Having been floored by what I saw in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, I am delighted that the 1001 list has seen it fit to also include Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the almost inevitable sequel.
I'm well aware that it was just a few games ago that I moaned at the inclusion of both Pikmin and Pikmin 2 - great games for some, sure, but why do I need to play both? I'm probably going to have to address that point with KotOR II as well. Here goes: I like Star Wars more than I like gardening.
So, with that out of the way, how do you follow up the epic space adventure that was KotOR?
Fun Times
There was no need for me to google solutions to game crashes this time around, so already KotOR II is looking better than the original. The band pipes out that familiar tune, text drifts off into space, and Star Wars is in full force, no pun intended. When a Star Wars game gets its intro right, I'm sold. Easy to please, me.
The ship is on fire, everyone with a life sign is about to lose it, and we still open the game, more or less, with a woman in her underwear. And where are all the redhead options, huh? There aren't any. I'll have to look for a mod.
But we don't awaken to the sounds of impending doom, like in KotOR. Instead, we get to roll around as T3-M4, a droid on a mission to save the ship so the story can even begin.
Controls are very similar, if not identical to the first game, though I can't seem to use my mouse to move characters with a click like before. Movement is on WASD, but the 'A' and 'D' keys turn the camera instead of strafe your character, so that's a little fiddly too. Nothing massive, though, and the game runs smoothly no matter how much of a fool you look trying to move around without hitting things.
Speaking of hitting, a footlocker is our first target. We can't bypass the lock with our brains, but we can stab at it with something until it smashes open.
Oh. Maybe we could have used our brains. Anyway, on with the rescue mission. If you thought a droid saving a ship was soooo Episode I, wait until you take the lift up and out of the ship to roll around on the hull, just like Artoo...
Yep, that's precisely what we need to do, plucking parts of the hull off for use in more important things inside. We can fix damaged circuitry while we're out here too, allowing us to open some locked doors, and even scavenges mines from a wedged missile. Who wanted to cause this much damage to a ship? Where are they now?
After checking out the ship and getting used to the controls, meeting up with other droids and using them and the character selection options to solve some airlock puzzles and the like, we get around to patching up the hyperdrive and finding a safe place to land.
What a sinister image. What could be going on?
We find ourselves in a medical facility of some sort, the only survivor of the ship. Awakened by an unknown voice, we emerge into an eerily deserted place, and I'd like some answers, if I may.
If there's something in the environment you can interact with, you might as well do so. If it's not a door to walk through or a container to rummage for valuables in, it'll probably be a computer or actual living being that you can learn stuff from. In this case, a computer full of holograms.
If you're wondering why this facility is so empty, you're not alone. As this place was tending to us, it was also subject to some weird goings-on of its own, with droids acting out of character and people getting killed.
It gets darker than that. The other patients we saw in those medical tubes were purposely overdosed, killing them in the process. So were we, but once again, we're not dead. That much is obvious. But why?
So, the dead can rise, just like that. Now I have a lot of questions, and we're going to ask them through the quite in-depth conversation scenes in KotOR. You can choose your answers depending on what you want to know, but often I found myself just hitting the '1' key over and over because the first choice was usually the most pertinent. Almost by design, I'd imagine...
Anyway, while you don't have a voice, sadly, the rest of these people all do. Even the droids do. They're not too shabby, and they seem more distinct from each other than in KotOR - not that I've seen a great many characters speak so far. They might, once again, have run out of voice actors for the many, many inhabitants of the galaxy.
Though there were a lot more people alive and well in KotOR by this point...
It's not long before the only logical reason for our survival is ascribed to us being a Jedi. Obviously. This game takes place five years after the first game, some four thousand years before the events of the Star Wars films, so Jedi are bloody everywhere. It's no surprise to find ourselves as one - especially when the character selection screen outright tells us that we're a Jedi.
After that conversation with Kreia, who absolutely must be a Sith to have come back from the dead so easily, we get rewarded with a Light Side point, presumably for having a chat with the elderly. That'll come in handy for future interactions, I'm sure. Might even come with the ability to use different Force abilities. I bet it does. I really should go back and play KotOR before continuing with this, shouldn't I?
The game continues with our exploration of this asteroid base. Everyone we see is dead. Droids attack us on sight. Things are most definitely not right here, and despite being told that we're a Jedi, I have to say that I just don't feel like one. The closest I get is that the game auto-pauses when I run into an enemy so that I can cue up attacks before unpausing and watching the action unfold.
It's a weird combat system, but I do like it. It's hands-off, to an extent. It allows me to casually, blindly, run around the levels, and if I get into a spot of bother, KotOR II pauses and lets me asses the situation. Do I chuck a grenade and finish off the attack with my mining pistol? Yeah, probably.
As we make progress, the only other living thing we find has been imprisoned, and a lengthy chat takes place where we learn a little bit more about all the shit that's going down here. The miners learned that a Jedi was onboard the ship and that there was a bounty on their head.
But not all the miners agreed with turning them in for the reward. While they were arguing amongst themselves, the droids started acting weird, as though programmed to obey new orders in stark contrast to their regular tasks.
We're immediately dropped into a mystery in KotOR, slowly unpicking it, putting it all in the right order. The more we interact with the environment, the more we'll learn about it all, with convenient hologram recordings filling in the gaps we come across.
After chatting with Atton, we free him and learn that this level is under lockdown. We're trapped, and for some reason, that means we get a Dark Side point. I don't know what I did to deserve that. Was it something I said?
