Darth Drabek

Also, it seems like crystals are in much shorter supply this time around. So if you are busy turning party members into Jedi, you can spread the stronger crystals around more if you are only using one saber (I know, that's not really an argument against double-bladed, but it's a valid reason not to use two sabers. If you want your other party members to use lightsabers.

Well, there's the +3 attack and defense from dueling, which I always thought was pretty cool. And if you want more critical hits, your threat range is bigger with one saber. Oh yeah, and a single saber just feels more dramatic. :cool:

So I'm reading Homer's The Odyssey for a Greek history class and I've noticed a few things. The Telemachy, the first part of the book bears a strong resemblance to some of KOTOR 2's storyline! Some background... Odysseus, a great warrior and master battle tactician, has just crushed the Trojans and is on his way home when his ship is lost... no one knows what has happened to one of the greatest heroes of the Achaian army. He is presumed dead. Things are looking grim at the beginning of the epic poem. Odysseus's land is overrun with men who wish to marry his wife and claim his fortune. His son Telemachos, who has doubts about his heritage, is too weak to force these usurpers out. Enter gray-eyed Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and a fearsome sight in battle too (as shown in the Illiad). Athena is renowned throughout Greek mythology for her cunning. Her skill at deception has turned the tide of many wars; she even fooled the Trojans greatest warrior, Hector, into believing that she would help him fight Achilles, Greece's greatest warrior - a deception that cost Hector his life. Athena knows that Odysseus is still alive and wants him to return home to clear his land of the usurpers. Odysseus is shown throughout Greek literature to be her favorite mortal - she respects his sharp mind and tactical prowess. So she manipulates Telemachos into searching out some of Odysseus's wartime companions for clues to his whereabouts. She even insinuates that if he succeeds at this endeavor, he will be worthy of his father's great name, even if he is a bastard. So, Telemachos and Athena get a ship and crew and sail to find Nestor, Menelaus and any other notable Greek hero that might have news of Odysseus. I believe Odysseus and Athena are very similar to Revan and Kreia. Given the shared characteristics and even , I think it's even possible that some aspects of these characters might have been inspired by the epic poems of the Trojan Cycle. Also, Athena's usage of Telemachos for her own purposes is akin to Kreia's behavior toward the exile in TSL. Their journey to find surviving Trojan war luminaries reminded me of the search for the Jedi Masters. Even the way Athena helps Telemachos gain power and skill by lending him her strength has a parallel with TSL (force bonds? gradually reconnecting to the force?). Now if I haven't lost you yet, imagine this: a KOTOR 3 comparable to the rest of The Odyssey. I can't come up with much here....maybe they kick large quanitities of buttocks. So what do you think? Does this make sense? Am I stretching in places? Are there other parallels you've seen? I leave you with a stellar quote from Odysseus/Revan from the Illiad, after he impaled some poor Trojan on his spear: "Death in its rampage outraced you - no escape. Now your father and noble mother will never close your eyes in death - screaming vultures will claw them out of you, wings beating your corpse! But I, if I should die, my comrades-in-arms shall bury me in style!"

You guys have some serious money invested here. Xbox. For the controls... but mostly, because it came out first for Xbox and I didn't want to wait until now to play it.

Sure it does... just another example of the failure of private schools to give their students a worthwhile education. I'm sure he learned a lot about which clique would be the most beneficial to kiss the ass of. Hell, I'm surprised GW wasn't home-schooled - but then his social skills are too advanced with the whole hunt and kill on Saturday, go to church and repent on Sunday business.

He's the exchange boss on Citadel Station.

"Hold the line. Those cowards will be dealt with." This is one of the Sith Assassins at the top of the Sky Ramp in Onderon. He says that line after you persuade some of Vaklu's troops to run away.

"The dark side is always there." - Master Kavar

I've read that the new Green Day is a politcal rock opera concept album-type thing. Kudos to them for aiming high, but I highly doubt it can step to NOFX's The Decline, 18 minutes of politically-inspired concept cathartic punk rock. Has anyone heard both albums and care to comment on this?

