Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
By Allen Rausch | May 13, 2004
The sequel to our 2003 Game of the Year is looking pretty sharp as LucasArts shows the game for the first time.
Spiffy:
New team isn't trying to "improve" the game, but is fixing a few minor issues.
Iffy:
Can anyone handle a Bioware title as well as Bioware themselves?
Given the number of "Game of the Year" awards and 5-star ratings Knights of the Old Republic received, it came as no surprise that a sequel was in the works almost as soon as the PC version shipped. What was a surprise was that the developers of the sequel would not be Bioware. This time around the game is being put together by newcomer Obsidian Entertainment. Fortunately while the company may be new, the developers aren't -- they are, in fact, refugees from the recently defunct Black Isle Entertainment and contain some of the minds that worked on stellar RPGs like Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment and after a run-through on the basics of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords at the LucasArts booth at E3, this is what we've learned.
KotOR II takes place approximately five years after the end of the first game. While the game spins off from the events of the first one, you won't be playing the mysterious Jedi you did in the first game. While players might have relished the opportunity to see what happened to their alter-ego, the very openness of the first game works against that here. Did you go good or evil? Precisely which decisions did you make? Rather than craft a story that tries to take all that into account, the developers at Obsidian instead cast you as a new character, a Jedi who was removed from the Order for some unspecified crime and has had his sensitivity to the Force truncated. Lovers of the original characters need not worry, though, many of them will be making return appearances in KotOR II, especially a certain protocol droid with a bad attitude and a lax attitude toward the sanctity of human life.
Things haven't gone well for the Jedi since the end of the first game. In fact, the Sith, angered over the destruction of Darth Revan and Darth Malak, have gone on a bit of a tear through the universe. Not the Jedi Order is all but extinct, with only outcasts like you and a few Jedi-in-hiding to carry on the flame. Exactly why you, a disgraced former Jedi who seems like a prime candidate for Dark Side City are the one chosen by destiny to save the Jedi is something that Obsidian and LucasArts are keeping under their hat for now.
One of the key aspects that was emphasized in the game was that Obsidian is taking the attitude "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Thus players should expect to see the same semi-turn based combat system with a three person party. The dialogue, weapon modification and travel system also remains the same, as does most of the interface. In terms of concrete changes to the game, the Obsidian team is concentrating on fixing up the first game's minor shortcomings, adding new items and abilities and crafting an exciting new story that references the first while still being accessible to players who never played the original game.
The team is adding some new combat animations and the ability to switch weapons on the fly. The first was obvious while I was watching the main character in combat, the Jedi now wield double-bladed lightsaber with far more natural motions, up to and including a smooth looking Darth Maul twirl. The second's effect is more subtle, but according to LucasArts, the idea of the switch on the fly system is allow players to set up weapon configurations for various situations, which also allows them to offer a bigger variety of combat situations within a single area.
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