Let me start off by saying I can appreciate what Obsidian were trying to do with this game, trying to delve somewhat into the philosophical stance of the Force, if it can be genuinely trusted as an amorphous energy field interacted with through the means of ring-worms, or if it should merely be seen as a tool. They tried to expand upon the different philosophies of the light side and the dark side, attempting to present the extremes of both as the problematic doctrines they would likely be were they to actually exist.
Now let's get into the real fact of the matter. The real fact of the matter is that were Knights of the Old Republic 2 a sexual act performed by a beautiful woman, it would convince me a life of celibacy is a reasonable alternative.
The additions to the roleplaying advancement system from KotOR feel more like a "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if X!?" rather then "We've done testing, and analysis and decided this will be a balanced addition." This meant that playing as anything other then the super-speedy "I get 7 attacks per turn and thus do seven times the damage of EVERYONE ELSE" Jedi is effectively choosing the harder path. Note I say 'harder' not 'hard' since the game is ridiculously easy. I understand you're meant to feel like an all-powerful Jedi, but on my three playthroughs I never felt like I was in any type of danger at any point.
But as the first Knights of the Old Republic proved you can get away with less then amazing gameplay if the story is worth it, and for me KotOR 2 just proved this. It proved it by having a horendous story, and thus not getting away with it.
A common cliche used in games where the past of the character is very important is to give them amnesia so they have to slowly discover what it is they did and why it triggered the impending zompocalpyse, hopefully before they get their faces eaten off. KotOR2 did something similar to this, in that your backstory is very important to the current story, but they it forgets to tell you what it is until about 5 hours in, and even then it's only dribs and drabs. Seriously, how hard would it be for them to throw in something early on letting you know that you don't like the Jedi, you're a war general, and you were responsible for one of the worst attrocities in the entire Mandalorian War (WHOOPS. SPOILERS)? I always try to play the light side goodie goodie first in games with moral choices, so it would've been nice to know that suddenly having my character loving the Jedi is a complete about-face for the mad bastard with a poor memory.
One of the goals of characters on your side is to have them someone the playercan sympathise with, even if they're not entirely likeable if you can sympathise with them and their situation it's much easier to care when they're in trouble. In this regard KotOR 2 failed miserably, as the only character who's even joining you made sense was the personality-blank Zabrak, who was a supposedly melee fighter but who had so few hitpoints there was no point in taking him anywhere, thus you just left him on the ship, whipping him and screaming "Make me a goddamned lightsaber".
All the others either joined the party so late in the game or made so little sense with their presence most of the time you were sitting there saying "Why the hell are you even here!? Don't you have jobs you people could be doing rather then mooching off of the food processor of my ship!?"
There is one exception to this though. the elderly female ex-jedi DOES have a reason to be there, as she tries to 'teach' you, but seeing as the only way to make her happy is to be a manipulative wanker and she happily insults everyone who dares to breath the same air as you, I was getting a bit of a creepy vibe from her and decided to leave her in the ship. (WHOOPS. SPOILERS) Then later on when her betrayal happens and you have to track her down, are you supposed to feel sorry for her, surprised at the betrayal, or angered maybe? I didn't feel any of that, I was just glad I got the chance to kill the smug little pain in the arse in the end, and was wondering when the final dialogue would end so I could put my lightsaber in her creepy face.
And that's another problem. In Knights 1 there was a major genuine threat (a giant ever-growing armada of evil space ships coming from an unknown source intent on squashing the galaxy flat beneath it's boot? I'd call that a threat), but in Knights 2 you just never feel it. Early on in the game you get introduced to Sith Frankenstein and his Sith Assassins, then you bounce around for a while without any major menacing of you except from the easily defeated "I can't believe it's not HK-47" assassin droids (which I wish I could learn more about but can't because they released the game six months early), and even those droids aren't much of a threat.
After a while you're introduced to the threat of Sith "Long Dark Robes and stupid mask" (or LorD RASM for short). Well I tell a lie, you don't meet Lord Rasm, you meet his apprentice, who you kick the snot out of and she joins you. I didn't realise that was the normal way to get employees in the Star Wars universe. Lord Rasm is supposed to be heavily threatening, but that's the thing, neither he nor Sith Frankenstein seem to have a real goal other then "Cause shit and screw things up for the player". They don't seem to have any genuine kind of plan, and barely seem to acknowledge each other's existence beyond one or two cutscenes. In fact the randomness of their actions make it difficult to work out who the Sith troopers you meet belong to, or if you just happen to be running across they out of coincidence. They feel less like powerful Sith Lords and threats to the galaxy and more like annoying little boys on the right carpet who've worked out how to use static electricity to zap people.
