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KinokonoYama's Knights of the Old Republic 2 (XBX)
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| [March 6, 2008 02:34:33 AM]
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“STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC 2” GAMELOG ENTRY #2
GAMEPLAY:
Upon further investigation into KOTOR 2’s gameplay one cannot help but notice the “Party Influence System”. Sometimes, when a character is presented with a conversation or situation that is relevant to a given character’s personal beliefs or relationship with the Exile, the player is able to raise or lower the given character’s level of influence. What this means is that if you do things that your party members like, they will like you more. If you do things they don’t like, they will begin to loathe you. The influence system has very interesting effects on your characters. If you persuade them to turn to the dark side, their skin will begin to turn pale and their presence will become darker and more menacing, if you turn them onto the path of the light, their features will become angelic. Gaining influence with all the characters also allowed the player to find out more about their back stories, thus increasing the desire to replay the game and find out each character’s history.
KOTOR 2’s endings were somewhat disappointing. The reason is that you are given many choices at the end of the game, but there is only one ending cinematic. This cinematic is very vague in its depiction of what is going on and leaves the player gasping for more and unfortunately does not deliver a proper amount of closure. On a brighter note, the music in KOTOR 2 sets the mood fantastically for each world you are on. MY favorite music was when you traveled to the sith home planet, Korriban. The music here was a slow retro-sounding sci-fi instrumental piece that sent shivers down my spine. I felt that the soundtrack of the game helped add to the hustle and bustle of cities Onderon and the emptiness of the barren wastes of Korriban.
DESIGN:
I found KOTOR 2 to be a very incomplete game. This fact is confirmed by many postings on the official obsidian website directing the PC-version owners to a site where an independent company is trying to fill in the gaps. There is evidence of the games incompleteness in many forms, one of which is a conversation option which requires a certain amount of influence for the NPC to give a satisfactory answer. No matter how much influence you have the given NPC, the game will always tell you that your influence is not high enough and to try back later. After checking on multiple forums, I found out that this was indeed a precursor to a side quest that was not added. I found this somewhat frustrating that the developers left the option in, almost as if to taunt the players.
The character customization in KOTOR 2 was also somewhat disappointing. In the beginning you have a very limited number of male and female faces to choose from. You can however, customize your melee and ranged weapons with certain “upgrade items” you can find and purchase along the way. The lightsaber customization feature allows the player to customize their lightsaber to do more damage, to do certain types of extra damage, to deflect bullets, and change the color of their lightsaber. I found that the ability to “trick-out” my lightsaber added greatly to the interactivity of the game. Overall, I found KOTOR 2 to be a fun game despite the holes in the design. I feel that the game really immerses the player into the Star Wars universe and allows the player to live out their jedi fantasy and to truly feel the force.
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| [March 6, 2008 01:52:01 AM]
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“STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC 2” GAMELOG ENTRY #1
SUMMARY:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR 2 for short) begins aboard a battle-damaged ship called the Ebon Hawk. Aboard the ship are the main character, referred to as the Exile, an old woman named Kreia and a droid. After completing a short tutorial and repairing the Ebon Hawk, the characters find themselves aboard a mining facility. The facility is completely deserted except for one unlucky man named Atton, who was locked in a holding cell. After some investigation, the characters realize that foul play has been committed aboard the mining outpost. The characters then narrowly escape a sith lord who vows to rid the galaxy of all jedi. After a hasty exit and a heart-pounding space fight, the Exile and company blast off to find the remaining jedi in the galaxy. After confronting the remaining jedi masters, we learn more about the Exile’s spotted history and why the Exile cannot remember how to feel the force as he or she (you can choose your gender) once did.
GAMEPLAY:
KOTOR 2’s gameplay uses a “Final Fantasy 11-like” system of combat. You can select the moves your character will perform and when your character’s attack turn comes up, they will perform the given action. The only drawback about this style of combat is that the character’s motions seem rigid and not fluid. The combat is also highly based toward melee weapons. After playing the game through seven times I have noticed that in order to have characters that are proficient with ranged weapons such as blasters and rifles, the player needs to purposely build their character for that specific task. The additions of various energy shields which offer protection from blasters also coax the player into using melee weapons to defeat their foes.
KOTOR 2 also uses a wonderful system of interacting with NPC’s via conversation trees. I found this very enjoyable because I felt I had more control over what my character said. For instance, when confronted by a thug in a cantina I was given the choice to persuade him to leave peacefully, convince him that he no match for me and scare him away, pay him the credits he wants to get him to leave, or to fight him and cut him up with my lightsaber. I felt the system of moral choices added to the interactivity of the character building in a big way. Another great addition to the game was that all dialogue (except for the Exile’s) was voiced beautifully.
The non-linear play-style was also a big factor in the game’s interactivity. In KOTOR 2, you can choose which planets you want to go to first. After you complete the story on that planet you can move onto the next planet and uncover more of the KOTOR 2’s gripping story. Usually, a non-linear play style can be indicative of a poorly-structured story. Fortunately, for KOTOR 2, this was not the case. KOTOR 2’s story was very well-structured and the pieces of the story that were divided amongst the planets fit together nicely in whatever order you put them in.
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KinokonoYama's Knights of the Old Republic 2 (XBX)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 5 March, 2008
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