Is KOTOR II Worth Getting?

[90SK]

^ I dunno. I assume you already talked with Ratrin Vehk (or whatever the guy's name is who previously owned the hawk)? Have you seen the cutscene with the Red Eclipse slavers yet?

 

Since you said you've done everything, I assume you've done all the things above. You need to trigger a meeting with Visquis, and you do that by doing all the quests (like you said you already did), in which case I haven't the foggiest.

 

If you've played KoTOR 1, you'll want to tone down your expectations for this one. Whereas you got a feeling of "Epic" from the original, this one felt like a cheaper imitation albeit with some modifications. It's still a decent game in its own rights but I think it pales in comparison to the original when you take a look at the whole package.

 

 

Nah, it's just different. It doesn't try to be the first one at all, and that's a turnoff for those who prefer the "epic story". KotOR II is a whole new spin on the way a starwars game approaches the normal ideals you may find in a game like that.

[Blackadar]

^ I dunno. I assume you already talked with Ratrin Vehk (or whatever the guy's name is who previously owned the hawk)? Have you seen the cutscene with the Red Eclipse slavers yet?

 

Since you said you've done everything, I assume you've done all the things above, in which case I haven't the foggiest. Maybe a scripting error?

 

Yes, to both of the above.

 

I'm assuming you mean the cutscene where the one tells the other to wait and they'd "see" me soon while I'm walking into a building. Yep, and I can trigger that again and again because they've never moved from that spot.

 

And I said I'd give up the Hawk as well.

[PoiuyWired]

It is a bit buggy and incomplete, but over all its nice, and its fun to see some aspacts of the force, closer to the "Unifying Force" kind of view.

[Char Ell]

Well, I broke down and bought it today. Thanks for all the advice.

 

Besides the patch, are there any other "must-have" mods?

 

Congrats on getting the game. An excellent choice . IMO TSL added some cool features with lightsaber and force forms and how you can create weapon, armor, and other upgrades/items. And the influence system is a new facet of the game that adds another layer to gameplay that I enjoyed. I do hope that the next KotOR will address at least some of the plot holes TSL has, especially with the ending.

 

If you have the hard drive space I recommend dl'ing the hi-quality music patch at nZone. I think the general consensus is the game music sounds better with this patch. As far as the movies go I think most everyone didn't think they were worth the bandwidth and disk space.

link to TSL hi-quality music patch

[Blackadar]

Well, um.

 

The verdict is in. Meh. I think those who lilke the game are genuine in their praise, but they know how to avoid all of the bugs and problems that a newer player would encounter.

 

I got my money's worth out of it and there's a good game in there. There's no major surprises like the first game - you slowly learn over time what's going on. I liked the NPC interaction on the ship, though I got locked out of the Handmaiden early because of my relationship with that blind Sith. The environments were merely adequate...though I really like the destroyed Korriban. Combat was decent, but there were really too few force powers available to light-side force characters.

 

But there were waaaaay too many bugs to really enjoy the game. Besides having to replay Nar S., which was about my least favorite area anyway, most of the other late-game areas were extremely buggy. I suffered no less than 4 hard crashes, 3 of which rebooted my PC. I had to alt out and back in - every time - on the Dantooine plains, otherwise I got 1 frame every 10 seconds or so. As soon as windowed the game and came back in, it worked but it took a while to figure that out. I got stuck in walls in about 3 different areas, necessitating a reload and replaying anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes. I went to Dantooine last, so the game crapped out if I spoke to Kriea before going to the space map. It was a shock to play in the ruins of the Jedi Temple there, fly to another spaceport and then fly right back and see the ruins totally rebuilt. I truly hadn't played a game this buggy since Ultima 9.

 

Once I left Dantooine (with the Masters dead), the game really got jumpy. Without warning, I found myself on a ship with the guy in the deaths-head mask. Damn, I hardly knew who he was. Did he even have a name? God, the textures on that ship were horrid too. The final battles on Malachor weren't too bad in comparison.

 

Another thing I truly disliked was the lack of play-balance. I was doing fine, the game was competitive, but not too hard - until the Royal Palace revolt. I finally had to cheat and give myself a few levels because there was no way to win, even when I turned down the difficulty level to easy. Then there were a couple of other horridly unbalanced encounters - Hive Matriarch, Malak and the final one with Kriea. All were beyond difficult to the point of downright annoying.

