EGM/CGW Show Knights of the Old Republic 2 Details

An anonymous reader writes "The Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic official forums are buzzing with new details on the Obsidian Entertainment-developed Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords for Xbox/PC, as discussed in this month's new EGM and CGW magazines [not yet available online, sadly]. Apparently, 'you will not play the same character', although 'you pilot the Ebon Hawk.. [and] start out as a Jedi' - the game 'picks up 5 years after the end of the first KOTOR', and returning roles are also confirmed for 'R2-D2-esque droid T3-M4' and 'another bot that bears a suspicious resemblance to the original's irascible 'meatbag'-loathing HK-47'."

Comments

Re:WHat about Bioware???

[simoniker]

Yes, they certainly do - check out this press release (made before KOTOR 2 was specifically announced, obviously!)

Re:Oh goody!

[ctr2sprt]

The XBOX version must've really been awful, but the PC version was very solid. I saw three bugs, only one of which was significant (and it was fixed less than a week after the game came out). If the XBOX version is that much worse, maybe BioWare have learned the error of their ways and KOTOR2 will be much improved.

Re:WHat about Bioware???

[easychord]

In case anyone is worried about the a company other than Bioware working on it, Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone at Obsidian have a good reputation. To put it mildly.

Re:Which ending?

[PeteyG]

I read an article in CGW or something, where they said that through the course of KOTOR2, the people you talk to will ask you a question in normal conversation about something pertaining to the events in KOTOR. Your answer will tell the game what choices were made in KOTOR, so that KOTOR2 can be tailored to match your experience in KOTOR (whichever one you choose, anyway).

This is a pretty subtle way of doing it. I probably would have gone ahead and started off with a little questionaire at the beginning, but that would probably be too blatant for most people.

That's how I understood it, anyways.

Re:How will it start off?

[Anonymous Coward]

Past sequels in the Jedi Knight series always started from the previous light side ending.

Re:Hawking magazines is news?

[simoniker]

KOTOR 2 is particularly important/noteworthy info, but yes, the full previews aren't available on the web yet, because it's a magazine-specific exclusive.

However, as I understand it, we can still discuss the information contained in the article, and there's plenty of good info (name, developer, recurring characters) available in the summary article and there - it's all in the threads on the messageboard. I imagine we'll get more info when/if 1UP post the full previews on the Web.

So of course we're not going to do this often, but I think it's worth it for the first concrete info on the KOTOR sequel. YMMV, of course.

Re:Where is it?

[PeteyG]

Found scans of the CGW article on KOTOR 2 on one of the KOTOR message boards. Awesome!

http://chouzan.net/crap/neowin/kotor2_001.jpg
h ttp://chouzan.net/crap/neowin/kotor2_002.jpg
http ://chouzan.net/crap/neowin/kotor2_003.jpg
http:// chouzan.net/crap/neowin/kotor2_004.jpg
http://cho uzan.net/crap/neowin/kotor2_005.jpg
http://chouza n.net/crap/neowin/kotor2_006.jpg
http://chouzan.n et/crap/neowin/kotor2_007.jpg

Re:Which ending?

[Randar the Lava Liza]

According to the article:

Early in The Sith Lords, you'll have various conversations that explain and address key plot points from the last game--you'll tell the game how you believe things went down--and the dialogue choices you make will affect story development in the rest of the game. "We tried to slip it in subtly," Avellone says, but clearly, the freedom to customize the story--such a beloved and important aspect of the first game--will be alive and well in this followup.

So you get to describe what happened in the last game and the new game will take that into account as the story begins. Fantastic!

Re:Where is it?

[obeythefist]

Good news and bad news of course

KOTOR2, because it's being written for XBox, doesn't give the developers any time to improve the engine, add DX9 shaders or anything "contemporary" to the game. So really, it shouldn't be called KOTOR2, it should be a "mission pack". The game engine will very likely look, feel and play just like KOTOR, with perhaps a few UI tweaks.

The minor bit of good news is that because this is a mission pack, the game should be out rather quickly because there's less bug checking needed than when breaking in a new engine.