Reviews// Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords

Fundamentally, an RPG like this needs to work around an interesting story: and once you've committed to ploughing through a few hours of conversation with condescending aliens and blooping droids, the investment pays off. The choices you are presented with in conversation can not only affect consequent actions directly, but will also contribute to your overall light/dark balance. As the game pans out, you'll find yourself following fate, as a stronger light side makes being 'good' easier and therefore makes you 'gooder‘, and the cycle continues. If you then want to deviate from the destiny you're heading towards, it will take some fairly severe decisions one way or the other. The significance of your chosen response means that even when the conversations are dragging on a bit, you’ll want to pay attention to what’s being said: so quite apart form the way it affects your character, it also serves to keep you interested. And to reinforce this, the voice acting is of a high quality throughout. The pious preachings of Force-this and Wisdom-that do begin to tire if you’re not a Star Wars devotee. After all, there is only so much talk of destiny, fate and power crystals that any real human being can take in one sitting. But overall, it presents you with an impressively immersive tale to lark about in.

Forgetting for a moment the ties to George Lucas’ creation and the Xbox console exclusivity, simply as another western developed RPG on the block, Sith Lords is pretty decent. And although the combat system is one of the principal reasons why fans of the game like it so much, it’s also a reason why certain elements of the role-playing gaming community might turn their noses up at it. And not just the elements that are playing at the role of snobby pigs. The attack and defence basically works on a thoughtful, inventory-enhanced, stats-based roll of a 20-sided-die… and then throws in a load of having to move around the screen in live action mode. So, while on one hand, the rank and file followers of action will be wondering why, if they can run around the combat field, they can only add attack commands to a queue list on a menu rather just bashing some buttons; the most heavily bearded RPGer may find this a diluted experience.

For the most part, and for most people, however, the Sith Lords has the RPG balance just right, and that’s part of what will make it so popular: and is exactly the same reason why the original was so enjoyable. Apart from the slow start, the pacing of the game works well. There’s a lot of chatting to be done and a fair amount of exploration, but never so much as to be daunting. Although some might criticise the relatively linear design of many of the different worlds, it does literally keep you on the right path and makes sure you’re progressing at a decent rate. With a game of this scale, there’s no bigger risk than stranding the player with only a few oblique plot references, assuming they'll work out exactly what it is that’s supposed to be done, before the whole thing just gets abandoned. Sith Lords, however, is nicely punctuated with important achievements and storyline twists, and is generously packed with enemies to hit and things to collect. Once momentum is gained, it will take you somewhere up to the 40-50 hour mark to complete: which is respectable by even the most demanding standards.