 

Finally, I didn't like being forced to continually play other characters. There's a sequence on Nar where you end up playing yourself, the Huntress, Atton, yourself again, the droid, the Huntress and then yourself again. Or something like that. Blech.

 

I hope the restoration project really comes through. They have their work cut out for them, though. As it stands, I couldn't recommend the game in its current condition.

[The Doctor]

^ Now that's unfair. Just because the combat difficulty isn't stable doesn't make it a bad game. I was able to beat it without cheats the first few times through, and I know I'm not the only one. It is possible. Maybe it was just the weapons you used, or something like that.

 

And the guy with the "death head's mask" was Nihilus. And there are patches that enhance the game's visual and audio performance, which are mentioned in the thread "Invisible audio and video' patch, I believe.

[Blackadar]

^ Now that's unfair. Just because the combat difficulty isn't stable doesn't make it a bad game. I was able to beat it without cheats the first few times through, and I know I'm not the only one. It is possible. Maybe it was just the weapons you used, or something like that.

 

And the guy with the "death head's mask" was Nihilus. And there are patches that enhance the game's visual and audio performance, which are mentioned in the thread "Invisible audio and video' patch, I believe.

 

I didn't say the combat balance made it a bad game. In fact, I didn't say it was a bad game at all.

 

But it's not an unfair criticism.

 

It was a glaring problem. Maybe there's a trick to some of these encounters. But when I'm sailing along fine and then run into a mob that I can't even HIT, never mind kill, it's a problem. The fact that it spiked so dramatically in certain places does suggest a lack of balance. Considering most of these issues come later in the game suggest that these were encounters that just weren't tweaked before the game was rushed out the door.

[Achilles]

I hope the restoration project really comes through. They have their work cut out for them, though. As it stands, I couldn't recommend the game in its current condition.

*sigh*

I would love to hear your description of what the TRP actually is. Do you know? Are you aware of what project encompasses?

[Blackadar]

*sigh*

I would love to hear your description of what the TRP actually is. Do you know? Are you aware of what project encompasses?

 

No, but feel free to enlighten me.

 

From what I understand, they're using the cut-scenes that were on the disk but not included in the game to better tell the story. While this won't fix all of the issues above, it does fix a couple.

[The Doctor]

I'll save you the trouble, Achilles

 

A team of modders calling themselves Team Gizka created the The Sith Lords Restoration Project which is the biggest project currently taking place to restore the cut content of KOTOR II. Some features, such as a quarter of the cut cinema, are forever lost, but some dialogue and other stuff found on the PC version and elsewhere are being restored. They will be using the tools from the KOTOR and KOTOR II modding community (including tools from Holowan Laboratories) to restore the missing content and release it as a mod.

 

The mod has been in production for over eight months. Each of the cut components from the epilogue is featured on the site. According to the site, about 70% of the cut components are ready (mainly the Mira/Hanharr's cutscenes and Kreia's dialogue and scenes remain to be fully done), which means that the full and rejuvenated mod will probably be down till the first half of 2006.

[Nedak]

Ya buy it its great

[90SK]

...It isn't for sale. It'll be a free download when it comes out.

[Darth333]

I had to alt out and back in - every time - on the Dantooine plains, otherwise I got 1 frame every 10 seconds or so. As soon as windowed the game and came back in, it worked but it took a while to figure that out. I got stuck in walls in about 3 different areas, necessitating a reload and replaying anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes. I went to Dantooine last, so the game crapped out if I spoke to Kriea before going to the space map.

 

This is easily fixed by adding a line to you swkotor2.ini file. Just read section 2 in this thread: http://lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=144109

 

 

as for the game difficulty, I found it rather easy. I think it's the first game ever in which I died only once.

[Point Man]

I will say it is a great game, but the ending left me so disappointed, I am disgusted. How can a company release a product they know is not finished? I spent nearly a month playing my first game, carefully considering every dialogue option, replaying savegames when I lost my lightside mastery becasue the game gave me no other options, trying like heck to balance the influence I gained among party members with competing interests, only to be whisked to a planet I did not select and then whisked right off without getting three party members back on the ship? With the ending being such a letdown, I suggest a new title for the game: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Buzzkillers.