Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

For the second issue of the Star Wars comic series of the same name, see Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (series).

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords awsome ☺
Developer(s)	Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher(s)	LucasArts
Engine	Odyssey engine
Platform(s)	Xbox, Windows
Release	Xbox: December 6, 2004 February 11, 2005 February 15, 2005 Windows: February 8, 2005 February 11, 2005 February 15 2005
Genre(s)	Role-playing
Mode(s)	Single player

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords (KotOR II) is a role playing video game released for PC and the Microsoft Xbox. The Xbox version of this sequel to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was released on December 6, 2004, while the PC version was released on February 8, 2005. It was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by LucasArts.

Development

The game is the sequel to BioWare's commercially and critically successful Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The change of developers came at BioWare's suggestion based on their familiarity with Obsidian Entertainment's previous work, as BioWare was busy developing Jade Empire and started focusing on their own intellectual properties. Development on The Sith Lords started around the same time of Knights of the Old Republic's Xbox release.

The Sith Lords was constructed using an updated version of Knights of the Old Republic's Odyssey game engine, which Obsidian obtained from BioWare Company. BioWare also provided technical assistance to Obsidian's developers.

Obsidian Entertainment provided the PC version of the game with resources meant to be used for the original ending, such as screenplays and voice files. Pressure from LucasArts to release the game in time for the Christmas season forced Obsidian to abbreviate the ending. Obsidian Entertainment also petitioned to LucasArts themselves for a content patch which would restore the content, but LucasArts denied the request.

Producer Chris Avellone in an interview after the game's publication stated that he wished "there had been more time" to work on the game, and that some content -- such as a droid planet -- was cut. Material created for the game but not integrated into it remains in the released source files.

There are three official patches for the game. Two update the quality of the movies and music while the third fixes gameplay issues and introduces additional content.

Story

The game takes place five years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, in a time when the Jedi have been nearly exterminated by the Sith. The player's character, a former Jedi Knight exiled from the Jedi Order, is referred to as "the Exile" or "Jedi Exile." Throughout the game, the player's character restores a connection to the Force while, with the help of non-player character companions, trying to stop the Sith. The player makes choices that turn the Exile to either the dark side or light side of the Force, and travels to six planets to either help or hinder the Republic's efforts to bring peace and stability to the galaxy.

Characters and locations

See also: List of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic characters

While The New Essential Guide to Droids refers to the Jedi Exile as "her," the player chooses at the game's beginning whether the Jedi Exile is male or female. The Exile's backstory reveals that the character served under Revan during the Mandalorian War and ordered the activation of a devastating mass shadow generator at the climactic battle over Malachor V. The deaths that ensued created such a substantial "wound" in the Force that the character was forced to sever all connections to Force, and the Jedi Council ordered the character exiled from the Jedi Order. As the game progresses, the Jedi Exile rebuilds a connection to the Force and creates unusually strong Force Bonds with other characters and places.

Among the characters who join the Jedi Exile are Kreia, who acts as the Exile's mentor in a manner akin to Obi-Wan Kenobi or Qui-Gon Jinn; pilot and ex-assassin Atton Rand; Mandalorian War veteran Bao-Dur and his droid remote; the criminal droid G0-T0; and the Sith apprentice Visas Marr. T3-M4 and Canderous Ordo (now identified as "Mandalore"), both featured in the first game, also join the Exile's team. Other characters join the Exile's party only under certain conditions. HK-47, who appears in the first game, joins the quest if the Exile collects and uses the parts necessary to reactivate it. The Wookiee bounty hunter Hanharr joins if the Exile is aligned with the dark side of the Force; Hanharr's competitor, Mira, joins if the Exile is light-aligned or neutral. If the player's character is female, Mical the Disciple can join the player's quest, while Brianna the Handmaiden joins a male Exile.

Enemies include Darth Sion, Darth Nihilus, and Darth Traya. New playable locations include war-ravaged Telos and the orbiting Citadel Station, Onderon and its jungle moon Dxun, Nar Shaddaa and Goto's orbiting yacht, Peragus, the starships Harbinger and Ravager, and Malachor V. Korriban and Dantooine from the original game are revisited. The Ebon Hawk, the main character's ship in the first game, is also the player's transportation in this game.

