KotOR 2 - Retrospective @ OXM

Couchpotato

Part-Time News-bot
Joined
October 1, 2010
Messages
36,178
Location
Spudlandia
OXM posted a new retrospective article for Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords.

Let's be blunt. KOTOR 2 is an unfinished game. By the time you reach Malachor V, everything is petering out. The signs were there from the start: cut content, loot randomly generated rather than placed by hand and oh so many bugs. The ending violates the "show, don't tell" rule so hard you can almost hear the money running out.

The popular belief is that Obsidian were pressured to put the game out in time for Christmas, but we're talking about a game with two gender-exclusive companions, a fully implemented crafting system and a card-playing mini-game. If they'd had an extension, would they have finished what they started, or added a fully featured NPC shaving simulator?

In many ways, KOTOR 2 feels like the end of an old era of RPGs. It was the first console game by a group of veteran PC developers, and it shows. Combat is flashy animation played over behind-the-scenes dice rolling. Literally in this case - KOTOR 2 was one of the last major RPGs to be based on a pen-and-paper game (Star Wars d20), a holdover from a time when video games followed, rather than led, the RPG market.KOTOR 2 was made in that moment, forever frozen between Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect. That's its thing, to be caught between worlds. It's too sophisticated for a proper Star Wars game, too flashy for the old-school RPGs, too wedded to dice for the new, and too broken to be great, but just broken enough to be unique.
Just so you all know I hate the article, and OXM Staff writer funding was indeed cut short due to LucasArts. Watch the Matt Barton interview with Feargus Urquhart for why.

More information.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,178
Location
Spudlandia
never could play it for more than a few h.. i think i tried 2-3 times
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2008
Messages
1,168
Location
Ro
you might want to try with mods (especially the restored content mod) which should make it much better. I haven't played yet since I still haven't finished KOTOR and want to finish that first.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
1,596
I loved kotor 1 as Bioware basicly captured the essence of sw in that game. That being said I was absolutely blown away how fresh kotor 2 felt after kotor 1. Obsidian truly gave star wars a whole new spin. When I launched kotor 2 first time, I was basicly expecting "more the same" which wouldn't have been a bad thing, because kotor 1 was a masterpiece, but instead of Obsidian playing safe I got to experience a whole new view on what star wars can be.

The game certainly suffered from glitches and bugs in it's release, but there is a great bug fix and content restore mod which restores kotor 2 nearly to it's full glory.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-sith-lords-restored-content-mod-tslrcm
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
2,468
Whatever OXM says won't change my feelings.
I loved Kotor2, loved it even more with restored content.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
To be totally honest: I didn't realize KOTOR 2 was cut before I read about it. In games, sometimes things ARE left vague. *shrug*

Personally I loved KOTOR 2 a lot, because of the theme and the characters. Is a Jedi still a Jedi if he loses the Force? Is the Force not a tyrant, making all things worse? The entire moral dilemmas and Kreia's ideas about morality made me think a lot! Can it be bad to help? Can be too trusting ruin you? I found that deep ideas and well presented, though her German voice is many times better than the relatively flat English original, I must admit.

I found Kreia one of the MOST interesting characters ever. One of the few that made me think about RL morality.

And I agree with Dez, how well Obsidian put a new spin on Star Wars!
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
555
Location
Germany
I enjoyed KOTOR 2 too, but there were some decidedly tedious periods during the game. A KOTOR 3 that adopted elements of the Mass Effect series might be good though.
 
Joined
Mar 22, 2012
Messages
5,521
Location
Seattle
"It's too sophisticated for a proper Star Wars game".

What a load of crap. Idiot reviewer. I can't remember the last time I was so annoyed with a reviewer, most times I don't care.

I loved Kotor 2, pretty much all of it, and I had no idea there was cut content. Like Elikal said, sometimes questions aren't meant to be answered.
 
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
3,216
Location
Sweden
I too enjoyed KOTOR 2 a whole lot, though not quite as much as KOTOR 1.
 
Joined
Oct 23, 2006
Messages
840
When I played the original version, I found it bland and uninspired in terms of the Star Wars atmosphere and setting.

The tutorial level (Ebon Hawk) and the Peragus mining facility were both extremely dull in a visual sense, and they didn't do much to inspire me.

The music was great, though.

Beyond that, it had major performance issues. There were areas with some smoke and fog effects that completely bogged the game down. Later on, I came to accept this as the Obsidian way - but I didn't know about that when I first played it, and I remember tinkering with drivers and stuff to fix it. Obviously didn't work.

I recognise what they did with the writing, but I think it was a very bad choice. It's like taking Tolkien and going GoT on it.

Star Wars is a romantic fantasy setting. It's not a serious setting meant for "grey area" characters.

Now, I do prefer grey area stuff in most cases, as I can relate to it as a real human being. But I happen to think Star Wars is wonderful escapist fantasy that ties into nostalgia in a big way, and I don't think it's appropriate to change the style in such a profound way. It's disrespectful and arrogant, frankly.

Also, I find most of Avellone's writing overly verbose and pretentious. Not really my thing. Kreia, for instance, was so obtuse and desperately vague that I couldn't help but cringe.

With all that, though, I have to admit they improved the mechanics in some significant ways. They added new toys and that's always nice.

One of these days, I really have to give it another go with the restored content. I tried playing it like that a few years ago, but it didn't hold my interest. But I get distracted easily.
 
Last edited:
Oh KOTOR 2, I still cringe when I think of that crazy game. There were two points in my first playthrough that I encountered game-ending bugs; after being twenty hours in and having to start again from the very beginning was maddening, but then to have it happen again - I felt like freaking Derrick Rose.
 
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
27
I fully enjoyed this game and played it twice through I believe. I also had not been aware of cut content ... if I didn't have so many other games in my line up I would try it again with the mod. Still I was very happy with the game.
 
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
3,959
Location
NH
I played it like 3 or 4 times, loved it. Just missed some of the crew from 1. Played it only once with restored content mod. That was extreme, this whole HK factory. At first I thought the restored stuff would be mute or something, but boy was I wrong. Everything was fully voiced (with the original voices). Only then did I understand how much was cut. They had recorded the voices and left it in the game files, they just didn't use any of it in the game.
Even now I'd recommend it to anyone who likes it/is interested in it and hasn't played it with the restored stuff yet.
 
Joined
Jan 13, 2011
Messages
103
Back
Top Bottom