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

This is good news

[PeteyG]

Usually when a game is absolutely wonderful, it never sees a sequel because it is not popular.

With KOTOR, I am absolutely thrilled (but not in the least bit surprised) that there will be a sequel. The original game wasn't really groundbreaking, or even all that innovative. But it was an extremely polished game, with fantastic art and audio, a great storyline, and solid gameplay. It was also extremely long (took me almost 50 hours, and I didn't do nearly everything). All in all it made for some of the best gaming goodness I've had in years.

Probably the best thing about KOTOR is that it restored my faith in Star Wars. Episode I and II put a severe dent in my appreciation for Droids, Wookies, and blasters... but KOTOR made me feel GOOD about Star Wars again. It was (almost) like a religious experience.

*sniff*

Re:This is good news

[Strokke]

"The original game wasn't really groundbreaking, or even all that innovative"

I disagree with you on that point. The game brought mainstream aspects of the RPG which had previously only been appreciated by the hardcore. I can personally say this becuase I hooked 3 non-rpg fans on the game (people who despised the genré).

'You just spent 50 hours beating the game...now you are going to replay it with a slightly different character???' Although the game is fairly linear, the feeling of freedom was really groundbreaking in that it was appreciated by the, uh amateur RPG player. All 3 people after beating the game were drawn in by the story and all beat it again as the opposite (interestingly enough all were light the first time).

KOTOR was groundbreaking in its overall appeal to the non-RPG gamer, a feat not easily accomplished by true role playing games. By creating a more public interest in the game, Bioware has guaranteed us gamers a more corporate interest in RPGs

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.

Which ending?

[KeeperS]

If this is supposed to be 5 years after the first KOTOR, which ending does it follow? Depending on the path you take in the first game, things can turn out vastly different.

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:Which ending?

[ChodeMaster]

That is a fairly interesting way of doing it, but it could cause a fair few continuity issues (eg: If people don't answer these questions consistantly in the game, which of the possible endings will the game rely on?)

Also, it could result in the game having little to do with the previous games story line, because main events in the game will not be able to rely on events from the past game (unless the whole storyline of the game were to change based on the answers you give).

It will be interesting to see how they implement this.

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:How will it start off?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Hawking magazines is news?

[GrnArmadillo]

I would love to read about this, but a cursory exam of the linked sites didn't appear to turn up the articles in question. I presume because the articles are in forthcoming print editions that the publishers aren't giving away for free so that people will buy the things. (If I'm wrong, some responder deserves an informative mod.) In which case, this "news post" says "if you want information, you can go buy this magazine". If that's news, are the editors going to start publishing "in this issue" blurbs for all the major gaming mags now?

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.

Where is it?

[zors]

I second that, where the hell is the actual news thats being discussed?

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: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.