Gameplay

In addition to technical changes — such as more combat animations and interface scaling — The Sith Lords includes several changes from the original game's features.

Influence

In Knights of the Old Republic, if the player acted in a way contrary to one of his/her companion's alignment, the player would receive a verbal berating with little consequence. In The Sith Lords, the player's influence over another character can determine whether sub-plots will develop, as well as increase both the party members' and player's statistics. Influence can be gained by performing actions that a party member approves of. For light side-oriented characters, such as Bao Dur, this can involve sparing someone's life. For dark side-oriented characters, such as HK-47, influence can be gained by violent acts, such as inciting a mob to violence. Influence is lost in a similar manner.

Jedi training

The player can train party members to use the Force depending to the gender of the character, and to choose the Exile's Jedi class at the game's beginning. With the exception of the droids, Mandalore, and Hanharr, every party member can be promoted to a Jedi class, although their powers do not develop as far as the player's or other initially Force-sensitive characters. Training the crew to become Jedi requires both time and for the player to act in a manner consistent with the involved characters' alignments. Methods to train the crew involve using pacifism to influence Mira and training with the Handmaiden. However having a confrontation with some character usually leads to the same goal.

Item upgrade and creation

There are more upgradeable items, and devices to carry out upgrades, in The Sith Lords. Additionally, the player can create various items — such as upgrade items, explosives, and implants. T3-M4 acts as a mobile workbench for creating upgrades and computer spikes, and the Disciple (only available to female player characters) can carry out the functions of a lab station.

Partial cast

Character Name	Actor/Actress
Kreia	Sara Kestelman
Carth Onasi	Raphael Sbarge
Malak	Rafael Ferrer
Mandalore	John Cygan
HK-47/HK-50	Kristoffer Tabori
The Last Handmaiden	Grey DeLisle
Visas Marr	Kelly Hu
Mira	Emily Berry
Disciple	Greg Ellis
Bao-Dur	Roger G. Smith
Atton Rand	Nicky Katt
G0-T0	Daran Norris
Sion	Greg Ellis
Atris	Elizabeth Rider

Critical reaction

The game was generally well received by fans and critics alike. Mirroring the success of the first game, The Sith Lords has garnered over thirty-five "Game of the Year" awards. The game received high marks from several reviewers: 8.5/10 from Gamespot, 4.5/5 from Gamespy and 9.3/10 from IGN. Based on 30 professional reviews, Metacritic gave the game an average rating of 85 out of 100, compared to 93 for Knights of the Old Republic. The game was criticized for being incomplete due to a rushed deadline.

Patches, upgrades, and modifications

In addition to gameplay patches from Obsidian, the company released a pair of media upgrades to improve soundtrack and full motion video (FMV) quality. The FMV upgrade improves the quality of the in-game pre-rendered videos by increasing their resolution from 640x272 to 1600x680. However, the user's monitor must support at least 1600x1200 resolution or the videos will display at 640x272.

The soundtrack, as originally released, is MP3-encoded monaural audio with a 10.9 kHz low-pass filter. Not only was the music not stereo, but most higher frequencies (treble) had been discarded by the filter. Obsidian released an upgrade for the music that presented it in higher fidelity and full stereo.

KOTOR 2 fans have released several modifications to the game. These scripts can act as bug fixes, modify existing content, or add new content -- including material included in the game's source files but not part of the game itself.

Sequel

Nancy MacIntyre, LucasArts' vice-president of global sales and marketing, said that the Knights of the Old Republic series will not be left behind. However, neither LucasArts nor Obsidian have announced anything regarding the possibility of a sequel's development.

An Official Xbox Magazine speculation that BioWare is working on Knights of the Old Republic III was debunked by BioWare employees who stated on BioWare's official forums that they "are not currently working on KotOR 3" and "if [a sequel is] being done, it's certainly not being done by us."

Electronic Gaming Monthly reported in the rumors section of its May 2007 issue that BioWare had hired an online team for work on a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Knights of the Old Republic.

External links

• Collection of Reviews of the game (Xbox)
• TheForce.net editorial about game problems
• Gamespy editorial on the storyline
• Sith Lords official upgrades – Upgrades from Obsidian Entertainment for the game's soundtrack and video files.
• The Sith Lords Restoration Project – Collaborative mod project restoring some game content cut from the original release.