STAR WARS™ Knights of the Old Republic™ II: The Sith Lords™

Arguably the best Star Wars cRPG game to date. Great storyline, epic battles, fun combat mechanics, inspiring and interesting worlds to explore along with tons and tons of things to do, some of the best mini-games ever in a Star Wars games. Perhaps companions are not as interesting as in the original KotOR, but at the same time everything else is better and... well: more of it! For anyone downloading the game I highly recommend playing it with The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod which adds plenty of missions, whole new planet (far from the most interesting in the game, but still: it's a whole new planet in an amazing game!) and most importantly: fixes tons of bugs that developers never got around to fix, and let me tell you this: most universal complain in reviews about this game were bugs... so I consider it a must-have for anyone playing KotOR II. Is playing prequel a must before trying this game? No, KotOR II is a complete, closed game, with everything explained, but much like the Witcher 2 - you will benefit a lot from knowing the events from prequel and save yourself some time reading explanations. That said though - for someone not really "into Star Wars" this game will appear having several quite obvious flaws. Combat isn't the best one ever, stories sometimes suffer from clear light-grey-dark side choices (though the dark side choices often tend to give some hilarious results), PC controls are clunky, graphics are far from the best even for the year game was released, and as mentioned before - bugs bugging out bugs in a vanilla version (special thanks to modders). But for me, in my very subjective review - this is the best Star Wars cRPG ever released. Great, complex storylines, tons of things to do, wonderful worlds, and something very few Star Wars cRPGs ever managed to capture: this feeling of living in a Star Wars universe and being a part of it, thrown into a turmoil of galactic events far greater than any individual. Must-play!

KOTOR 1 and 2 are both not only amazing Star Wars experiences, but amazing RPG experiences. They came out at a time when Star Wars games had gone in a rut of not being very good. Then these games came out and blew my mind. While KOTOR 1 builds the foundation, KOTOR 2 improves it by adding a very deep story, awesome and complex characters, and choices that are no longer distinctly black and white, but morally gray and ambiguous. While some good old games aren't so good nowadays after the nostalgia wears off, this is one game that has unquestionably stood the test of time. I cannot recommend KOTOR 2 enough.

There are very few games that I would consider to be literary, but this is a happy exception. It's Star Wars, so there are still laser fights and space shenanigans (and a psychotic wookiee, because obviously), but underlying it is a story that has just as much to do with how we live in our world as it does with a galaxy far, far away. It's one of those games that you'll keep thinking about for years afterwards, and it only gets better with extra playthroughs. That said, this game greatly benefits from the Sith Lords Restored Content mod, and I would recommend even new players install it. It fixes certain plot holes and (like the name suggests) restores a lot of detail that Obsidian was forced to cut when Lucas Arts decided to release the game prematurely. Finally, if you are not someone who cares a lot about story, you may well be disappointed by this game. It's not as well-balanced as the first, and while there are many features that are a vast improvement over the first game (the alignment system, party members that change with gender and alignment, the crafting system), KotoR 2 simply isn't as polished. If you do care about story, however, if you do like philosophy in your games, and if you do love Star Wars but want to see the implications of that universe explored more, then this is one of the best games you'll ever play.

I'm not much of a metagame analyst, so I won't bother trying to describe the pros and cons of the gameplay or scenario choices. However, I do remember that this game contains some of the most (if not the most) charismatic bad guys I have ever seen, all media included. The story is fascinating and provides a true sense of evil that no other product of the star wars universe managed to reach. I also remember that the discussion with other members of your group were very useful and rewarding, up to the point where [spoiler] You were able to train your own padawans, which was really something. [/spoiler] And this was a non patched non modded version that I played, so arguably the game should be even better...