Star Wars Knights of the
Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
The titles just keep getting longer. The sequel, obviously,
to the SW Knights of the Old Republic role-playing game,
Sith Lords is very like its predecessor, so it's a sure
bet that if you liked the first one, you'll go this one
too. There's a certain coolness inherent in being a Jedi
that nothing can really tarnish, and this game has it in
spades, with the bonus of just a touch more moral ambiguity
than the franchise sometimes shows.
You're probably going to want to play Sith Lords twice,
once from each side, guidance-counsellor and kitten-skinner.
There's enough variation, both in the skills you can use,
and in the way people react to you, for the game to be significantly
different depending on your alignment. And how Sithly you
become isn't decided by pushing a button during character
generation, but completely by your words and actions. So
you can be just a little bit bad, or 'misunderstood'. Thing
is, it's not always entirely, blindingly, crushingly clear
what the 'good' or 'evil' thing to do is, and that's really
what Sith Lords has going for it above other RPGs. You travel
with two companions, and you can actually have philosophical
discussions with them. As well as, y'know, dragging them
into fights and levelling them up kicking opposition-guy
ass.
The blend of action, exploration, and role-play is pretty
good. It feels like a complete package rather than a poorly-disguised
beat-'em-up. Yet you'll still get to cut through a power
of midriffs with your lightsaber - as soon as you find it.
You start the game waking up with no memory, and worse,
no weapon, and you'll spend the first few hours of the game
feeling like you're wandering around without your pants
on. You will get your baby, though, and you can use workbenches
and labs around the game to modify and build equipment and
make "stimulants". Yes.
The sound is pretty good, especially the voice talents.
There's hours of speech through the game, though you will
be listening to big chunks of it in alien languages with
subtitles. Again, sound effects come straight from the movies,
with the accompanying rush of something that familiar and
iconic.
The one thing that really does let the game down is the
graphics. Not only are they pretty basic by recent standards,
but even with that little detail in the game, you still
get problems with frame rate and lag. Sometimes cut scenes
will include invisible characters (accidental, not a Force
power). Visually, Sith Lords just isn't that impressive.
There are little problems with dealing with the AI of
NPCs, which are pretty endemic to the genre. Trying to get
a member of your party out from behind a rock, or stopping
them independently changing weapons when you're not looking,
can be pretty infuriating. Also, your starting character's
traits are obviously low, and this includes their dexterity,
giving you that old familiar problem where you literally
can't hit the broad side of pretty much any inanimate object.
What keeps you going with Sith Lords, though, is the same
thing that pulled you through the first game: the story.
Sith Lords beats the hell out of most of its competition
when it comes to plot. The games take place thousands of
years before the movies, and have a real sense of engagement
with the Jedi mythos - you're actually involved, and the
things you do have real consequences, not just for you,
but for the worlds around you. The compulsion of needing
to know what happens next will draw you in past the game's
little problems. |
