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

As time goes on, games seem to be cast in different lights as technology can cast old games aside as feeling "dated". It is inevitable. However some games are truly works of art and can be considered timeless. Knights of the Old Republic 2 counts as one of those games. Where the first one gives one of the greatest adventures in gaming KotOR 2 does something entirely different.

When I first played this as a young child I thought the GAME was amazingly fun with all sorts of choices for game play dark/light, force powers, companions, choices etc. It is the pinnacle of RP game ambition before graphics, presentation and streamlined game play took over. Not many games make you feel like an unstoppable Jedi/Sith.

Now as an adult I find this game to be simply put; Art. No game in the history besides maybe Bio shock, Prey, System Shock 2, and RDR 2 have attacked themes and played mind tricks on the players own beliefs. Simply put this game will challenge your beliefs in the grandest sense of good vs evil.

Kreia might be the greatest video game character ever. Every line of dialogue is captivating. This game is a meta analysis on Star Wars itself and what the Jedi and Sith are (morality). Transcending the setting and looking at the world in a Taoistic lens. It challenges what you think to be evil and good while at the same time the GAMEPLAY itself works in tandem with the themes of the story. Being good/jedi or evil/sith or even neutral all help bring the themes to light.

This is exactly what The Last Jedi attempted. Albeit far worse and with essentially 0 nuance. Even your companions react to you and challenge you at every turn where you have to maintain a balance and manipulate your companions with certain dialogue choices (influence) in order to make them the best they can be. Are you truly a wise/peaceful Jedi if you attempt to keep all companions happy? Are you not more like a sith using people to your advantage? This only scratches the surface of the themes.

Absolutely Brilliant. Only thing holding it from a 10 as others have said are the bugs, ending, and cut content. As of today there is a patched version on Steam and addresses many of the issues. Chris Avellone really hit a grand slam here and ever since I have followed him and loved gaming. Ironically nothing has come close to the grand scale of this game for me.

What is morale good and what is morale evil truly??? You could write English essays on this games themes.

By far the best and most complex Star Wars story. You really should play it at least once, even though it has dated graphics and mechanics. Oh, and play it with the fan made restored content mode, since kotor 2 haven't been finished because Lucasarts' greed (that's why I gave it "only" 9 star). Compared to other Star Wars stories it is like books to comics. EA really should remake it with the original content, since sadly not everything could been restored.

I wish the new star wars movies had a story and writing this good. They took the star wars ip and added more adult themes, they added choices which werent just either black or white ( Kotor 1), they expanded on the story by exploring the force and adding philosophy to it. They also found the perfect balance. the conversations dont bore me like the later games of obsidian, talking about pillars of eternity which was a total letdown story wise for me. So much meaningless text which became a chore to read each time i talked to someone. Kotor 2 doesnt have that, 90% of the time, expecially with kreia, i listen like i would listen to some intellectual celebrity (neil degrasse tyson or carl sagan come to mind). When she talks about the force i feel like i listen to carl sagan talking about the universe. A little more time and a higher budget would have made this game legendary.

This game is a must-play primarily for the dialogue and voicework of Kreia, played by Sara Kestelman. This powerful, matronly role is extremely memorable and worth going through several times just to hear every bit of it. The game itself is very entertaining as well, allowing many routes to many paths, and all are not so obvious, which is a good thing. Majority of the voicework other than Kestelman's is excellent as well, in that it is very immersive. Very rarely will bad voice acting put you out of the game, save for the lackluster performance of Bao-Dur. It may have been a design decision to give him such a boring voice, but if this is the case, it was a poor decision indeed. On the whole though, this is definitely worth your while.

This is an amazing game, full of side-quests and chances to choose your outcome in many ways, just like the last game. Unfortunately, the new developer, Obsidian, seems to have forgotten to ruthlessly weed out bugs in the game. For instance, in my experience I found that the game would freeze during the load repeatedly, an...unfavorable aspect of the game. Also, the game has an unkind tendency to do a random choose of what items are dropped by enemies, and what items are given to shops. This has a good side and a very very bad side. On the plus side, the game can randomly give you high-damage items, like weapons or armor, that are over-powerful until nearly the end. On the negative side, you are likely to go through the game and miss at least one thing. While these items are not related to any quest, they are still items that can be very useful. Another problem I had with it is that the new upgrade system is much more, and possibly too complex compared to the previous game, with up to 6 factors in upgrading certain objects. This does not mean that the game is bad. The game is a very fun RPG, and the characters are very funny, while at the same time very helpful. Some new twists actually encourage you to interact with your non-playable characters. There is also a nifty change in the level system which raises the bar of leveling from 20 to level 50, at least. I did find the plot rather confusing at times, but all-in-all it was worth the wait, and worth the money.