Some really good lists here... rather than rattle off my entire CD/mp3 collection, I'll share what I've been listening to lately and focus on stuff that hasn't been mentioned. I really dig Frank Black, especially the stuff he did with the Catholics. I saw somebody mentioned Ted Leo & the Pharmacists; nice work, Ted is awesome! If I could impress on all of you to go buy a CD from one band, it would be the Afghan Whigs. They were on Sub Pop in the early 90s, and hit a major label but never made it big. What a sound though... think Motown meets funk meets grunge with better-than the-average-angst-king lyrics. Buy 1965, Black Love or Gentlemen right now. I love the stripped-down sound of Husker Du and the raw energy of Rocket from the Crypt. And for fast songs and slick harmonies, Bad Religion can't be beat. I've also been listening to a lot of Tom Waits lately, the early drunken balladeer stuff. Tomahawk, Mike Patton from Faith No More's current band has a creepy, driving rock sound that I dig. They were positively sublime live. I think the band I've seen live the most times would have to be Goldfinger. Other stuff I like that hasn't been mentioned: The Pogues, The Clash, Television, Flogging Molly.... And I'm sure the Star Wars fans and Adult Swim aficianados out there know about the man who rapped about "Fett's Vette:" the unbelievable mc chris.

Well, the droids. The force adepts in the group are Mira, Atton, Bao-Dur, Handmaiden and Disciple. You can influence them by making choices they support. If they feel strongly either way about your actions, they will let you know and you will either gain or lose influence.

As far as twitch gaming goes, I hated the turret game more than the swoop racing (probably because I could simply ignore the swoop racing aspect after Taris). There are a few spots in KOTOR 2 where you must man (or woman ) the turret, but I went through the whole game without ever mounting a swoop bike.

There are some robes, implants and lightsaber crystals that enhance your charisma.

I don't get it... those are pretty good. I never take the random names, because the ones I get are usually about 20 syllables and waaay too hard to pronounce.

I swear Sherruk had a critical threat range of 10-20. That guy was a killing machine. Did anyone else miss the trio of Dark Jedi you would always run across in KOTOR? There was a serious lack of force users in KOTOR 2. Now, I know that the storyline dictated that there weren't a lot of force users around. Still, I found the force resistance powers to be quite useless in this game. If you didn't invest in at least one level of that in KOTOR, you were going to get yourself choked by those guys, let alone what you'll get on the Forge. In KOTOR, if you didn't have that tree of powers or electrical resistance gear you were going to die by Malak's hand even if you were a big damage dealer. In KOTOR 2, even the bosses don't use the force against you enough to convince me to spend a power on force resistance.

Wishsong of Shanarra, I believe. Wielded two long swords, and killed some beast that only magic-users had killed before. Cool character. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You are correct, sir. He was actually known as "the Weapons Master" because, well, he mastered a lot of weapons (which makes him perfect for the prestige class). He's an interesting character to role-play, because he lived to seek out challenges in battle, but despite his professed neutrality he really was (in the parlance of Star Wars) a servant of the light. Definitely one of Terry Brooks' more inspired creations. You get all the cool points, but you should share the cookie with Kalfear.

In the end, it was only LucasArts bandwidth-killing site that saved me from your fate. I got the game over my university's winter break and played through it. My parents' house has dial-up, so rather than do 200 jumping jacks while the site loads every time I move somewhere, I just ignored the chronicle updates. That was a lot easier once I got the game, of course. I'm glad I already played through when I got back to school and my fast connection or I would have been privy to those massive spoilers, just like you were.

