Too easy and incomplete

With KOTOR2, the KOTOR series continues to offer the most immersive Star Wars experience since the original films. As a game universe in which you see and explore cool environments in the Star Wars universe, and go on fun quests on a number of different worlds in a non-linear style, KOTOR2 is great. But, as a story, it fails to deliver in the final chapters. And most importantly to me, as a game that is supposed to challenge my skills as a player, it fails again, leaving me with very little feeling of accomplishment.

For those unfamliar with the KOTOR games, they put you in the Star Wars universe as a Jedi (or Sith). You run around gaining power, new abilities and better equipment, by fighting in battles and finishing quests. Throughout the game, you can choose what actions you wish to take in a situation. Choose a "good" action, and you become more Light side, which makes it easier to be a Light side Jedi. Choose the evil actions, and you become more Dark side, which makes it easier to be a Sith. This "choose your own adventure"-style gameplay is great in that it increases replay value and really brings the "role playing" part of "RPG" to the gamer. The actions you take also affect how the future unfolds. Support some mercenaries who want to overthrow the government, and they will take over later, and become your allies in a later battle. If you don't support them, then the original government will be your allies in the later game. Unlike most games that are very linear, your role and actions have real noticeable consequences.

KOTOR2 recieved great reviews from the gaming press, but the forum-going players have expressed a lot of dissapointment with the game now that they've had time to play the whole thing and let it all sink in. The consensus is that KOTOR2's final hours are obviously rushed and lacking in quality content, souring the entire game and leaving players with a very dissapointed and negative opinion. Lucasarts, the publisher, is accused of rushing the game's development in order to meet a Christmas release date.

I've played the game twice and agree with these folks. The story telling quality of the game seems to take a massive drop towards the end of the game. The end game devolves into a repetitive hack-n-slash affair that seems divorced from the rest of the game's style. More importantly, all the characters you've become attached to in your party basically drop off the face of the world without a word as the climax approaches. There's no resolution with them at all. Some KOTOR2 players have dug through the files of the game to discover that a great deal of the game's planned script was left undone. The missing events would've really filled the gaps, but they were left out, and the game suffered immensely for it. Another major problem comes from how the story is told. On my first play through, I played as a Dark Sith, and because I chose all the insulting/hateful dialogue choices, none of plot characters told me anything of substance. Thus, by the end of the game, I had essentially learned nothing about what was going on, and why I was doing anything. This may be realistic, but not particularly enjoyable. So the story can be incomprehensible if you fail to make the right choices at times.

So, as a story, KOTOR2 fails to deliver. The game's buildup and plot is great up until the end, when the game seems to collapse in on itself. As with any story, the climax can be the most important portion of the whole story. A story can fail in many areas and still succeed as a whole so long as the climax works. But KOTOR2 succeeds on most parts of the story except the climax, which is just unacceptable. But, you can still enjoy the plot and side-quests as a part of Star Wars life, so not all is lost.

Despite all this, my biggest complaint with KOTOR2 is the actual gameplay. The game is extremely easy and offers little challenge. The Auto Pause and party queue command system gives players a false impression that KOTOR2 requires some kind of tactical thinking in order to play, but it's very superficial and completely unnecessary. I played this game on the hardest difficulty and turned off the Auto Pause system, and breezed through the game. There was no need to offer commands to other party mates, no need to put any serious thought into any aspect of the fighting. I simply hit the attack and Force buff keys repeatedly in each combat and breezed through it all. Most RPGs require a player to apply basic tactics to each battle, where you attack, defend, and counter in certain ways to win. KOTOR2 is based on such a system (the d20 system), but its execution in this video game is so flawed that the system's original intent is thrown away.

This is due to the complete lack of balance in the game's equipment, feats, and Force powers. Here are some examples. Feats such as Power Attack allow the player to increase the damage of their attack by a small amount, in exchange for losing some accuracy. This feat is pretty meaningless, because the player is drowning in damage increasing modification items for their lightsabers. Some Force powers are so overwhelmingly powerful, that every battle results in the enemy being incapicated or destroyed within moments of the battle's start. Imbalances are everywhere, and the inept AI of the game makes things even worse. Each battle is repetitive, as the AI has no tactical ability. It rushes into battle like mindless drones. "Sith Lords", supposedly full of cunning and evil intelligence, act no more intelligent than Bantha poodoo. Enemies fail to use their powers effectively, they fail to attack your parties' vulnerabilities. They just stand around waiting for you to chop them to pieces.

Many aspects of the game feel totally useless. There are feats that are designed to allow a ranged-weapons user to shoot enemy Jedi. But these feats are pointless, since nearly all enemy Jedi in the game are fought in the final chapters of the game.. in which only the main player character is present!

As a gamer, I expect some level of challenge. There needs to be some kind of struggle on my part, in order for me to really identify with the struggle that is being demonstrated through the story and on-screen. But KOTOR2 was such a cakewalk that I left the game feeling I had not so much played a game.. as I had finished reading a highly advanced "Choose Your Own Adventure" book. It was more like a Point-and-Click adventure game than an RPG game. But even those games had some challenge through difficult puzzles. KOTOR2 is at its most challenging when you're playing the side-games.. such as swooop bike racing. That's just wrong.

So in the end, KOTOR2 fails to deliver both as a story-telling experience, and as a game of challenge and skill.