostly "do the right thing or fuck everyone over". I'd like to accidentally end up getting a load of Darkside points because I thought I was doing something good, or something.

Nevertheless, I got drawn into the characters and story, especially the way it retconned an extra level to Revan's actions in the first game. And if the game's big twist isn't as shattering as KOTOR1's, well it's still pretty damn awesome:

Getting to the Academy at the end and just slicing my way through everyone there was an awesome experience. I think I do like it more than 1, because it's bigger and deeper, and the quest is something more than "find the five McGuffins" which was basically what KOTOR1 boiled down to. It's a close race, though, between the two most awesome RPGs ever.

A lot of reviewers responed negatively to KOTOR II because they never actually found all of the "hidden" conent, such as training party members or Kreia's relationship with Revan. Personally, I found KOTOR II's story to be much better (and definitely darker) than the original (especially after Bioware decided to recycle it for Mass Effect), if it lacked the same twist and spectacular ending.

And I liked Nar Shaada. What did you think was bad about it?

EDIT: One more thing: the fact that Kreia suggested that Revan never actually fell to the darkside, but just sacrificed himself to create a more secure galaxy is... well... Amazing? Superb? Spectacular? Pick one of these or all of the above. I can't believe they're making an MMOG... Seriously... Why? Why not continue the story?

Don't lose hope for the sequel. KOTOR always played like an MMO, I thought. What with the non-linear progression, the side-quests yielding superior kit, class selection, leveling up to earn force powers/feats.

What interests me about this move is how they'll portray the moral dilemmas that are the life's blood of KOTOR. How will that work? Are you choosing right from the character creation screen whether you are "good" or "evil" a la WoW's Alliance/Horde? How will your decisions affect the community or universe at large, if at all? Will your decisions determine the game's outcome in some way, like multiple endings? Can a Dark Sider be saved by the Light Side or could a Light Sider fall to the Dark? Will character classes be featured beyond just Guardian, Sentinel, Consular and their respective prestige classes? What of PvP? Will Dark Siders and their counterparts co-exist? Will there be any non-Jedi character classes? Will there be any reason to play them? Will there be more factions than just Jedi and Sith, such as Dark Jedi (who aren't the same thing as Sith) and Grey Jedi? Will everyone get a unique ship/droid/lightsaber? Would it be an option to actually build any of those things? Will the influence system return and how could it be applicated?

I really wanna know and finding the answers will be interesting.

Personally KOTOR and KOTOR 2 are 2 of my favorite games of all time, but i definently enjoy the former better because of its insane twist and epic ending

The Bandit:
A lot of reviewers responed negatively to KOTOR II because they never actually found all of the "hidden" conent, such as training party members or Kreia's relationship with Revan.

One of the things that I disliked the most about KOTOR II was that the influence system made it extremely difficult to see that content without a guide to work with. Besides, I wanted to do what *I* wanted to do, not what my jackass teammate would approve of. I might as well be playing the game with my mother looking over my shoulder.

The Bandit:
A lot of reviewers responed negatively to KOTOR II because they never actually found all of the "hidden" conent, such as training party members or Kreia's relationship with Revan.

What's bullshit is that that stuff is so hard to get. One mistake at the start and your screwed as far as relationships go, unless theres a bug or something.

coltonhinson:
I HATE THIS GAME! THIS GAME SUCKS! STARWARS SUCKS!

...

I feel sick. Hopefully this is some weird new form of "joke", that I'm not getting.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
The main problem I had with KOTOR 2 was that you could train up your party members to become Jedi, but there weren't enough lightsabers to go around. No matter how much I looked, I only found a couple of big ones, and some of those awful teeny-weeny ones that look ridiculous.

that leads me to speak of one other thing kotor2 improved. the item bench system was much deeper. if you kept getting thos piddly light sabers you just deconstruct them then make your own uber-saber.

coltonhinson:
ITS NOT A JOKE STARWARS IS FUCKING GAY!!

So your saying a series where people are cut to peices while screaming, and being able to pretty much use magic, AND being able to use guns that shoots lazers is gay.
and judging by your avatar your a fan of zelda, a game full of people who speak by yelling, with a guy wearing a skirt and an santa elf hat while being assisted by an annoying ass creature of some sort isnt gay?
your obviously brain-dead.
i however disagree with the thread, and believe he should review the first kotor game.

I love "desighners", forum troll. But Zelda storylines are almost the exact thing over and over now. I'm sure you need to a water, mountain, fire, and forest temple and collect SOMETHING.

Your argument fails. Never played KOTOR or Mass Effect, but I have SEEN them and I applaud Bioware for their customizablity.

Also, comparing Zelda to KOTOR is like comparing Mario to Kratos.

NOT THE SAME.

Hopefully that ban will put this thread back on track.

My biggest complaint about KotOR 2 was... well, kind of like eating a hotpocket but halfway through you realize it didn't get cooked all the way, but your mom won't put it back in the microwave so you look around for someone else to do it.

Haliwali:
My biggest complaint about KotOR 2 was... well, kind of like eating a hotpocket but halfway through you realize it didn't get cooked all the way, but your mom won't put it back in the microwave so you look around for someone else to do it.

That, sir, is the best analogy I think I've ever heard for KOTOR II.

sithlordjesus:
i however disagree with the thread, and believe he should review the first kotor game.

Well i didn't review the first game because i saw someone else has recently done it. Besides, i enjoyed KOTOR 2 as much as the first.

sithlordjesus:

coltonhinson:
ITS NOT A JOKE STARWARS IS FUCKING GAY!!

So your saying a series where people are cut to peices while screaming, and being able to pretty much use magic, AND being able to use guns that shoots lazers is gay.
and judging by your avatar your a fan of zelda, a game full of people who speak by yelling, with a guy wearing a skirt and an santa elf hat while being assisted by an annoying ass creature of some sort isnt gay?
your obviously brain-dead.
i however disagree with the thread, and believe he should review the first kotor game.

I'm confused... Why shouldn't he have reviewed KOTOR 2? Is there like some unspoken law of not-reviewing KOTOR 2 that I'm not aware of?

Anyways, I suppose I'm the only person on these boards that hasn't given either KOTOR game a try. Not sure why... I like Star Wars well enough.