Knights of the Old Republic II
The release of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, LucasArts' latest title was much awaited by fans of the first game and star wars nerds alike. The story starts off five years after the end of the first game, with Revan lost at the edge of the galaxy and Sith assassins trying to hunt down the last of the Jedi, you. You start off in a tank of Kolto on a mining colony, unable to remember how you got there or where you came from. You have to try to piece together your history and escape. The overall playing time was about 30 Hours, which wasn't surprising as the first game took about this long to complete aswell. Although the game was fun to play, I felt that like a lot of recent games, it had been rushed out before it was ready. I noticed a few problems, and after looking on the developer, Obsidian's forums, I saw that a lot of people were having problems and finding bugs in the game. The Swoop racing minigames were totally unusable for me, and the AI didn't seem very intelligent. A lot of the time, units wouldn't attack a target unless I was controlling them at the time.
The game had a good storyline, and if you played the first game, you can tell other characters whether you played as a Jedi or Sith, and how you finished the game. Like the first game, you don't just start off with a lightsaber. It took me 8 hours before I'd found the parts I needed, but you find lots of rare and lethal blaster rifles and ceremonial blades on your travels, so you can make do without it.
I was impressed by the level of character customisation and the number of possible developments at each level. With each enemy killed, the character gains experience points, and when you've amassed enough, you move to the next level, gaining points to spend on different aspects of your personality, feats such as the improved ability to fight with two weapons, and force powers, like mind domination and the ability to choke your enemies with the force. The sequel allows you to progress to a prestige class, such as Jedi Weapon Master, Jedi Watchman and Jedi Master, each having it's own advantages. The choices you make in the game affect how much influence you have on your crew, and also their alignment with the force. If you choose to follow the game, making decisions as a Jedi, your character looks different than if you play through as a Sith. If you align yourself with the Sith, instead of progressing to the Jedi prestige classes, you can choose to be either a Sith Assassin, Sith Lord, or Sith Marauder. Even the weapons are customisable. There were parts of the story left unfinished, and the although the sequel has a few surprises in-store as you play through the game, the ending wasn't as shocking as the revelation at the end of KoToR I.
