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Really REALLY not play-tested, but still good
KOTOR 2 is a great game. It's as engaging as KOTOR 1 and gives more of the same, which is completely welcome. The story is good, if inconsistent at times. There seems to be a big discrepancy about whether Revan was a male or female, depending on who you talk to. The graphics look about the same, a little like crap sometimes (mainly at the beginning, which is good in that you don't really have to see it anymore after that). Lots of new force powers are introduced, too, along with the addition of lightsaber fighting styles, which you can change in the midst of combat. However, as good as this game is, there are just a lot of low points that take it down a bit.
First of all, this game has bugs like you wouldn't believe. Apart from the dialogue disagreements, there are also graphical glitches where things will show up in the background that shouldn't be there (like dead bodies). It's pointless to do any swoop racing, because you can't win. The race master will tell you every time that you should try to stop crashing if you want to actually win something, even when you race through perfectly. It's a real pain. There's also a REALLY REALLY annoying bug that makes it so that if you play for an extended period of time (as in hours) the sound goes out on the cutscenes and it's only silence. That and your conversations will basically cancel out, as the dialogue instantly moves across the screen and it's your turn to choose again. When this happens you are forced to exit the game and restart. The pathfinding if horrible, too. I can't count the number of times I would click on a basket or a cylinder and my character would walk up to it and stand there. Then I would click again and he would still stand there. I would have to manually move around to a different position in front of it and try again.
Furthermore, although there are the much touted new powers and lightsaber styles, I barely ever used them. Maybe halfway through I gained a cool ability to play mind tricks on animals...and then used it maybe three times for the rest of the game. Often battles are so quick that you have no time to change lightsaber styles, especially if you're like me and automatically cast stasis field or lightning or insanity at the beginning of a fight. I had battle meditation maxed out, but I also had over 500 HP by the time the game was finished, so I never used it. The difficulty of the game is virtually non-existent as long as you're using Jedi. Speaking of which, I found myself using pretty much the same characters every time I went out. There's virtually no incentive to use other characters unless you really have to, because it's just so much more fun to cast force powers than to stand around shooting (and missing) with a blaster. Sometimes you do have to use other characters, which at least gives you incentive to make sure your party is always well-trained, unless you want to get stuck and have to start over when the time comes. There are no real dark Jedi, either. In KOTOR 1 there were lots of dark Jedi who would show up to fight, but in KOTOR 2 they don't start showing up until the very end. Instead you're left to fight droids, minions, and Sith assassins (who don't assassinate anything).
I also wish that there were more interaction between yourself and your party members. There are some choice characters, like Kreia and Handmaiden, with whom you can have extensive conversations to gain or lose influence. However, others, like Bao-Dur, have no conversation options. I would try every time I came on board and it would say, "Nevermind," each time I'd try to spark up a chat. Also, I'm not really sure there is any reason to talk to your characters in the first place. Handmaiden and Kreia will at least teach you things, but everybody else doesn't really do much of anything. In KOTOR 1, talking to your party members would open up new missions eventually. In KOTOR 2 you can gain or lose influence, but it really doesn't have much effect that I could tell.
However, this doesn't mean that KOTOR 2 is a bad game. It's really good! It has great music, to begin with, which really helps to make the game. It's all original, but it still sounds just like you'd expect Star Wars to sound. The Jedi Enclave music almost made me cry it was so good. The story takes forever to unravel, but there's quite an interesting plot twist near the end regarding your character (if you play on the light side, at least; I haven't gone dark yet). Some plotlines get brought up and go nowhere. I never really figured out what all the secret talk with Mandalore was about. And the ending sucks. I immediately reloaded and tried different dialogue options, but got the same crap ending anyway. After putting in over 35 hours to beat this game, I want a more satisfactory ending than what it is. But the gameplay is great anyway.
So the overall verdict...if you liked KOTOR 1, then give this a try. It's the same type of game, so you should feel right at home. Just be aware that there are many bugs that at this point have not been patched, and there are some disappointments throughout. But once some things get ironed out (if they do get ironed out), this game should be exponentially more enjoyable.
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