nightcleaver

Yeah. He's a lot more powerful, too, with some of the upgrades lying around and the upgrades you can do to him through dialogue (repair and computer skills).

The ending was... great. I would've liked to talk to my fellow traveller's one last time, though. I wasn't able to get through everyone's story my first try... in fact, I suspect I didn't get fully through anyone's. I wish it had been in more detail, but at least you learn what happens to them. I was sort of afraid of what the ending would turn out like (in terms of answers about what's happened), but it was really incredible. They only give you credits, and the final movie isn't satisfying... at least KotOR I had a final movie. To give someone an impression, it was about what the ending to planescape was as far as satisfaction. It's impressive and horribly, sickeningly fantastic, but it just doesn't give you solid answers. I don't see it as an ending like Fallout. More in line with Planescape - sad, morose, and very emotional.

Hmm... I thought most of the faces in KotOR I sucked, and I rather liked most of them in the sequel. All a matter of taste, I suppose.

I just reloaded my game at a point before I tried moving on to another planet - I recieved the invitation to join visquis in his lounge at the Jekk'jekk. I just got the recorder out of the droid at the swoop track. There was also a droid with something inside at the pazaak lounge, if that might help. Also, I got it after juggling character's a bit. I don't know.

Try going back to the refugee landing pad. That said, I'm also stuck... I've fixed his problem with the ships docking, and nothing is happening.

I was about to say - think in the long term. You're nice to them, but then you say things that try to corrupt them, which more then makes up for it, when put with all the other evil things you do.

Something else, because no one's said it (I'm not sure how I'd search for these words anyway): The areas are much bigger and roomier feeling, although occasionally you have the feeling that an area is a bit more cramped than the designer's would've liked. Still, it's not true that the load zones are more often, in terms of area. The particle effect explosions are awesome. The engine seems to handle a lot more than the first engine. And that's it for now. Also, some really funny moments, but it's a different sort of humor.

The reviewer's have something right: There are some old things that were left in (I don't think they could've done anything about it) the game (engine) that weren't welcome in the sequel, because the sequel just wasn't familiar enough for me to feel forgiving of those "negative" traits. I'll try to explain: I don't think the graphics are worse, so much as the improvements made were eclectic with what was (necessarily?) left in the graphics engine. The explosions are better, but the lighting/shading isn't improved. The character faces are improved with facial detail, (but no improved body/polygon detail) interesting and attractive articulation of concept (none of the quirkiness of the original, but some of the problems - awkward standing posture, for one), and waving hair (that waves like hair, but the faces are plastic and make the hair seem sort of like an eclectic touch). I wonder if it would've been better that they just kept the same engine, improved the framerate, and thrown their own content in. Overall, I don't think it's anything you wouldn't notice from the screenshots and vids that are already on the net, so you can judge pretty well for yourself from that. The only hiccuping I've seen was after a loading zone, and it really is a bit worse, but it still seems pretty minor to me. Big battle's haven't been any sort of a problem so far, and I'm pretty far in the beginning of the second planet. It's all technically improved, but the style is a bit different, and like I said - a bit eclectic in a way that's not all good. I can understand not liking it... but the visuals have given some far more intense emotions than the original ever did. Remember how frustrating Korriban was with the tight canyon walls? None of that so far. Rarely is it beautiful in the same way the first one could be, but some of it is just better.

It's... yeah... it's pretty incredible. Certain things are a lot more effective than the reviews would make them out to be. There are a lot more dialogue options, and there's all sorts of interesting exposition. Even knowing most of what happened on Peragus beforehand from all the previews/reviews, it still gave me chills. Ick.

No - I had the same problem. I think it might be an item you miss. That's not a terribly important, door, though. Just a repair kit and some other stuff I'm not sure about. If your main has the skill, you'll be passing through there with him soon enough...

