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

Written by Ryan Genno  on December 30, 2004

Review: Now with 50 % more Dark Side!!

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It's the sequel to one of the biggest and best video games of 2003! Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords continues the epic war between the Jedi and Sith in this science fiction role playing saga. You still have the choice to make your hero go down a good or evil path like before, but now you have new powers to master, there are new comrades to interact with, and all new enemies ready to fight you at moments notice. OK, so this game isn't the best looking Xbox game around, but it is still more of what we love.

In this game you get to play the role of a formerly peaceful Jedi warrior who was ostracized from the community during the civil war in the original game. Even though you are technically not one anymore, because of your ties to the Jedi order and the energy aura known as the Force, you are being hunted down by the Sith army. 5 years after the events in the last title the Sith Lords have gained control of most of the galaxy and with the Jedi out of the way, there is nothing that can stop them. In this moment of crisis the Sith Lords are now ready to take over the galaxy - but there is still one hope.

You seem to be the only one left who can possibly restore the Jedi order, but of course that doesn't mean you have to. Even though it's Sith that are the ones hunting you down, there are still plenty of opportunities to become one yourself. The beauty of the last game is that every choice you make can lead you on a good or evil path, and it's back here too. This means you have the option to become a greedy and arrogant Sith warrior, or a universe saving Jedi if you like. When you interact with some of the important characters in the game, you can either politely ask the person questions, or you tell them to go screw themselves! This really opens up a lot of possibilities, and it moves the interesting story here in many different ways.

Like most Role Playing Games, you can gain experience depending on the task - or enemies you kill - plus there is the freedom to equip your characters with weapons and armour as well. What has changed is that you can also switch your preset weapons on screen bar right on the fly instead of going to the time consuming pause equipment menus all the time. There are also other little things that help players customize their game, like editing med-kits, or messing around those Star Wars trademarks light sabres by giving them different colours.

The graphics in KOTOR II have their ups and downs. The game is filled with lush and detailed scenery across 7 unique planets. Although KOTOR II is an above average looking game, it still isn't a huge improvement over the last experience. Some of the environments tend to look repetitive after a while, and the characters have overly jerky animations as well. Those expecting a game that has the visual punch as a Final Fantasy X-2 or a Halo 2 are going to be disappointed.

What the game does have is mostly great voice acting. I didn't like Atton Rand's sappy voice too much, but everyone else in the game sounded convincing and real. If you are a fan of the movies you'll instantly recognize all the cool orchestral music tracks, and those loud laser sound effects for example.