KOTOR 2 gets a beating
KOTOR 2 gets a beating
Review - posted by Vault Dweller on Tue 13 December 2005, 20:06:37
Tags: Obsidian Entertainment; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith LordsThere is an entertaining, honest, and straightforward KOTOR 2 review written by one Richard Cobbett, a writer and journalist. I have a feeling many folks here would appreciate his style.
Of course, there’s more to KOTOR2 than just knickers. There’s crappy game design too. From the pathetic ending (anyone else not have any sound during the final movie?) to game design that takes cut-and-paste to a whole new level (*cough* find-four-pieces-of-the-star-map *cough*), there’s barely a moment in the second half that you’re not left thinking of the obviously great RPG that exists in paper form over at Chez Obsidian. Unfortunately, what we’ve got is some hacked together version that stands up okay, but is barely a shadow of what it could, and frankly should have been. I haven’t seen such a hastily slapped together RPG since...uh...Vampire. Which was only a couple of months ago. It’ll get ludicrous scores across the board, I’m sure, because the true scale of its problems doesn’t become obvious until many hours in, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing - and I’d be very, very surprised if the most disappointed people aren’t on the development team.
It’s nowhere near as bad as Lionheart, of course. In many places, KOTOR2 is genuinely excellent. So much of it has been lavished with care and attention, from the superb dialogue to many of the set-pieces that you’ll want to keep playing; and the story has all the twists and turns you need to keep playing to the end. Unfortunately, all this good stuff sits side by side with absolute, abject crap, like levels that seem to have been banged out in a weekend, the second half of your crew (Disciple, I am so very definitely looking at you...) seemingly joining up just to fill the gaps on the party select screen and having almost nothing to say beyond a backstory that they may or may not want to tell you, characters vowing revenge on the guy you just killed, to seemingly galactic confusion over the gender of former universe-conqueror Darth Revan (to an extent we’ve only ever seen in ol’ Maggie Thatcher), subplots that exist for absolutely no reason (especially on the last, appallingly designed planet) and characters who still run over entire fields of land mines without the slightest regard for personal safety…That was lovely. More, please.
Of course, there’s more to KOTOR2 than just knickers. There’s crappy game design too. From the pathetic ending (anyone else not have any sound during the final movie?) to game design that takes cut-and-paste to a whole new level (*cough* find-four-pieces-of-the-star-map *cough*), there’s barely a moment in the second half that you’re not left thinking of the obviously great RPG that exists in paper form over at Chez Obsidian. Unfortunately, what we’ve got is some hacked together version that stands up okay, but is barely a shadow of what it could, and frankly should have been. I haven’t seen such a hastily slapped together RPG since...uh...Vampire. Which was only a couple of months ago. It’ll get ludicrous scores across the board, I’m sure, because the true scale of its problems doesn’t become obvious until many hours in, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing - and I’d be very, very surprised if the most disappointed people aren’t on the development team.
It’s nowhere near as bad as Lionheart, of course. In many places, KOTOR2 is genuinely excellent. So much of it has been lavished with care and attention, from the superb dialogue to many of the set-pieces that you’ll want to keep playing; and the story has all the twists and turns you need to keep playing to the end. Unfortunately, all this good stuff sits side by side with absolute, abject crap, like levels that seem to have been banged out in a weekend, the second half of your crew (Disciple, I am so very definitely looking at you...) seemingly joining up just to fill the gaps on the party select screen and having almost nothing to say beyond a backstory that they may or may not want to tell you, characters vowing revenge on the guy you just killed, to seemingly galactic confusion over the gender of former universe-conqueror Darth Revan (to an extent we’ve only ever seen in ol’ Maggie Thatcher), subplots that exist for absolutely no reason (especially on the last, appallingly designed planet) and characters who still run over entire fields of land mines without the slightest regard for personal safety…