What else did he blatantly lie about in his review?? Hmm... You know what? I think I'm going to subscribe to gamespot for one month, just to give the game a totally awesome, actually ARTICULATE review that completely gushes about the game and questions the intelligence of that reviewer (isn't he the lead editor or something??), or at least questions whether he played the same game I did. Of course, I'll have to play the game first, and if it's not that good... I won't. But given that this guy BLATANTLY LIED and totally GLAZED OVER THE FACT THAT THE F'in PC DOESN'T HAVE AMNESIA, I really doubt the validity of this review. Someone needs to go post a review. Someone who's played the game, and can totally wipe the floor with this guy. The one that's posted so far, well... it doesn't do any justice. It could even be fake. Can't blame the poor sod, though. And we should all go and rate the game, too... This is crazy...

It is sort of funny... I mean, seriously, this is crazy. You'd think this was a third-rate title made by a sweaty middle-aged man in his backyard on a 486. I can't think of a game that was so under-appreciated by retailers... I guess they just saw, "New developer, throw-together sequel. Trash bin."

Perhaps his power is some how connected to the star forge - ? It doesn't sound like that sort of power could possibly come from birth. OR a "simple" dead sith.

Probably not, although maybe - if you gain influence over her and go darkside yourself, definitely. EDIT: talking to dark consular. People post insanely fast here...

If that's the reason... but I thought part of the reason they did that was just that it wasn't as useful? Did you see the changes they made to Charisma? I'm going to post this again, in case anyone missed it... because I edited it in after like seventeen people had posted. From the manual (unless it was forged...): "... persuasive talker. It also reduces the penalty when using Force Powers of an opposing alignment (a light side character with a high Charisma can use dark side powers with less of a penalty), and a high Charisma also improves your companions' chance to hit." Make of that what you will. Charisma will be a lot more useful in the sequel.

I'll seriously have to kill something if they neutered the INT stat again in KotORII. Lots of Dark Jedi, yeah... (Uh oh, I'm already falling to the darkside...) Anyway... the reason they did that in the first one wasn't because D20 said so. It was because the only thing INT gave you was skills. In KotOR II that's not true - it also helps with dialogue and such, which is about what most games are like with INT. Also, Int-based skills are going to be more important, and having lots of skill points will really add to the experience more than it did in the first one. It's horrible if they used the same neutered INT stat in the sequel, but it's still possible... The main difference between wisdom and charisma is that Wisdom gives you more Force Points. Taking a cue from KotOR I, this is a lot more important early on in the game than it is later. In the first game, if you had high wisdom and item/lightside master bonus, you were the Duracell bunny of Force powers. Charisma was different in that it gave bonus to, "Force-related feats and powers" but didn't give you any Force points. Something interesting I noticed about the screenshot somewhat gave of the manual (it MAY have been forged, although that's extremely unlikely...) is that Charisma has changed a bit. Like so: "... persuasive talker. It also reduces the penalty when using Force Powers of an opposing alignment (a light side character with a high Charisma can use dark side powers with less of a penalty), and a high Charisma also improves your companions' chance to hit." Make of that what you will. Anyway, on to what I'm going to do... Str 12 Dex 16 Con 8 Int 12 Wis 14 Cha 14 That's my lightside sentinel, male. I always ignore CON in preferrence of the other stats. It's the one that's not at all interesting to me. If INT requires more to give a bonus to skills, I might bring Con up to ten, or take out of strength and put into Int. Maybe I'll lower Wisdom... hmm...

They didn't say anything about the bugs being vastly worse in the sequel, only that the amount of bugs were about the same. Thank you.

I... HOME....

