Star Bores

...heh, heh, because, see, it rhymes with Star Wars, but it's...oh, what a terrible headline...

by Dave McAwesome

As much as I like the concept of Star Wars: Galaxies, there's no chance in ten that I'll pony up $15 each month for the privilege of playing that damned thing. Especially with all the Star Wars geeks running around the Sony servers shouting, "Look at me! I'm a feared bounty hunter."

Screw. That.

Instead, I picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2.

The character faces from which you choose are so hideous, I decided to hide my dude behind an iron mask for much of the game. I should've named him Destro. And look at him with those two lightsabers. What does that tell you about his sexual inadequacies?

KOTOR 2 is just like Myst, but with Jedi, lightsabers and tons of fighting. Oh, and the puzzles aren't as complex, the sense of mystery isn't really there and...uh...I guess it really isn't like Myst at all.

The basic premise is, you've got to kick some ass and save the galaxy. If you kick ass as a good guy, you're a Jedi. If you kick ass as a bad guy, you're a Sith. But you're definitely going to kick some serious ass. People join you and crap, too. I convinced 4 people to let me train them to become Jedi. Boss. Even though you start the game as an ex-Jedi, some arbitrary plot exposition demands that you don't start with a lightsaber; you have to build one (you can change the color of it or make it a double-bladed saber or you can use two sabers at once). The sight of your character and your trainees equipped with lightsabers, deflecting laser shots and cutting down swarms of enemy soldiers is pretty damn cool.

Most of the game, actually, was cool until the sucky ending. Then I started a new game to go down the dark side instead of the Jedi side and I just got...bored. I started to notice all the bad points in the game. I had spent all this time building up these cool helper characters and then poof, the game doesn't even let you use them for the last two levels/planets. You're forced to use Mandalore on The Ravager, damn it. I spent time--actual hours--developing these other characters and all of a sudden this latecomer whom I don't care about is a major fixture of my party. Go away, Mandalore, you miserable, arrogant wretch. Then after you beat Darth Nihilus, you crash land on Malachor and guess what? You're alone. Your beloved characters never make another appearance in the game (with minor, inconsequential exceptions). And then you're left with a mind-numbing fight/win/heal/walk, fight/win/heal/walk dungeon crawl until you knock off Darth Sion and Darth Treya.

Oh, there were spoilers in the previous paragraph, so watch out for that.

Maybe a psychotic maniac type of dark side character would renew whatever joy I once had for this game. I started again with a dark sider. God, I forgot how awful the missions on the first planet were (and again for most of that level you don't have any permanent party members, only your ugly main character). At least I could skip the equally dreadful prologue level. But then I started really examining how many decent levels there were in the game. Prologue? Sucks. Peragus? Sucks. Telos Station? Very good, but the T3 droid is unavailable so you're stuck with the same party the whole time. Telos Planet? Boring dungeon crawl. Nar Shadda? Excellent until they strip you of your party again (just when the characters are starting to develop) and the end becomes a tedious dungeon crawl (followed by a second tedious dungeon crawl). Dantooine? Pretty good, but ultimately there's not enough depth - certainly not the same depth as Nar Shadda. Onderon/Dxun? Very linear. Too linear, really. At this point, the multiple sidequests aspect all but disappears and the game funnels you where it wants you to go. Plus, you're forced to take Mandalore instead of one of your more interesting characters. Korriban? Decent dungeon crawl, but about midway, your characters are taken away and it's just you. Back to Onderon/Dxun. The first part on Dxun is cool. You have to select a three-member party that does NOT include your main dude. That was a fun hack and slash deal. Then you have your main character, Kreia and one more down on Onderun. Overall it's a fun level. Then you're on to The Ravager and Malachor which I've already ruined for you.

KOTOR 2 was first released for the Xbox, and it was rushed for the Christmas 2004 season. The PC version came out a few months later. I don't know why they had to rush the PC version, but it has all the signs of it. Version 1 was buggy as hell, if you didn't have a Radeon card you were in KOTOR purgatory, and several levels (ditched in the Xbox version) were never fleshed out. There is dialogue in the game that refers to missions that were never implemented by the developers. There are entire map sections that you can see in the "map window" but cannot get to because the game was, essentially, unfinished. Grr.

The ending sequence, by the way, is woefully short. Very unsatisfying.

Despite all that, I really did enjoy the game. It was fun, just not replayable. I'm only a quarter of the way through the dark side thing, and I don't care anymore. I'm hardly going to use these characters later anyway, I tell myself. So screw 'em. Then I realize I'm talking to myself about fictional computer game characters, and I step away from the computer monitor to rejoin the real world. Then I remember how grotesque and brutal the real world is, and I end up shivering in the corner clenching a baseball bat.