Finally, the pacing of the game makes little sense. As an example, early on in the game you're fighting your way through a space station/ship. Well I say fighting, you're just walking through it and occasionally you see a spawn of Sith Assassins ten feet away who were supposed to be invisible, but it's quite obvious they were just created. You kill them, take their stuff (very little of which makes sense "Barry, why are you carrying that antique armour into battle?" "Well I don't want to lose it, do I? I wish Sith Frankenstein would give us lockers...") and move on. At no point do you feel rushed, with plenty of time to wander around and take all the stuff you see. You get through it all (whoop-di-do), get to your escape ship without any threat in sight for the last three rooms, walk in, and suddenly the exciting music starts up.
"It'll take some time to get the engines working! You'd better give the gun turret a workout!"
Wait, what? Is that normal practice in the Star Wars universe? The engine is starting up, quick, shoot up the hanger for a laugh.
Suddenly it goes to a cutscene where you're all under fire while getting into the ship. Huh!? Where did this come from!? Was I meant to feel like I was being rushed? Then you're in the gun turret and shooting at the same soldiers you killed in Knights 1, with no explanation how they got there. You just went THROUGH the ship they would've arrived on to get to your own ship! Surely you would've noticed one or two as you were taking all their shit!
Which is another thing, the game never explains where they came from. Supposedly they're all just leftovers from the Sith in Knights 1, who decide to join up with the Sith Lords, but to me that makes no sense. "We've all just got our aces kick in the war, let's join up with these guys and keep fighting a war we have no chance of winning, under some people who have no real objective." And why keep the same uniforms? They're just associated with losing now. Or maybe they were on discount at the "Evil henchman uniform rental shop" because of all the lightsaber holes.
That's one thing that makes no sense. They never really explain where these Sith guys came from, and them having huge infrastructure around themselves makes little sense, it's just there to give them an aura of menace and so you can kill lots of people on your way up to them. They might as well call their armies "XP & Loot Battalion"
(WHOOPS. SPOILERS) Since the Big-Bad of the end is in your party the entire time, it feels like Darth Frankenstein and Lord Rasm are there simply to waste time while you're getting to know her so you feel bad about having to fight her in the end.
One final complaint (the final being written out at least, I have MANY more complaints): One of the genuine appeals of playing as a Jedi in games is the chance to use a laser sword to cauterise bad guy's anus' shut. Unless you play KotOR 2 in a very specific order you might spend ages before you finally get a god-damned lightsaber. You might not even get one if you forget to check specific places in locations you can't go back to. Call me picky, but if I'm playing as a Jedi, I want access to a lightsaber by the time the enormously long introduction is friggin' finished, not twenty minutes before I have to face the first boss. It all seems very deliberately pushing you towards playing the 'optional' planets in a specific order, but without any hints what that order is meant to be. If you don't do Nar Shadaa first, you'll be without lightsaber OR HK-47 (the two good things about the game) for ages, something that sucks more then.... something that sucks enormously.
I tell a lie, one last complaint. I understand the engine used in the game had limitations, but surely the cutscenes didn't have to be THAT awkward. 50% of the time the cutscenes made no sense and you had to guess what the hell was meant to be happening, something not made easier by the bugginess of certain things. This is a problem that existed in KotOR 1 as well, but in number 2 it just seems so much more prevelent.
But seeing as I've spent so long pounding the game, I should end on a good note, I suppose.
The game has HK-47 in it.
Query: What more do you need?
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2 comments:
Where to even start with this?
To begin, I recognise a few of these points, namely that the game is unfinished as hell and a few of the characters feel somewhat redundant.
That's defensible, though, as they have ACTUAL character. They don't just do whatever you want, some just genuinely won't get along with you, depending what character you play. Kreia isn't a fan of the goody-two shoes playstyle, to use your example, and thus leaving her behind as you tromp around helping orphans is advised. Whatever your chosen style, though, there's at least two characters who you can develop a decent rapport with. Was this a good gameplay decision? Perhaps not, I liked it, but I know others didn't.
I'll also grant you that the game isn't too difficult on anything but the hardest setting, and even then it's not much of a challenge to anyone with more than a few hours of RPG experience. Balancing is, unfortunately, one of the last phases of game development though, and as already noted the game was rushed out early because Lucasarts are cunts. That's not a valid defense, however.
