Aveeare

I find Dxun not all that different from the Shadowlands in Kashyyk. Dantooine is, well, same as KOTOR1. Telos, Onderon is, well somewhat generic and nothing really stands out. (In fact all the high-tech city interiors like Citadel / Taris / Nar Shardaa really melts into the same thing for me). In fact, the only planet that stands out to be really different was Malachor V. I agree, there isn't much going on on the planet, so it's somewhat boring, but in terms of how it looks - it's certainly quite different. The polar view of Telos was kewl, but too brief (just one area). In KOTOR1, I love the exploration of the different planets - the desert sun blazing down with lense flare on Tantooine, the kewl breeze amidst the grasslands of Dantoine, the metal landscape of Taris, etc. were all breath-taking the first time I saw it. In contrast, in KOTOR2, only Malachor 5 managed to make me feel like I am on a new planet. Almost all other planets make me feel like - "been there, done that". Some planets I would love to see in the future: - exploration of an snowy / ice planet - exploration of a crystalline planet - exploration of a gaseous planet

I too have just finished the game, and need to release some steam. Is it just me or does the entire game feels more like an expansion pack as oppose to a sequel? The terrain / board itself also feels not nearly as interesting as KOTOR1. If you look at it, KOTOR1 had 4-6 different terrains - there is the high tech city (Taris, inside the military bases, somewhat the ships), underwater, desert, huge tree, rural, and tropical islands. KOTOR2 had fewer "new" terrains, furthermore with the exception of one of the boards, all the others feels like a repeat of the previous (the jungle didn't feel all that different from Kashyyk). The in-party NPCs also feel less fleshed out - there are the return of some favorites, but with a few exceptions, the empathy that one shared with the in-party NPCs is just not there. The problem, I think, is that there are no PC involved NPC sidequests that results in NPC attitude shifts. One comes away with the feeling that the NPCs are very two-dimensional. People walk away from KOTOR1 loving and hating particular NPCs - and in both cases, it is good. The developers managed to elicit emotions in the player. In the case of KOTOR2, I just feel apathetic. The story itself also feels far too contrived. I mean, I am a KOTOR fan and I bought KOTOR2 the first day it was out (I had to wait for the PC version) - and I really have difficulty getting into the storyline. The dialog is just interspersed with way too much force / jedi / sith mumbo-jumbo that I don't really understand. I mean we (the players) do live in a world without the force, after all. So it's alot easier for us to understand a choice of honor vs. dishonor, oath vs. power, and love vs. discipline than some weird force based philosophy that we don't know anything about anyways (and no one really explained). Also, this is an RPG - that is to say that people playing it assumes a role. People prefer to assume the role that THEY chose rather than one that the developers chose. Yet, in way too many places in the game are you forced to play one of the in-party NPCs. I mean once or twice is okay, but there is just way too many of these... The entire game gives one a feeling that it could've been ALOT better if there just had been more of it. The game should be longer. The ending could be better. There should be more new material (tiles, models, etc.). The quests should be more complex and more free form. I am just guessing, but could it be that in trying to do a sequel and make it "different" - Obsidian ended up throwing away alot of the lessons that the Bioware people had learned in developing the previous RPGs? Let me also qualify things by saying that in addition to the original KOTOR, I love Planescape Torment as well as the Fallout2. So I had high expectations of the ex-Black Isle / now-Obsidian team. Perhaps I've been pampered those wonderful games? -Aveeare