They probably DID do something in compensation for the raised, or even lifted level cap. (Keep in mind that "Lifted" can only mean so much; if the total XP in the game doesn't allow you to possibly go above level 24, say, then that's technically your "limit"... that said, IGN going, "They removed the level cap" could just mean you'll never reach whatever the level cap was raised to.) However, when they tried that in the first game it didn't make much of a difference. 40 AC and 211 HP, Master Flurry and Speed make you pretty much invincible. I think they should've made Master Speed MUCH more exhausting than it was in FP; whatever their "calculations" can deem necessary on such a subjective thing I don't know, but I do know that 5 hits a round for 30-100+ damage was extremely excessive. With all the added levels and saber mods and such, who KNOWS the sort of damage you'd be dealing? The first KotOR was extremely subject to, "Right choice, wrong choice," stuff as per Diablo II. Something's should work better than other's, yes; A consular shouldn't be as good at saber combat when put one-on-one to a guardian. However, Sneak attack and Stasis and Master flurry and Double-blooded saber's with the most powerful crystals possible made things way easier for you than someone who went without sneak attack, had high intelligence and lower physical/wisdom and charisma stats, and used only 1 saber. Also, one could spam Force Wave and get through the entire game that way, and if you were a lightside consular, that's just about the only thing you could do. It's too bad if Obsidian didn't pay much attention to these issues. It's too bad it was any issue in the first place. From what I can tell, they either didn't pay attention to the balance problems of the first game, thinking that everyone liked it the way it was, or just made it equally easy for every class/stat/feat combination. Certain skills were far more useful than others; the computer use skill was kind of the only way to make the star forge not painful. In summary: there's a lot more to the issue of bad (as in WAY too easy) gameplay than levels, and I suspect levels are the least of the issue.

Umm... I thought it was confirmed that "hilt diversity" was NOT in. Someone know something I don't? I can't decide on my color, personally. I'll probably play the game at least 8 times, though, and maybe more... Like, say, 16. Or 32. And then I STILL won't have seen everything... gah...

I don't know, but my store didn't say anything special "December 6th, so that should be TUESDAY." GRRRRR.

INCREDIBLY old screenshot. It might very, very easily be a placeholder screenshot. Also... It might be different depending on the PC's actions in the first or even the current game. However, this is still a possibility - you make a very good point about HK being shut down. That said, I noticed in a video on IGN that there's banging on the other side of a door in the Ebon hawk where you are as T3. That happens to be the same room HK is found "dead" in. Also, it would seem that there are certain "parts" that you get from the various planets to repair HK and hear what he has to say about what happened. This implies something more of a mechanical error, as multiple whole PARTS of him are missing. Also, would he really function without his Master well enough to tell you anything, with this being the case? Although... it could be that his malfunction damaged his insides, and you find replacements for those parts, and one of the things you do is override his function to mal-function upon his master's death. However, wouldn't that kind of tell you something ahead of time? Just something to keep in mind...

Half-Life 2 shipped without a proper deathmatch mode, and certain weapons were taken out completely or even replaced with different ones when compared to the first. However, the engine had a massive upgrade and everyone says it's much improved. Does Half-Life 2 suck because it has "less features"? Really, there's a lot more extra content in the sequel compared to the original with the KotOR series, and not as much "need" for any x-box live content. Considering the massive amount of replayability already present, it really isn't "less" than the original, but more... without any benefits for having Xbox live, of course. Also, IGN said something like, "KotOR II is about as buggy as the first, although it might be buggier." That's a totally subjective statement; for all we know, there really MIGHT just be fewer bugs in this sequel, and the one who wrote that article just ran into a fair number of them. For all we know, the reviewer saw the same amount (or fewer) bugs, but was more irritated by them just because it was the SEQUEL. They didn't count the bugs or keep track of them in an objective way, and even if they did it would still be subject to that individual play through. They don't have a machine that tests the game and labels how many "bugs" there are in the game - I don't think, anyway. Also, it might help if you actually READ what akari said about the FPS being about the same. He was VERY, extremely specific about what it was EXACTLY that made the FPS go back to where it was with KotOR. They have more programming processes running in the background, more "features" if you will that take up the machine's time and slow it down. And yes, you really don't need to make multiple threads saying the exact same thing every time. It's one thing when people make threads without searching to see if it's been made before.

Just wanted to point out, Bastila, that it's been said about Kreia: Just thought you might know, because I noticed your sig. Anyway... It sounds look a good idea to be watching the trilogy, but I don't think I'm going to.

Or at least it takes longer, anyway.