One begins to realize that Obsidian probably did what they did as a way to save on development costs. If you don’t have to build a new game from scratch with new tech and art assets, your costs will be much lower and the potential for earnings become that much greater. So I can understand from a purely financial point of view why KotoR 2 is so similar to KotoR 1.

All that being said, I decided to dust the game off a few months down the road and give it another shot. I was bored and needed a good long game to play and KotoR 2 was staring me in the face. This time, I went at it without worrying about how similar it was to the original. And this time, I found myself actually enjoying it. The total play time for KotoR 2 was around 40 to 50 hours from start to finish. If you played the original game, you’ll find yourself visiting a few familiar places including Dantooine, Korriban, and Telos and you’ll once again use the Ebon Hawk freighter as your primary means of transportation. You play the role of an ex Jedi who has had a questionable past and doesn’t really know who he is at first, just like the first game. Though not necessarily a Sith, your history is connected to the story of Darth Revan from the first game. As before, a group of Sith under the banner of a few Sith Lords are out to conquer the galaxy and you must either help them or stop them as you learn who you are along the way.

You’ll find yourself flying from planet to planet, advancing the main storyline through quests, and fighting bad guys. One of the biggest selling features of the KotoR games, other than being Star Wars games, is that you can play as either an evil or good character. This isn’t some arbitrary choice at the beginning of the game. Instead, the choices you make in conversations and who and how you kill give you either light or dark side points. Your light/dark standing has a direct effect on what force powers you can learn (cheaply) as you level up as well as influencing the other characters in the game.

One game mechanic I don’t recall from the first game, but feel is a great idea for an RPG, is the Influence system. It was probably in the first game as well, but I don’t remember using it. Basically, when you have conversations with your team mates and say things they want to hear, you will gain influence with them. The more influence you gain with them, the better they react to you and the more conversation choices you get. Ultimately you get nice enhancements to your character and some characters will even become Jedi if you gain enough influence with them. I used the influence system a lot more in this game and was able to get lots of upgrades and turn a few team mates into Jedi.

The graphics engine is nothing ground breaking, and sometimes I think they overuse the specular highlighting on characters (the Twi’leks in particular look too slimy). Again, I wish they would have updated the engine at least a little for this release, but it doesn’t keep me from enjoying the game.

The PC release of the game was a little buggy. There were times when dialogue lines would be repeated for some reason and others when the dialogue would advance rapidly as if I were pressing the mouse button when I wasn’t. There were a few glitches that would cause me to have to exit the game and reload as well.

The story was a bit anti-climactic in my opinion and the final bad guys were so easy to defeat I was certain I’d have to fight them again at some point. My force powers, abilities, and equipment were so good that I could kill the final bosses in a few hits with my double bladed lightsaber. Some characters were nearly impossible to get enough influence with to turn to Jedi. The Handmaiden in particular was supposed to become a Jedi, but she never did. I got her influence up to the point that she said she would become my Jedi student, but she never did no matter how hard I tried or what I said. Another bug I suspect.

All things considered, I recommend this game to anyone who loves RPGs and Star Wars. If you’ve played the first one, just be prepared to see the exact same textures and models and sadly several of the same locations. If you can look past those flaws, the game is quite an enjoyable diversion for a few weeks (or days if you play like me).