Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords

Five years after the events from the award winning Star Wars® Knights of the Old Republic™, the Sith Lords have hunted the Jedi to the edge of extinction and are on the verge of crushing the Old Republic. With the Jedi Order in ruin, the Republic’s only hope is a lone Jedi struggling to reconnect with the Force. As this Jedi, you will be faced with the galaxy’s most dire decision: Follow the light side or succumb to the dark…

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At release this game was in an unfinished state, so make sure you get: The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM)

I just finished Knights of the Old Republic 2 for the first time. I played KotOR1 when it was released but 2 got a bad reputation for bugs so I skipped it. Now there's a big patch to restore content and fix up bugs that rivals the patch for Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. The publishers (specifically Aspyr?) are on the ball, too, and patched the game so it uses Steam Workshop which makes the restored content patch and even a few others very easy to install.

The graphics have held up fairly well. They certainly aren't great but you aren't going to feel like you're playing lego people. Just people with rather square jaws…

Some of the characters are quite good (HK-47 even gets a special mission all his own with the restored content) though some are pretty bland, too. That's not a big problem, just stick to the characters that interest you and ignore the others. The writing overall is pretty good and has a few spots where it's quite brilliant. They did an excellent job of writing around astromech beeping languages without resorting to subtitles.

What is a big problem is party AI. Each character is allowed to have two weapon sets but the AI is pretty stupid about which to use when. Aggressive melee characters can go running after the next spawn before you're ready, too, though this is a lot rarer than it was back in Neverwinter (enemies are further apart, I think). I also found I had to do a lot of command cancelling even for the character I was controlling as the system would automatically put in a 'standard attack' action every time I selected an enemy.

The other big problem with the game is balance. Some of the powers you can get (e.g. the high level force push that pushes every enemy around you) are very over-powered. Around two thirds of the way through the game, it got so easy that selling/upgrading items got pointless. Then, every now and again, the game would pull one of your characters out of the party and have them fight alone. That suddenly swung the other way for me as the game seemed very good and forcing my ranged specialists to fight melee characters at close quarters. The start of the game worked out great but it degenerated into snooze-fests with the occasional stab to the gut.

Overall I think the story makes the game worth it - especially for the price. Even when not on sale it costs just $10 and I got it on sale for $2.75. Plus, well, it's STAR WARS! The pew pew of blasters, the woohuuu of light sabers, the repeating loops of alien language… err, well maybe that last part wasn't so good.

Your profile picture is very appropriate for the post

For me the strongest parts of the game were the villains (with their backstories) and Kreia's teachings.

Unfrotunatelly, the protagonist and his story falls short (especially if to compare it to the Revan's one from KOTOR 1).

Oh my, took me all these years to realize there's a content resurrect mod? Guess I have a reinstall to do soon.

Yep - it puts the HK factory back into the game, among other things. There's a website for it if you've got the original game.

Is there a way to use it, but disable the solo factory mission? I remember thinking "this was cut for a reason" when trying the mod a few years ago.

Originally Posted by Zloth
Yep - it puts the HK factory back into the game, among other things. There's a website for it if you've got the original game.

That the part where

How did it go in the original game? Played this first time, less than two years ago.

I always liked how they beefed up ranged weaponry in this game. It wasn't necessarily all about lightsabres and the Force.

Yep Bobo, that's the one. The protocol droid training was pretty good, too.

No idea if there's a way to skip it - maybe keep HK-47 out of your party when getting attacked by other HK's? That actually wouldn't be too hard.

Originally Posted by BoboTheMighty
How did it go in the original game? Played this first time, less than two years ago.

Nothing really changes, except the factory part is not there.