PC Review Reviews Gaming Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords



As we said before, the character development in this new sequel does feel deeper, but not so much in the character creation as when you're actually playing the game. Like any traditional RPG, you're presented with dialogue trees when conversing with many of the individuals you encounter. Depending on which replies you choose, you can alter your standing with the light or dark side of the force. There is certainly a lot of dialogue to go through and you must choose wisely. Also, the dialogue starts to become very complex in giving you the ability to double-cross people that have given you jobs, and more consequences have been added to your actions which greatly increases the replayability of the game. Play through this title twice, and you still won't have seen every option given to you. The character development goes even further by giving your companions in your party inspiration points. Your party members are influenced by your decisions and follow you through either the light or dark paths that you choose.

Obviously, it's apparent that the gameplay mechanics of this sequel have stayed true to the original game. This is a great thing to see considering the fact that a completely new developer has been brought on board for this sequel. No longer in the hands of the famous RPG developer, BioWare, Obsidian Entertainment has developed this sequel as their first game ever and are currently working on Neverwinter Nights 2. Obsidian Entertainment is made up of some veteran RPG developers, and their experience shows. The Sith Lords represents everything that a great RPG should be, especially with its unique combat system and 40 hours of gameplay. More of a hybrid of real-time and turn-based combat, the combat system in The Sith Lords is just like the original game in giving you the ability to pause the game to queue up attacks and then watch as your character goes to work.

The graphics in The Sith Lords really aren't much of an improvement at all over the original game. There are a few slight improvements here or there, but it would have been much nicer to see some more upgrades instead of looking like a two-year-old game. Also, we just have to mention that the cutscenes look rather pathetic. The scenes in which you see the Ebon Hawk either flying too or from a planet aren't too bad, but the worst ones appear when there are characters speaking which just look horrible. Most of which include when the Dark Sith Lord makes his appearance on his ship. It may have looked good on the XBOX using a low-resolution television, but on our high-res PCs it isn't too pretty. Fortunately there aren't too many of these scenes.

Like any Star Wars game, The Sith Lords contains some great sound effects that include sounds and music taken directly from the movies. Also, it's great to see that every character is fully voiced. Most of the good voices come only from some of the main characters such as Kreia, but it's still better to just listen to all the people speak instead of sitting there reading pages and pages of dialogue.

In the end, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords proves to be a worthy sequel especially when you consider the fact that it's only been a little over a year since the last one. It's definitely a great and entertaining RPG which is something we haven't seen in a while. However, it's not without its share of bugs. We have noticed a few annoying bugs throughout the game including party members getting stuck or running through objects when following you. Also, one of the most annoying bugs is when you select an option in a dialogue tree and then it ends up taking you back to the previous dialogue tree menu resulting in you having to go through it all over again. Hopefully some of these issues are soon to be fixed with a patch. Until then, hardcore RPG fans should find some great gameplay in this sequel.