Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords

We've been expecting big things from KotOR 2. Fortunately for us, George is kept away from the game-creation process.

To all but the most die-hard of fans, George Lucas' famed Star Wars series has become something of a streaky yellow stain on the underpants of sci-fi. The prequels succeeded only in throwing Hayden Christensen's tentative career as an actor into a death-spin and providing Samuel L. Jackson with a movie where he doesn’t glorify every line in the script with an uplifting profanity involving his genitalia or that of someone's mother -- raising the total count of such movies to '1'.

Fortunately for us, George is kept away from the game-creation process, and LucasArts has a habit of outsourcing its more complex titles to other developers. BioWare received Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, and it in turn passed the project onto Obsidian Entertainment, headed by Feargus Urquhart. If the name sounds familiar, it should -- Urquhart was one of the creative geniuses behind Fallout. With this in mind, we've been expecting big things from KotOR 2.

The sequel takes place some five years after the original. The once-mighty Republic has fallen; the Jedi eradicated by civil war and Sith infest every square parsec of the galaxy. It is at this point you awake from a deep, drug-induced slumber, only to find yourself in a regenerative kolto tank on board a mining outpost. With no recollection of your past and a weak grip on your Jedi heritage, it's up to you to find out what's happened during your time asleep -- all the while dodging Sith, homicidal droids and annoying party members.

Like all of BioWare's role-playing games, KotOR 2 makes use of d20 RPG system. This involves the now-ubiquitous six stats -- strength; constitution; intelligence; dexterity; wisdom and charisma -- as well as skills and feats. Players can also choose from three classes -- Guardian, Sentinel or Consular -- and each places more or less emphasis on Force usage.

KotOR 2 uses a modified version of BioWare's Aurora engine, an OpenGL-based fossil originally developed for Neverwinter Nights. It's been updated to support some fancy pixel shader effects, as well as high resolution textures, but it does show its age in the model complexity and animation departments. Otherwise, it's very capable and handles the job of rendering environments and characters admirably. Just don't expect it to give you system much of a workout.

Combat is handled much the same way as the original -- everything happens in real time however you can pause the action. Animation in combat is quite fluid and very easy on the eyes, even if female characters walk with a somewhat male swagger.

As combat is based on statistics rather than reflex, distance from your target has little effect on your chance to hit. While it's mildly annoying to watch your character constantly miss enemies less than a metre away, things improve as your skills increase and your feats augment your abilities.

While on topic of feats, it should be noted that they mostly provided static bonuses rather than imparting special moves or providing additional options for your abilities. Although this does flesh out the feat list, static bonuses have always been considered gimpy in d20 compared to feats that gain you extra abilities, and you'll put off acquiring them over such feats.

One of the gameplay mechanics pays homage to System Shock 2. In SS2, the player could use 'nanites' to purchase items, hack consoles and use abilities. Later on in the game you could break down objects to generate nanites on demand. KotOR 2, using 'parts' and 'chemicals' in place of nanites, lets the player make upgrades for their equipment and create items, such as medikits and security bypasses at appropriate places in the game. Unneeded items can be broken down to provide additional resources.

Perhaps the most hyped feature of KotOR 2 is the freedom it imparts on your character's moral and ethic development. The game constantly throws choices at you that influence your alignment. Being a bastard will push you closer to the dark side, while noble deeds and politeness will give you favour with the light side. Depending on how you act, not only does the game's storyline adapt, your character's appearance, and that of your party members, will change.

For all its greatness however, the game does fall a little short. There's a general feeling of roughness in some parts of the plot and characters and the environments seem a little empty and lifeless at times. The story can also drag on at times, and we're sure that if you looked hard enough you'd find a few never-ending conversation trees.
Regardless, Knights of the Old Republic 2 is a great start for Obsidian and must for fans of the original game or of BioWare's RPGs. Now we just have to wait and see if it does as good a job with Neverwinter Nights 2.