omgwtf!

Knights of the Old Republic II was released a few months ago, and since it hit the shelves I had been drooling incessantly, wanting to buy it but refusing to cave to the $50 pricetag. See, I just don’t think that video games should cost fifty fucking dollars unless theyre an MMO that you can play for five or six years, or something with a similar lifespan. KOTOR was a fun game, but I’m only gonna go through it once or twice before it’s simply too much of the same old, same old, and then it’s gonna get relegated to my stockpile of old games or loaned out to friends.

Knights of the Old Republic II was released a few months ago, and since it hit the shelves I had been drooling incessantly, wanting to buy it but refusing to cave to the $50 pricetag. See, I just don’t think that video games should cost fifty fucking dollars unless theyre an MMO that you can play for five or six years, or something with a similar lifespan. KOTOR was a fun game, but I’m only gonna go through it once or twice before it’s simply too much of the same old, same old, and then it’s gonna get relegated to my stockpile of old games or loaned out to friends.

Since it’s an extremely popular title, though, I waited in vain for the price to drop; a frequent visitor of Fry’s, I dutifully checked the title every time I went in, hoping but not expecting to see it at least on sale. Never happened, and I began to waver: should I just woman up and pay the $50 or what? I got pissed off and refused, and so it would be like a little internal war wherein I would go to Fry’s, conduct whatever business I had there and, just before heading to the cashier, I would hit the game aisle to stare and fume at the KOTOR II box until I became convinced that glaring would not knock down the digits fused onto the cardboard. Then I’d leave, bewailing my fate to anyone who would listen (and even those who wouldn’t).

Then one day, in a moment of unthinking nostalgia, I made a terrible mistake: I bought Bard’s Tale. It was only after I’d gotten home that I noticed on the back of the box that the Bard’s quest objectives apparently included things like “cleavage,” and I grew displeased. It would be nice, you see, if once in a while, questing included things like beefcake instead of the cheesecake fare to which female gamers are incessantly subjected. It’s not that we don’t like sex. It’s just that we aren’t all fucking lesbians, and we would like it if these stupid, fuckless game developers would get their heads out of their Dorito-saturated asses and acknowledged us once in a while, for the sake of the bleeding Christ.

But I digress.

So yeah, after perusing the back of the box with that familiar, mounting irritation, I put off loading the game for a while. My roommate played it instead, and she dubbed it “all right.”

Yes, both of us are over 30 (me by 10 years, her by five) and both of us are female, and both of us are old school gamers…we’re talking Amiga gamers here, people. We’re talking Space Invaders and pinball. We come from a group of hardcore, old timey nerds, some of whom make us look like complete amateurs. (I’m talking about YOU, Scottso!)

We played the original Bard’s Tale on the Amiga, and it was a source of months and months…even years…of enjoyment. I was overwhelmed in a weak moment when I brought it home, dazzled by the sticker that proclaimed the box contained “all three games!” and remembering the good old days, a mistake I’ve made over and over in the past and still have yet to learn any lesson from repeating.

Well, a week or two after I brought it home, I found myself too bored with WoW to play for a while; I love the game, best MMO ever, but there’s no crafting in it, which is a terrible plight for the MMO crafter, a caste of which I happen to be a devout member. If this game had the crafting that SWG had, only WoW-style, it would be as near to gaming Nirvana as could be expected given the species’ current level of technological evolution. I suppose I’m pretty lucky there is no crafting in WoW: I rarely leave the house as it is now.

So in this fit of boredom, I installed Bard’s Tale (a lengthy endeavor, even with my pretty decent rig), and found, to my surprise, upon launching the game, that my video card…which is the same one recommended on the box, was unable to process the cut scenes at the launch of the game. It took about 15 minutes to get from the “Bard’s Tale” logo to the opening screens of the game wherein you can set your options. This angered me considerably; there is no reason for sloppy development, especially when we’re talking about the GeForce graphics card that is listed under the “recommended” section of the game specs. There is nothing I hate worse than sloppy, lazy coding: apparently, the studio had blown its wad on the box art and after this had nothing left over for the game itself.