Thinking on our feet, we sense the presence of a particular little droid...
Frustrations
I don't like using the frustrations heading for this grumble, because I'm not frustrated by it as such. We've come across two people who have filled in the backstory as best they could - everything's gone wrong, that's weird, isn't it?
Nearly every computer we interact with contains holographic logs from someone who works here, who also record the state of events - everything's gone wrong, that's weird, isn't it?
Now, descending down towards some kind of fuel pump or engine room, something like that, we find more destroyed droids and dead people, this time with a note - everything's gone wrong, that's weird, isn't it?
How else do I need to be told that something weird is going on? How many lines of dialogue do I need to sit through to get the point across? I know some of this information could be missed or skipped over, but still. We get it. Things aren't looking too good here.
Further Fun Times
In a nice, subtle hint, droids were following us down here, and look pretty intent at stopping us from getting out in one piece. That's a bit of environmental storytelling, that. One I blow up and roll past, looking for a way to help myself from afar.
The ship we're hopefully escaping on is covered in droids, and, thanks to a hologram, we learn that it is going nowhere on account of broken - or sabotaged - navigation systems. More mystery. At this point, I think it's good to point out how much this isn't like Star Wars.
I moaned that KotOR had to take us to a cantina, the band there had to be Bith... it had to say 'Eh? See? Star Wars, innit?' at every opportunity, but KotOR II just hasn't done that. We're in the Star Wars universe, alright, but the tropes aren't being regurgitated onto our keyboards. This is a mystery - a dark one at that - that sets a slower, less cinematic pace for our adventure. It's Star Wars, but it's not STAR WARS, and I like it. Even with its unnecessary chatter, even with its weird gameplay.
Oh, shit. I hope nobody got attached to T3. Doesn't look like he's going to make it out with us. Still, he has improved our situation. We've got a way out.
We're heading deep into the mining tunnels of this asteroid, where we finally find some clothing and protecting gear. Droids are everywhere, and they're hostile. I don't know if you know that. They've been reprogrammed. It's all very dark and mysterious. Who would do such a thing?
Further Frustrations
Despite the pause-before-you-act nature of the combat, it is possible to mess things up, and even die. The random number generator might result in all your shots missing, or the enemy overwhelming you. It pays to save, and often. It might be a bit scummy to save and reload in an RPG, but if you only do that for combat and not a conversation, I'm okay with it. I'm here for the plot, as you know, and these droids are in my way.
A stealth generator rendered me invisible, allowing me to walk up to the central control computer (above a bottomless pit, naturally) and hack into it. What could I get up to within its systems?
With the right parts, I could have turned these droids against themselves, but I instead spent my resources on telling them to mine the doors. They will now only open doors, and that's it. That is their life now. If there's a door, it must be mined. If there's a human, it isn't a door, ignore it.
We get out of the tunnels and into some other part of the base, where we come across a body, and a rather interesting droid, shall we say.
This guy is quite the talker, and this lengthy chat was worth the wait to sit through, as line by line we learn quite a bit more than we should perhaps know about the events of these last few hours.
What do we think? This guy did it all? Do the three laws of robotics apply in the Star Wars universe? Why do I even need to ask that when IG-88 exists? And I call myself a fan...
This conversation was terrific. The writing - repetitive though it may be - is top-notch, and there hasn't been a single character that has annoyed me to no end yet, which is promising. Atton comes close though, I must admit. Don't know why.
Let's probe this droid for more information. He seems helpful. Or capable, at the very least.
An airlock locked shut by a voice lock. A droid capable of replaying audio recordings. I like where this is heading.
Oooohhh, I nearly had you there, droid. Don't you worry, I'll have that recording out of you somehow, just you wait.
Final Word
With a smile and a nod of appreciation, I saved for the umpteenth time and declared that session of The Sith Lords done. You bet I wanted to play more. When a game is so easy to pick up and get into, tearing yourself away from it can be a challenge, even if you spot a bunch of quirks.
It looks like KotOR II puts you onto the main story path and keeps you there. Side-missions? Here? On a deserted base where droids are acting up? No. Come on. Focus on the fact that you're a Jedi in this mystery. See where it goes. Can you work out what's going on? Here are a bunch of clues to help...
I like what I've seen so far. It scales all the way up to my ultrawide, it runs smoothly, it's so simple to play... but I've got to stop because I've not completed KotOR first. I mean, that's just what you've got to do, right? Atton and some holograms have already made reference to characters from KotOR, and they're characters I don't know anything about. I can't have an asteroid miner know more about the big bad villain of a few years ago, and me, the Jedi caught up in the events not know anything.
Like Pikmin 2, then, I should really go back and complete Pikmin to really understand the story. Unlike Pikmin 2, I care about this one.
The gameplay is quirky but functional. The story and characters are interesting, varied, and voiced. The sounds scream Star Wars. KotOR was great, and KotOR II looks to be greatness refined. Scrubbed up and polished, it is another RPG that I can see myself spending hour after hour in, frustrations and all.
If you're a Star Wars fan, playing Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is a no brainer.
Fun Facts
LucasFilm wanted a sequel developed in an impossible timeframe, so say original KotOR developers BioWare. Having good ties to Obsidian, however, they suggested the license should go to them, and they could develop KotOR II instead. Which they did, though the impossible timeframe remained, and lots of content had to be cut, only to be patched in later by fans and modders.
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, developed by Obsidian Entertainment, first released in 2004.
Version played: PC, 2005.