No KOTOR For PS2, Darth Vader Playable?

Thanks to IGN PS2 for their second Playstation 2 rumor round-up, including plenty of questionable whisperings (GTA4 is referenced as possibly being called 'Sin City', though this was a notable April Fool's gag), but at least one official confirmation, from Lucasarts, following some online confusion, that "There are no plans for to develop Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the PS2. We are concentrating fully on the development of the PC version of the game." The rest of the rumor-mongering has at least one intriguing tip, the claim that LucasArts are developing "a third-person perspective action-adventure game [which] enables players to take on the role of Darth Vader."

Comments

Am I the only one?

[magsymp]

Who thinks that basically all the Star Wars Games/Movies are on the downfall? I mean I tried this game at a friends house and it's not amazing. Grated I think it's better than alot of the junk I have tried on the X-Box but according the me, the last good game/movie involved with the Star Wars franchise was Tie Fighter, which was what? 1996? *drool*... God I loved that game. The feeling of being so puny when you used the regular Tie... and then the power of the Tie Advanced. I think I just soiled myself... oops Anyhoo... whatever.

Re:Am I the only one?

[superultra]

You probably haven't played KOTOR enough then. I played X-Wing and Tie Fighter and, yes, Rebel Assault back in the day and KOTOR is right up there with them in terms of recreating the Star Wars experience. You're also neglecting to mention Raven's Jedi Knight work. It's not groundbreaking but is definitely solid as far as FPS's go. And Level 5's work on Rogue Squadron/leader far outshines the Force Commanders of the Star Wars bunch. The Lucasarts Indiana Jones adventure games I played as a kid were so amazing that I wanted so badly for them to do the same with Star Wars. KOTOR is right up there with those. It makes you feel like you really *are* Han Solo, or Luke Skywalker, or even Darth Vader. It takes some time to get into it, maybe a good hour or two, but KOTOR is easily one of the best Star Wars games ever crafted.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Sentry21]

Pff, I've spent the last week playing the SNES I just got, and among the only games I've managed to borrow are the three Star Wars games - play those and then play KOTOR, and the difference is staggering.

As for the Tie Fighter/Rogue Squadron/etc. games, I find them too repetetive generaly - well done, but really, another space dogfighting game? For that matter, another Star Wars space dogfighting game? I had my fill with Wing Commander III, which at least had something resembling a unique plotline to go with the gameplay.

KOTOR, however, has renewed my faith in the Lucasarts team and Star Wars games in general. It really is amazing, and other than the 'save game is accidentally corrupted' bug, the worst part is the number of people I deal with on a day to day basis that won't stop talking about it. Whether that's actually a bad thing or not depends on whether or not you like to hear 'war stories' about RP games. If so, it's a definite plus.

--Dan

Duh, no PS2 port.

[Inoshiro]

This game is something that the PS2 would not be able to run unless it was cut down so far as to make the game useless. Save files for it are 64megs in save, for crynig out loud! You're as likely to see Morrowind on the PS2 as KOTOR.

If you've played the game, you know the enormous amount of detail that was put into it. They'de have to take out all bump mapping, shrink the levels, remove most of the NPCs, etc, etc. The PS2 just doesn't have the graphics power and RAM to execute this game. Plus, there's no way for Bioware to release updates to the game on the PS2; even if they figured out how to release updates via Sony's network adaptor (without any of the Live! infrastructure), where'd you put it? Assuming you could do a 4/1 compression on the save file, you'd still take 2 full memory cards with each KOTOR save.

I think you should play this game, as it is excellent. Wether you do so on your PC or you Xbox is up to you. If you don't have either, consider getting one; the more systems you own, the more games you can play, the less likely you'll ever miss out on anything cool.

Re:Duh, no PS2 port.

[EvilSporkMan]

remove most of the NPCs
You mean all 8 of them? Ok, so I'm exaggerating a bit, but there are maybe 3 models for each gender and race of NPC. That sounds like a lot, but really, every fourth person has the SAME FACE!

That said, it's really quite a nice game =)

Re:Duh, no PS2 port.

[Yrd]

Yeah, that lack of NPC models affects all Bioware games though. I guess it's just not worth developing them!

Although Neverwinter Nights has a rather startlingly large number of them, they still get repeated, and so do the character portraits. They really should make a game where it's impossible to select one of the NPC character portraits as your own.

Beginning to get rather annoyed with people getting upset about now PS2 ports for things. Wake up and smell the coffee - it's outdated hardware! Someone get them a PC!

This was confirmed as Xbox and PC only for a WHILE

[analog_line]

I hadn't heard any rumors it was being released for anything other than the Xbox and PC for...awhile. Several months at least. Probably just wishful thinking on the part of PS2 owners.

Me, I'm not even buying it for PC. I have enough RPGs I haven't finished, and I haven't seen any reason why I need to add this to the stack. I've heard nothing but good about it, but it just doesn't matter.

Action game with Darth Vader?

[Torgo's Pizza]

I'm just not seeing it. Somehow the image of Darth Vader in a third-person perspective doing bunny hops, clinging to railing edges and running doesn't seem right.

The cool thing about Vader is the fact that he's so bad-ass he doesn't do those type of things. He's all about choking people from afar using his fingers and lightsabers. He's about presence and fear. He's management. Vader let's his minions do the piddly stuff and steps in to finish it off. This game design really, really worries me.

Re:Action game with Darth Vader?

[Torgo's Pizza]

After reading some of the comments to my original post, I can see that I'm right on this. I mean, what is the marketing department going to do to hype up the game?

Play as Darth Vader! The action includes:

Pacing on the bridge of your Star Destroyer!

One, two, three, turn, One, two, three, turn, choke officer, One, two, three, turn...

Interview Bounty Hunters!

Darth: I need a bounty hunter to go after Cmmdr. Solo. Tell me about yourself.

Boba Fett: Well, I'm a people person. I'm good with a blaster and have a pretty cool backpack.

Darth: I see. I find your lack of experience disturbing.

Give status reports to the Emperor!

Darth: My Master. During our last game turn we were able to harvest enough resources from our harvestors to enable our AT-AT rush to succeed. By building five new armories and researching new technology, we were able to increase our worker production by 33%!

Emperor: Excellent Lord Vader! Your game ranking has increased!

Build your own SimDeath Star!

Darth: Let's see. Need to move this here, build that. Wait! What do you mean my droids are revolting? Now what's that symbol over my stormtroopers heads? Aren't they happy with that rec room I just built?

Preorder your copy today!

Re:Shame

[dakryx]

So let me get this straight, you were willing to buy it for ps2, but for PC you would d pirate it? Does that make sense to anyone else?