From the archives: This story initially ran in PC Gamer (UK) #287.
REINSTALL
Reinstall invitations you to hitch us in revisiting PC gaming days passed by. Right this moment, Richard revisits one of many best Star Wars tales ever advised.
What stands out most about Knights of the Previous Republic II is that it’s much less a sequel than a deconstruction. At occasions, an assassination. Most licensed video games, at the very least people who don’t simply put acquainted characters right into a platform or kart racing recreation, are extremely cautious. They provide us the accepted face of their licence, and perhaps sprinkle on a couple of jokes and meta-references for the hardcore followers. They’re respectful. They don’t tread on any toes.
KotOR 2 goes for the throat. It’s a recreation about questions and about darkness, and designer Chris Avellone is especially eager to peel again the extra uncomfortable niceties of its universe, such because the handy break up between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and the injury that results in these labels.
A lot of it’s designed to invert the unique recreation, as BioShock 2 did with its predecessor. KotOR was, by and huge, set within the mild facet of the universe: a heroic quest, noble warriors combating evil from a place of ethical authority and righteousness.
There was a Darkish Facet path and ethical decisions, however it was clear what you had been ‘supposed’ to do. Stand up. Grow to be a Jedi Knight. Beat up the man in black armour who desires to beat the galaxy. It was the best story on the proper time, the Star Wars expertise everybody wished. KotOR 2 makes use of the identical engine and magnificence for totally completely different functions.
Chances are you’ll like
It’s a recreation about questions and about darkness
For starters, it takes place primarily at nighttime—among the many poor and criminal-controlled corners of a galaxy nonetheless scarred and bleeding from each the Mandalorian Wars and a brutal Sith assault that has largely worn out the Jedi Order.
The participant character is not any hero, however an outcast, the Exile, banished for making a troublesome choice on the proper time, who attracts allies not by want or power of charisma however a unconscious Pressure Bond that binds them (a lot because the Mark of Torment drew struggling souls to The Anonymous One in Planescape: Torment).
Fallen knights. Assassins. Gangsters. Bounty hunters. All of them primarily outlined not by their potential, however by their ache. In KotOR we met spunky younger Twi’lek Mission Vao and her bodyguard Zaalbar—a Wookiee who owes her a life-debt. KotOR 2 brings us the same case with bounty hunter Mira and Hanhaar, the distinction being that Hanhaar sees this, not unreasonably, as slavery. He’s additionally a sociopath, restrained solely by that one scrap of tradition.
Removed from a cuddly teddy-bear trying to defend his human, he longs to free himself by killing her, ideally horribly, on the grounds that her loss of life will free him. But on the identical time, he’s too caught up within the idea to pay attention when she tries to inform him that he doesn’t owe her a rattling factor and may simply depart.
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Simply essentially the most profitable of the workforce is the Exile’s mentor, Kreia, whose presence can greatest be described as like happening an journey along with your mother-in-law. Kreia might be mistaken for an assault on Star Wars’ simplistic morality, there for parables comparable to serving to a beggar after which seeing him overwhelmed up as an illustration that even good acts can have lethal penalties.
What to learn subsequent
That’s overly reductive. Firstly, her perception system is each bit as dogmatic because the Jedi/Sith code, solely revolving round steadiness and self-reliance. Second… spoiler alert… she’s the villain. Like everybody else, her philosophy in the end comes from ache – betrayal, exile. She’s not a personality you’re essentially meant to agree with, only one there to make you assume.
For essentially the most half, doing good deeds in KotOR 2 does end in good issues occurring. It’s simply that the sport additionally desires to discover how the street to Hell might be paved with good intentions, and the way good individuals can fall with out realising it. Jedi historian Atris, as an illustration, is simply too busy seeing the Darkish Facet in you to note how shortly she herself fell.
By this level, you’ve in all probability seen one thing – quite a lot of discuss story, not a complete lot concerning the recreation. Sadly, there’s a motive for that. KotOR 2 suffered from one of the crucial untimely launches of the final decade. Not solely did it have only a 14-16 month growth cycle, however LucasArts ended up dragging it again from 2005 to 2004. It confirmed.
A New Hope
Over the subsequent few years, followers created the Sith Lords Restored Content material mod – put in by default on the Steam model. A lot of the lacking content material, together with voice information, turned out to be there on a regular basis, simply disabled. This mod switches it again on.
Because of this, the KotOR 2 we now have now’s a far superior recreation to the one which got here out in 2004. The catch is that even on the time it was a slipshod RPG. That’s partly as a result of graphics and controls, not helped by KotOR having been primarily designed for the Xbox (which, as all of us keep in mind, had a potato as an alternative of a graphics card). It’s partly due to the fight, which was nonetheless rooted within the D&D model of BioWare’s previous video games: an enormous conflict between cinematic motion, fixed pausing and barely hid dice-rolling.
Additionally, the frenzy to get the sport out in a yr didn’t depart a lot time for niceties. A lot of the sport feels prefer it’s happening in a shoebox, albeit one discovered a very long time in the past in a galaxy far, distant.
Nice chunks of the sport had been pulled, a lot of what was left was tough as outdated boots product of sandpaper, and the ultimate chapters had been embarrassingly incomplete. Some ranges had been little greater than linear corridors containing the identical handful of enemies to combat. The already spartan design turned downright minimalistic.
Most awkwardly of all, a lot of the Companion plots had been merely unfinished. There’d be a scene on the final world the place, as an illustration, two of the droids on the ship had been having a showdown, after which… nothing. We by no means went again to complete that, the Exile as an alternative having an atrocious closing boss combat whereas being chased by flying lightsabers, in a scene that begged for the Benny Hill music, after which the entire planet exploding with an virtually apologetic shrug.
The frenzy to get the sport out in a yr did not depart a lot time for niceties
It doesn’t assist that by far the worst half comes initially. The Exile wakes up on the deserted Peragus station, which desperately desires to be a System Shock expertise filled with looming digital horror, however is definitely the dullest couple of hours this facet of Myst.
Fortunately there’s a mod to skip it on subsequent playthroughs, however an excessive amount of story is drip-fed right here to do this the primary time round. Later worlds enhance on this, highlights together with a two-part civil battle on Onderon and a battle between rival bounty hunters on Nar Shaddaa. Nonetheless, few scenes have the uncooked zip of infiltrating Korriban’s Sith Academy again within the first recreation. Chances are you’ll return to the planet on this one, however like a lot of the galaxy, it’s in a foul state.
Briefly, as a uncooked recreation, KotOR 2 doesn’t maintain up that properly. It’s not terrible, it typically shines, however even post-fixes, it wears each its period and its tortured growth on its sleeve. For those who’re going to attempt it now, particularly for the primary time, it actually does need to be for 2 issues: the writing and the characters. Kreia particularly is likely one of the greatest recreation characters ever written, by no means thoughts within the Star Wars universe, and whereas the problems that Chris Avellone raises might have been lined within the Expanded Universe, they’re a breath of contemporary air in a mainstream recreation. Even when it’s not fairly an RPG traditional, it’s very a lot a recreation to respect – and an incredible instance of how flipping the angle on a licence might be endlessly extra fascinating than taking part in issues straight.