LS Male Sentinel/Watchman: Dylan Deschain LS Male Guardian/Weapons Master: Garet Jax DS Female Consular Sith Lord: Kyrie Elieson Kyrie Elieson is Greek for "Lord, Have Mercy," which I thought fit well because I always feel guilty playing dark side. Dylan Deschain is a combination of Bob Dylan and Roland Deschain from Stephen King's Dark Tower series. If you know who Garet Jax is, you win 100,000 cool points. And a cookie.

that sounds like a good explanation <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Naw, that is just a well put together excuse. Don't give me that crap. Just admit it. Obsidian used Nihilus only because he looked more appealing and same with Atris. So Obsidian felt that these two characters would open the eyes of the KOTOR fans. And to tell you the truth they prevailed. Everyone was talking about the Masked Sith and the White-Haired Jedi. Just like when they made that wallpaper of the two fighting each other. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, it's not an excuse for It is a logical part of the plot, as several have stated so far. I don't disagree with the fact that he was hyped up a lot, but as others have said, that's marketing. He looks pretty cool, and even if Atris never fought him (or never knew he existed, except as some vague, abstract threat) it gives the classic Star Wars symbolism of good vs. evil. Also, Obsidian probably took great pleasure in twisting that symbolism - especially after questioning your preconceptions of dark and light throughout the game.

This is the best poll I've seen in quite some time... I didn't really get into the MGS games so I don't know that Raiden, but I bet the clever author of this post is referring to the God of Thunder himself. Wow... thanks for a laugh and of course.... Have a nice day.

The randomness of it makes for some interesting playthroughs. My first playthrough I got the Zeison Sha intitate armor in the Telos military base - pretty early in the game. My second game, I didn't really get nice robes until near the end. I just started a third game, and I already got a padawan robe on the Harbinger. Well, Obsidian totally succeeded in making it very random. I found the Ossus Keeper robes in the museum in the Onderon palace, along with some other really nice stuff.

The game disappointed me in the end. I'm not saying that the ending was disappointing, I'm just saying that it didn't live up to my expectations by the time I was through with it. Now, this is probably my fault, because I have never waited for a game to come out with such anticipation before TSL. Before this summer, I had never waited (im)patiently to fawn over every new screenshot, every new post by a developer, every scrap of new information. Looking back, I set myself up for the fall by setting this game on an unattainable platform. It really would have had to soar above the original to satisfy me. But here's the kicker - while I probably would have been satified with an expansion pack, in essence, Obsidian's effort led me on. I was so hyped for the new features that I couldn't help but be disappointed when they weren't completely realized. There were so many great ideas that I couldn't help myself - I got excited. The worst part of the "unfinished" aspects for me was the character interaction. I have high influence with a character who just had a life-changing experience, a turning point in his/her life. The next time I talk to them, they damn well better have something to say about it! It just makes sense! Don't give me the same dialogue options he/she had when he/she first joined my party. The difficulty level: I planned attribute, skill, feat and power distribution for months before the game even dropped to give me the slightest advantage - I could have pulled a Jackson Pollack and spread my sh*t everywhere, it didn't matter for KOTOR 2. I could have randomly picked just about anything and still beat the game (on default difficulty). Overall the story is engaging, and the small fixes would make it hard for me to return to KOTOR. Now that the robes look good, the conversations have further reaching consequences and two separate weapon configurations are the norm, it would be hard (for me) to play KOTOR instead of KOTOR 2, just due to small changes..

Just to defend Obsidian (a stance that is unjustly becoming the devil's advocate around here), I thought I'd mention that Bao-Dur does make a statement on Telos about Cannoks and how they'll eat anything. If I remember right, the context was "Don't be surprised if you find some awesome weapon lodged in their gullet, because they eat just about anything they come across. And who knows, maybe the Cannoks devour their prey weapons and all. Maybe a absolutely terrible Jedi got chomped by one and it swallowed his/her lightsaber. What an embarrassing way to go. "

My first character was DEX-based, with the lightsaber finesse feat. I got around the low damage output by installing only upgrades that add to my damage. That ended up balancing him pretty well. In my opinion, low damage is a small tradeoff for high defense. With battle precognition adding my wisdom bonus to my defense, my character could sit there and swat at the Sith all day without fear of even getting hit. It sometimes sucks having low strength in the early game, though. I never want to invest in the melee finesse feat, because I know once I get that lightsaber it's not leaving my hand. So, my DEX-based dude got to test out the ranged combat in TSL.

Haha....exactly. I think I spent about 10 minutes at that forum once. Then I puked. After I cleaned my shirt, I resolved never to waste my time with that drivel again. :cool: