More gaming ranting...
I got two games for christmas: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords.
I've beaten KotOR 2 already, throwing about 30 hours of gameplay into it. Not the longest RPG's I've played, but that's no small chunk of time. The game is excelent, the characters are deep and well-played by the voice actors, the combat system is nearly unchanged but has some beautiful new animations and some clever additions that, while not especially useful, still are unique enough to warrant some experimenting, and the battles have both some memorable moments and can be especially difficult at times. Not to mention a new upgrading system that can allow you to make some special, powerful weapons. The game is just truly wonderful.
Well, all that's true for most of the game.
Like KotOR 1, KotOR 2 follows a three-act style of environments. In act 1, you are restricted to a set path upon which you learn of the crisis and build up a large part of your party, as well as learning a lot about the state of the Republic. In act 2, you can go to a variety of different locales, in any order, to find the crucial elements that will allow the Jedi and Republic to weather the storm, and at the end of it you learn a crucial element the makes all of the pieces fit into place. And in act 3, you go fight the big bad evil guy.
Act 1 and 2 of KotOR 1 were pretty good, but at the end of Act 2 the surprise basically threw you for one hell of a loop. Similar to the Vader thing at the end of Empire. In KotOR 2, the surprise is sorta obvious, but still a little bit of a shock in some ways, but still, Act 1 and 2 of KotOR 2 in many ways surpass its predicessor's, especially when you visit Nar Shaddaa. But Act 3, and in some ways towards the end of Act 2, the game falls apart.
For one, the game becomes too easy. While you spend most of the time at the end of the game with only the main character, your character is going to be over level 20 by then, throwing down with a prestige class that just makes you even more powerful. While I was using a KotOR 1 build that has always been absurdly powerful (stunning/stasis force powers, Master Speed, and Master Power Attack is overpowered to the extreme), I was still able to breeze through almost all of my enemies with little resistance. I had over 300 hp (note: This is based on the D&D core rule set. Since most weapons deal 10-20 max damage, 300 hp is pretty absurd). Also, my mana was regenerating so quickly I was never in trouble of running out. And while the final battle was fairly difficult, the enemy wasn't nearly powerful enough to reduce my hp enough that couldn't be counteracted by using my rediculously powerful medpacks. Then again, I was majorly twinking my character out.
Oh, and remember the new item upgrading system? This just compounded the problem. While weapons weren't a huge issue, it sorta gets weird when my character, only wearing very light armor so he can take full use of his jedi abilities, can mod out his armor so that the only thing that has a chance of hurting him is lightsaberes by giving his armor tons of damage reduction against physical damage.
The biggest disappointment was the story, though. For one, the big surprise is rather obvious. No deft touches like in the first game, you can pretty much see it coming. But, also, once you enter act 3, PC-NPC dialog mostly goes away. While a male character has three choices of romantic interests, there's no real resolution involved. None. No kissing, no "I love you", nothing. I have a feeling that there would be a similar thing for female characters.
And the ending is pretty much crap. After you reach the final level you never see the rest of your party again. You learn that they do indeed survive, but its not made clear how that happened. BUT YOU NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN! You do learn what your character has to do after the game, but without talking to the other party members there's no more resolution there, either.
So why am I ranting? Well, the KotOR 1 came out last year (2003), and KotOR 2 just came out during the big 2004 game splurge. The fact that all of this new content was added in just the last year is amazing, but they failed on a number of fronts:
1: The old super-power builds remained horribly imbalenced. When you make a sequel you fix what was wrong with the original! (Such as in Halo 2, they nerfed the best weapon from Halo, the pistol, by taking away the scope)
2: There were a number of bugs that, while having little affect on the gameplay, still were annoying and easy to find.
3: The story crashed and burned about two ways of the way through.
4: No resolution for the characters or the story.
5: Even without twinking, the game was probably too easy.
So in short?
They didn't finish the game.
Is it a good game? Hell yeah. Its the best traditional RPG to come out since KotOR 1. But it could've been a lot better. Lets say they take an extra 6 months to work on the game. That way it comes out in the summer. While not prime shopping season, it ain't bad. They fix up the bugs, finish the storyline to the point where it retains the depth it showed in the early parts of the game, add some resolution to the love interests, and balance it out a bit so that it remains a challenge throughout, or at least until you find a new uber strat.
This is going to be a problem with the gaming industry for the years to come. They are so interested in hitting the winter release window that they are willing to ship an incomplete project. There are some companies (Blizzard and Valve, for example) who don't have set release dates. They take the "We'll release it when its done" mindset, and Blizzard is one of the most successful companies, with games that define genres, while Valve took their time to release a Half-Life 2, which in any other year would easily have been the #1 FPS of the year. But, they went up against Halo 2, which was worked on for 3 years before being released with absurd success.
The problem is, though, that Blizzard, Valve and Bungie are the heavy minority compared to the rest of the industry that must release products on deadline.
Deadlines are good. But when deadlines start to get in the way of good products, then there's a problem here.
Five bucks that the PC release of KotOR 2 is going to have everything I listed above...
I've beaten KotOR 2 already, throwing about 30 hours of gameplay into it. Not the longest RPG's I've played, but that's no small chunk of time. The game is excelent, the characters are deep and well-played by the voice actors, the combat system is nearly unchanged but has some beautiful new animations and some clever additions that, while not especially useful, still are unique enough to warrant some experimenting, and the battles have both some memorable moments and can be especially difficult at times. Not to mention a new upgrading system that can allow you to make some special, powerful weapons. The game is just truly wonderful.
Well, all that's true for most of the game.
Like KotOR 1, KotOR 2 follows a three-act style of environments. In act 1, you are restricted to a set path upon which you learn of the crisis and build up a large part of your party, as well as learning a lot about the state of the Republic. In act 2, you can go to a variety of different locales, in any order, to find the crucial elements that will allow the Jedi and Republic to weather the storm, and at the end of it you learn a crucial element the makes all of the pieces fit into place. And in act 3, you go fight the big bad evil guy.
Act 1 and 2 of KotOR 1 were pretty good, but at the end of Act 2 the surprise basically threw you for one hell of a loop. Similar to the Vader thing at the end of Empire. In KotOR 2, the surprise is sorta obvious, but still a little bit of a shock in some ways, but still, Act 1 and 2 of KotOR 2 in many ways surpass its predicessor's, especially when you visit Nar Shaddaa. But Act 3, and in some ways towards the end of Act 2, the game falls apart.
For one, the game becomes too easy. While you spend most of the time at the end of the game with only the main character, your character is going to be over level 20 by then, throwing down with a prestige class that just makes you even more powerful. While I was using a KotOR 1 build that has always been absurdly powerful (stunning/stasis force powers, Master Speed, and Master Power Attack is overpowered to the extreme), I was still able to breeze through almost all of my enemies with little resistance. I had over 300 hp (note: This is based on the D&D core rule set. Since most weapons deal 10-20 max damage, 300 hp is pretty absurd). Also, my mana was regenerating so quickly I was never in trouble of running out. And while the final battle was fairly difficult, the enemy wasn't nearly powerful enough to reduce my hp enough that couldn't be counteracted by using my rediculously powerful medpacks. Then again, I was majorly twinking my character out.
Oh, and remember the new item upgrading system? This just compounded the problem. While weapons weren't a huge issue, it sorta gets weird when my character, only wearing very light armor so he can take full use of his jedi abilities, can mod out his armor so that the only thing that has a chance of hurting him is lightsaberes by giving his armor tons of damage reduction against physical damage.
The biggest disappointment was the story, though. For one, the big surprise is rather obvious. No deft touches like in the first game, you can pretty much see it coming. But, also, once you enter act 3, PC-NPC dialog mostly goes away. While a male character has three choices of romantic interests, there's no real resolution involved. None. No kissing, no "I love you", nothing. I have a feeling that there would be a similar thing for female characters.
And the ending is pretty much crap. After you reach the final level you never see the rest of your party again. You learn that they do indeed survive, but its not made clear how that happened. BUT YOU NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN! You do learn what your character has to do after the game, but without talking to the other party members there's no more resolution there, either.
So why am I ranting? Well, the KotOR 1 came out last year (2003), and KotOR 2 just came out during the big 2004 game splurge. The fact that all of this new content was added in just the last year is amazing, but they failed on a number of fronts:
1: The old super-power builds remained horribly imbalenced. When you make a sequel you fix what was wrong with the original! (Such as in Halo 2, they nerfed the best weapon from Halo, the pistol, by taking away the scope)
2: There were a number of bugs that, while having little affect on the gameplay, still were annoying and easy to find.
3: The story crashed and burned about two ways of the way through.
4: No resolution for the characters or the story.
5: Even without twinking, the game was probably too easy.
So in short?
They didn't finish the game.
Is it a good game? Hell yeah. Its the best traditional RPG to come out since KotOR 1. But it could've been a lot better. Lets say they take an extra 6 months to work on the game. That way it comes out in the summer. While not prime shopping season, it ain't bad. They fix up the bugs, finish the storyline to the point where it retains the depth it showed in the early parts of the game, add some resolution to the love interests, and balance it out a bit so that it remains a challenge throughout, or at least until you find a new uber strat.
This is going to be a problem with the gaming industry for the years to come. They are so interested in hitting the winter release window that they are willing to ship an incomplete project. There are some companies (Blizzard and Valve, for example) who don't have set release dates. They take the "We'll release it when its done" mindset, and Blizzard is one of the most successful companies, with games that define genres, while Valve took their time to release a Half-Life 2, which in any other year would easily have been the #1 FPS of the year. But, they went up against Halo 2, which was worked on for 3 years before being released with absurd success.
The problem is, though, that Blizzard, Valve and Bungie are the heavy minority compared to the rest of the industry that must release products on deadline.
Deadlines are good. But when deadlines start to get in the way of good products, then there's a problem here.
Five bucks that the PC release of KotOR 2 is going to have everything I listed above...
posted by Wraithy at 1/01/2005 01:23:00 PM
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