As for the story, did you even PLAY KotoR1? It says you did, but that's it - that's the backstory. It's there in dribs and drabs because it's filling the gaps that weren't covered in the first game; there's no real need to go over it again in detail.
The story is either one of redemption for past misdeeds (the war and whatnot) or one of the triumphant return of one of history's greatest badasses, depending on your chosen style of play. The point is that Revan isn't necessarily good or bad, that's up to the player's discretion. You can choose to either redeem him/her or go back to your Dark-side ways. They don't tell you until some time into the game because it's a DRAMATIC TWIST! Holy fuck, etc. It's trite in the extreme to complain about a character in the Star Wars universe suddenly changing personality after a life-changing event (COUGH ANAKIN COUGH).
The threat in KotoR2 is SUPPOSED to be nebulous and unclear, because it's standing right fucking next to you the entire time. It seems weird why Captain Jigsaw and Robes are chasing you - because they're NOT chasing you, they're chasing Kreia! This is another of those surprise twists you somehow managed to miss, I assume because you were inexplicably confused by the cut scenes. I'm not sure why, I don't recall having too many problems with them, but maybe I'm just pushing it out of my mind. Either way, it's a very different narrative to the first game, and the end threat is in turn more abstract.
Beating on someone until they join your team? Yeah, that never happens in Star Wars (COUGH KITARA JADE COUGH DARTH VADER COUGH COUGH). Stupid gun turret shenanigans? Call a spade a spade, dude - that shit was all through the first game, and had precedent in the films as well. It's fucking annoying and a waste of time is more like it, precedent or not.
Complaining about the slow pacing of the opening chapter in an RPG is like complaining there are too many guns in an FPS - it's just par for the fucking course! It's meant to be a slow learning curve - albeit one somewhat wasted on this too-easy game, but still, as stated that wasn't exactly intended. Strange inventory drops? Soldiers randomly appearing? Now you're just clutching for something to complain about. Weird inventory contents has been around since RPGs were invented, right back to tabletop (randomised loot tables for the immersion-destroying win) and foes popping into existence is such a minor glitch it's not even worth mentioning.
Your critique falls apart entirely when you start waxing political over the Sith soldiers' wardrobe choices. Seriously, THIS is your complaint? That they haven't bought new uniforms yet, and don't pussy out on a cause they've devoted themselves to, pays their wages, and will KILL THE SHIT OUT OF THEM if they try to desert? Right, makes no sense at all.
As for the difficulty in getting your lightsaber, that was a technique present in the first game also. Annoying? Maybe, I don't know. Again, it didn't bother me. The wait just made the experience more satisfying for me when I finally started carving bitches in half, plus I find the sword combat animations quite impressive. That's a matter of personal preference, though.
Basically, this critique smacks of being about three times too long, when a simple "this shit wasn't finished, and I didn't like some of the gameplay choices" would have been more than sufficient.
- James
They have character, but it's all pointless. The only character I liked to any extent was the Scoundrel, and that's primarily because he actually had some good one liners (and in the beginning the alternatively was creepy aged chick).
KoTOR1 is the backstory in only a limited extent. The bits that I wish they'd let us in on (appropriate since we're PLAYING THE PERSON WHO DID THEM) don't exist in that game, and if anything undermine the awesomeness that is KoTOR. In Knights1 they state outright that Revan beat the crap out of the Mandallorians with sheer tactics and skill, and was amazingly awesome and badarse in doing so. Knights 2 they undermine that by having him win with a McGuffin the size of a planet (literally), where he didn't even pull the trigger. When your 'grand strategy' consists of turning a planet into a suicide bomb, it's not as elegant and genius as everyone proclaimed.
A dramatic twist is only meant to be a dramatic twist if you're NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW IT. As far as story-telling techniques go it's the equivilent of No, John. You are the demons.
Again, maybe some hint early on that the character had done something horrible in his past, rather then designing a character and having other people know more about his history then I do. They can get away with that shit in FPS', but this is an RPG, where I'm supposed to be the one affecting the story to some degree. And as for personality changes, this isn't the sudden life-changing-event-change, since we see him post the Malachor 5 stuff in the Jedi Temple, in one of the more awkward cutscenes in the game (three hours later I was told I apparently stabbed my lightsaber into the statue, rather then just felt up the bizarre rock formation as I originally thought).
That's the thing though, they're NOT after Kreia, they're after you. You're supposedly the last of the Jedi and they want you killed.
"Twaddlesticks and misleadingness, who tells you that, KREIA. Obviously it's false."
Frankenstein has the chance to kill Kreia after he cuts her hand off, yet he doesn't. He and his Assassins break onto the Republic warship proclaiming "We've come for the Jedi" well before Kreia's onboard. Lord Rasm sent his apprentice off to kill you, not Kreia, and other then that he doesn't really seem to give two flying tosses about you.
It's all well and good saying it's supposed to be nebulous and unclear, but that doesn't change the fact it feels less like a "GRAND GALACTIC ADVENTURE" and more like "JEDI EXILE PISSFARTS AROUND AND CRASHES ALOT OF SHIPS". Without obvious motivation beyond "There be some weird shit goin' down" I'm left sitting there wondering what precisely am I meant to be feeling. Confusion? Check. Threatened? Pfft, god no.
If you have a threat be abstract, it either needs to be done AMAZINGLY well (See: Chigurh from "No Country for Old Men" and the first coin-flip scene) or it feels less like a threat and more like an annoyance. There needs to be genuine feeling that it will sneak up on your arse and kill you. Instead there's a clumsy tutorial where you fights some dudes, who are apparently working for this bigger dude.
When people turn on their former masters, it's usually because of some backstory and events preceding the side-changing. There may well be that for whats-her-face, but without any knowledge of what inspired the side-change it makes no sense. It does feel like, for all intents and purposes, she joined you purely because you whooped her arse.
I wasn't complaining about the slow pacing, I was complaining about the stupid pacing. It seemed to be trying to instill you with a sense of urgency and dread, but all it accomplished was making me pissed off when T4 kept bugging out and refusing to move, so I'd have to load from my last save. A slow learning curve, I can relate to, but this was altogether annoying as buggery. It took a sequence that felt as long as Taris from the original and turned that into the tutorial. I don't WANT a tutorial with a slow opening that goes on for that long. It makes me feel less like a galactic hero, and more like someone who needs a tutorial because I locked myself in the shed and so can't go out and play with the real boys just yet. You spend several HOURS locked away from the rest of the galaxy surrounded by psychotic mining droids who are as difficult as something IMMENSELY EASY which I don't even dignify with a simile. It means the game starts off at a horrible pace, which when followed by a fast pace cutscene involving lasers and a turret sequence, makes the game feel like it's got action-sequence tourettes.
"You're exit the air-lock into the hanger and see your escape ship waiting for you! A few corpses litter the ground around it, which you stop to pick up before leisurely boarding the loading ramp- SUDDENLY YOU GET FUCKING SHOT AT! GET ON THE TURRETS AND BLOW AWAY THE FOURTY SITH SOLDIERS WHO ARE FOLLOWING YOU AROUND AND NOW START SHOOTING AT YOU."
That was a mere example of how disjointed things can feel at times. And again, it still doesn't make sense how the Sith Troopers are even there! How'd they get there, and why haven't you seen any (despite walking through the ship they would have boarded the station on) before now?
My critique would've fallen apart if that'd been the cornerstone of my arguements. As it is, it is a tangent, a mere humourous aside. And considering Lord Rasm and Darth Frankenstein weren't part of the original Sith movement, the commanding officers would've had to seek them out for employment, so it's less like not quitting a cause since they had to SEEK OUT NEW BOSSES. It's like seeing the Australian Communism party go down the gurgler in the 1950's, and so flying to Cuba so you can pledge allegience to Fidel Castro.
In the first game you get your Lightsaber when you become a Jedi, hey presto, magical telekinetic powers and a laser sword all in one go. In the second game you're a Jedi from the very start, but as I said unless you do the planets in a very precise order you now won't have your Lightsaber until near the end. If you do Nar Shadaa last, you literally don't get your Lightsaber until just before the final fight. Call me picky, but if I'm playing a magical laser sword warrior monk, I want my laser sword. I can appreciate waiting, but it reached PAST the point of waiting and hit the point where it became needlessly stupid.
And from that last sentence, it actually seemed like you missed the point. The Gameplay in it's purest form was quite fun. I could have enormous fun carving through the entire rear-guard of a palace occupation invading army as I cut my way to the Queen, at no point pausing from the battle as my Jedi-awesomeness sliced many many testicles off. It's mostly the story, that thing that determines when and where you're supposed to do the carving that makes the game physically painful to get through.
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