Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (Xbox)

You are an exile, a former Jedi who has disgraced the teachings of the light and has been casted out of the Jedi Order. All this due to Revan and his warmonging with the Mandelorians, was it worth it? Well it bloody well was because this game wouldn't exist if Revan never went evil!

The story continues where the last game left off, and if you haven't played the last game here is a hyper brief explanation of the previous game. A Jedi Master called Revan defied the Jedi Order's instructions to not engage the enemies of the Republic (in other words the Mandelorians), but Revan was having none of it. Revan went with the apprentice Malak and a hand full of other Jedi to fight in the Mandelorian war. But guess what happened, yup they all went evil, fell to the dark side and became Sith.

Except you of course, after the Mandelorian war you returned to the Jedi Council and was casted out, an exile for your actions and your lightsabre/force powers taken away. No more shaving in the morning or making breakfast at super speed anymore I'm afraid. Later on came the Jedi Civil War, except that it wasn't Jedi VS Jedi. It was the Sith who were fighting the Jedi and you didn't want anything to do with it so you left the Jedi's Council's planet of Dantooine. Force user against Force user trying Force each other into destruction.

Well of course that little war has made you one of the very few Force users who haven't fallen to the dark side. Problem is - to the Sith, if you're not using dark side powers - you must be a Jedi. The thought hasn't occurred to them that you stand neutral and are no longer a Jedi, but the Sith don't care as they still hunt you down to try and kill you... the last 'Jedi Knight'. Ah well it's no big deal, all part of the game!

The game starts you off on the Ebon Hawk (yes the ship of the previous game). The Ebon Hawk rescued you from a Republic ship that was taken over by the Sith. The Ebon Hawk took major damage from being fired at during the escape, but a protocol droid managed to repair enough of the damage so that the Ebon Hawk could land on a mining colony called Peragus III. The problems don't end there though, it seems The Exchange (a sort of intergalactic mafia dealing in all forms of crime) have placed a bounty on your head and many people want to give you over to claim it. Just great isn't it? You awaken all of a sudden inside a healing tube from somebody calling to you through the force, so begins your task of finding out why everyone on the mining colony has gone missing, how you are going to get off the colony with your life and find out what happened to the Jedi Order. Hmmm....

Well that's the story up to the beginning of the game, and yes the Jedi are more or less extinct after the war with all the Jedi buildings destroyed and most of the Jedi killed. The game makes me laugh in how it goes with it's 'set 1,000 years ago' has technology not changed in 1,000 years? Everything is the same back in the day, except that Anakin doesn't exist.

The game has amazing graphics, that cannot be mistaken. The graphics do glitch here and there, such as a little flicker in the corner of the screen resulting in the graphics having gaps. But that happens only occasionally and I was too engrossed withthe gameplay to notice it half the time. From the lush greenery of Dantooine to the jagged wastelands of Korriban, the graphics really show off the capabilities of the graphics chip. Light effects on your armour also add to experience as they ae fantastic, but best of all the skimpy costumes the ladies can wear do not reveal crappy, badly 3D modelled female forms... oh no. The ladies have been modelled extremely well, meaning you don't have to scrunch up your face everytime you have to do a 'wear skimpy costume and do a jiggly dance' quest in the game. The thing is, the graphics are more or less the same as the previous game, nothing spetacularly different in this sequel.

Aside from the fact that our protagonist is as mute as a tongue twisted amphibian, the audio is exceptional in this game, a step up from the last game I do believe. The surround sound effects are much more noticeable then the previous game, with blaster shots easily heard from the rear speakers when it hits the wall or enemies wailing to kill you from either side. The audio experience is fantastic, the music doesn't let down either and is played when the right situation occurs. If you do a good deed and gian a lgiht side point, it plays the Jedi enlightment type music. Do you remember that scene in Star Wars Episode 4 when Luke is still living at the farm with his uncle and is staring off into the horizon? Yup, it's that cheesy tune. When you do an evil deed though and gain a dark side point, it plays the drum type 'oh crap Darth Vader is coming to rape us' type music.

Gameplay wise, this game isn't as linear as you would believe. After the initial mining colony level, you are pretty much allowed to explore any planet in which ever order you like. This sense of freedom does make flyign through space a less tedious task since you are in control of what happens. You are pretty much in control of everything that happens in the game, whether you turn good or bad, whether you gain influence with your team mates or not, it's all up to your options during conversation and how your actions are when with them. How your team mates develop is also under your control, you want a team member to become as demolishions expert? No problem! When they level up, just increase that score exponentially and you will eventually have a demolishions master. The battle system is the standard RPG click attack tc and watch them fall over affair. The most spectacular battles are with the lightsabre though, the moves and the sound effects are amazing. During battle you can queue in special attacks or other abilities such as healing, and when the queue moves up to that technique it is carried out by the character. Not very original, but it works! Besides the main game and side quests that you can do (there's loads!), you can also play a card game called Pazaak or do some pod racing to get the fastest time. Pazaak is like 21 bust except that the highest is 20 and you have 4 side cards you can use to bring up the value or bring it down. Quite fun actually if I be honest. The racing though isn't as fun, it's actually quite lame but you can't expect a Wipeout beater in an RPG can you?

One thing I have to complain about though is are the menu screens. It was present with the previous game and it is still here. The menu screens are easy to access, but they are so hard to follow it becomes annoying. You can get 2 vibroswords, both look the same, both have the same name. But if you check the damage they can both do, one of them can do more damage. They should of at least given it a better name like Vibrosword + or something to keep it not as confusing. And then there are the computer terminal menus whic hare pure text based. It can be so annoying navigating the consoles since you have so much to read and then you remember if you've been on the other option or not, that you end up selecting 'destroy this terminal' for annoying you so much. Know my fury!

Another one of the other problems is the lack of character models in the game. The characters in the game that you interact with all look similar... then you realise it's basically the same model as the other character with the same voice but slightly darker skin tone. This applies even to alien characters such as Twi'leks. And for alien characters, what makes me laugh is how they would say the same thing 3 times in succession i.e. wampper wooger willa, wampper wooger willa etc and each sentence would be different. I'm like... huh? What they say is rather random compared to their subtitles, but the games developers could of at least made sure the next thign they said wasn't the same as the the last thing they said 1 or 2 sentences ago.

Overall though a great RPG that continues the greatness of the previous Star Wars RPG game. Although it doesn't surpass the last game and is more of an add-on type game, it still makes the Star Wars family proud that it's not one of those Star Wars stinkers i.e. Star Wars Battlefront.... what a dissapointment. If you enjoyed the previous game then get this one now! Those that like the RPG genre in general should try it as well. Anyone not sure about it should try it out at a friend's and then see if you would to own yourself a copy! Highly recommended!