Azaroth

Well, this certainly isn’t a cutting edge gaming review site. Or a movie site, really in any fashion. So that’s probably why I “reviewed” Spiderman 2 (2004) in 2006, and I’m “reviewing” KOTOR 2 (2005) now in 2008.

Can you tell I frequent local businesses and tend to avoid being hip and current at all costs? I promise it’s just natural lameness.

Either way, I was browsing through shelves of movies for something terrible to watch the other night. This was between having there incredibly large glasses of sparkling apple cider at dinner and swerving into the liquor store to pick up the bottle of scotch that I figured would be a fantastic idea to drink on the rocks when I got home. I think I was also smoking a cigarette. So my judgement had clearly been impaired and old habits were rearing their ugly heads. I’m surprised I didn’t go home with a cheap hooker.

I suppose my choice was close enough, however. After spotting a copy of Knights Of The Old Republic 2 on the shelf, I grabbed it.. thinking of wasted days gone by enjoying KOTOR 1. I mean, what the hell, right?

Well, it turns out that I probably should have just kept on walking with the Megaman compilation I had in my hand.

KOTOR 2 is fun, but only because Obsidian licensed the engine, tools, code, and graphics from KOTOR1. Combat is exactly the same. 50% of the graphics are reused (or more, honestly). You are inexplicably aboard the Ebon Hawk again, you go to the same places again, all the skills and powers are the same… it’s the exact same god damn thing with a different story. Except the story sucks.

So here’s my review:

Talking. Talking. Talk to NPCs. Wonder where the fuck you’re going and why you’re going there. Load screen. Load screen. Load screen. Load screen. Load screen.

Just as I settled in to my fate and decided that I would rent this game for several extra days just to finish it, obviously some malicious slicer got into my Xbox and hacked the shit out of my game. Because in an event that looked like it could be nothing other than a malicious, purposely implanted bug - my party disappeared, I died, and the game saved simultaneously and completely randomly. For those that don’t know, when your entire part happens to die, the game is over. When the game saves, it overwrites the last autosave.

So there I was, vainly trying to reload the last autosave while I slowly realized that there wasn’t a god damned thing I could do about the fact that the game randomly saved a milisecond after my party disappeared and my character dropped dead, leaving me nothing to go back to except a game I randomly saved to a slot 44 hours ago. I leave the Xbox on because I’m lazy as hell, but that was still probably a solid eight to ten hours of talking and load screens that you can bet I wasn’t going to repeat.

In short:

Go to hell, Obsidian. KOTOR 2 fucking sucks, and so do you. Yeah, I can make a bad sequel to a good game if you give me the engine and the entire codebase, too.

In the end, KOTOR 2 left me ashamed of myself and with a case of buyer’s remorse. Kind of like that cheap hooker, which would have at least taken up less of my time.