I was able to play the game for a while a single time, and during that hour or two I was singularly underwhelmed by every aspect of play. There wasn’t a solitary detail in the game that I found enjoyable, really; some of the humour was good for a grin, but that was about it. The buxom slut who gives the Bard his first mission as mighty slayer of basement rodents has no sense whatsoever when it comes to men or fashion, but inexplicably enough smarts to know how to own and operate a business, was overdone and quite frankly sexist and offensive, and things just went downhill from there. The graphics were pathetic, especially seeing as how my card…the one recommended on the box, you’ll remember…was incapable of rendering them. Play was clunky and oh so eighties; I could have downloaded and emulated the original game instead of coughing up $30 for this piece of crap. And it would have played better on my machine, too.

So, after a most disappointing session, seething with rage, I went to the Internets and did a bit of Googling only to find out that all GeForce cards from the 5700 up have serious issues rendering the graphics for the latest Bard’s Tale release. There are a few “lucky” folks out there who can just load the game and go, but for the most part, from what I read, the vast majority of GeForce owners are unable to play at least some aspect of the game because of this. My roomie has a lower end 5000 series GeForce card that doesn’t handle the more advanced aspects such as pixel shading, and so therefore, she ran the game with no trouble at all.

It became clear to me in very short order that Dickhead Studios released Bard’s Tale with a known but undocumented GeForce 5700+ graphics card conflict, despite the fact that they recommend those very cards to play the game, and to date have yet to acknowledge this or offer up anything in the way of a fix. I did find a way to edge around these issues and potentially fix the game well enough to at least be able to play it (maybe), but it involved haxxorz and, to be honest, while it was well within my skillset, it was way more involvement than I wanted with the game at this point. I was disgusted and my only desire was to remove the tumour that was Bard’s Tale from my hard drive and never deal with it again.

So it sat on my desk for another few days while I bitched and complained about it and lamented my KOTOR II-free status until one day I got the idea that maybe, just maybe, I could get someone at Fry’s customer service desk who wasn’t yet a total zombie, and maybe, just maybe, they would be willing to accept a return on this opened box of software (usually the number one no-no on returns, opened software) for a house credit. If I could manage to get Fry’s to accept Bard’s Tale back, then I could just slap an extra twenty bucks down and…BUY KOTOR II!

My guildmates on WoW urged me to give it a go, and Mu further approved the plan by revealing that she had successfully returned software at Fry’s on a couple of occasions herself. So, after verifying that I was within the 30 day range on my Fry’s receipt, I took myself off to Fry’s bright and early the next morning to present my case and appeal to their softer side. I got lucky; there was a very loud, incredibly stupid customer there at the same time, belligerently declaring his ignorance (I DONT KNOW ANYTHING) and insisting that they appease him in spite of it (I DONT WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING) by accepting the return of a fully operational item that he simply was too unbelievably stupid to know how to use (YOU LIED TO ME, I DONT WANT TO KNOW HOW IT WORKS, I JUST KNOW IT’S BROKEN BECAUSE I CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE IT).

I used this stupid, stupid man to my advantage by making mean jokes about him to the customer service people, who laughed in appreciation. I have mad skillz because I worked tech support for around 10 years before running, screaming, from the industry, because of men just like him.

Among these employees was the customer service manager, who cheerfully approved my open software for return. I should have shaken the stupid, stupid man’s hand before I left the customer service area, but I was afraid of accidentally smacking him for being so incredibly dense. That would have resulted in a big negative hit on my Fry’s faction, though, so I instead gave him a big smile, which seemed to throw him off, and made a beeline for the game aisle. It’s better to leave them confused, anyway, so that they aren’t quite sure what you’re up to.

Gleefully clutching KOTOR II to my breast with fanatical zeal, I glared at the Bard’s Tale boxes gleaming on the shelves across the aisle and rushed home to install the game and play.

Somewhat apprehensively, I launched the game for the first time: I didnt know, you see, if the game would run properly on my system. Over the last couple years, I have become more and more wary about this sort of thing; it seems that the quality of technology is going up while the skills of game developers the world over is going down, and games that should have no problems whatsoever running on my system give me a hard time.

Evil Genius, for example, which is a phenomenal game, go buy it, has some pretty nasty lag issues for me. There is no reason for this, and since Elixir Studios are no more, I cannot get an official response to the problem. I went to Evil Planet, the number one fan site for the game (and a site where the devs of the game itself do tend to post) and posted the issue to see if anyone had any advice, but all I got were a couple of idiots who told me that my game was obviously haxxored and if I had the original CD I wouldn’t have these issues.

After posting my thoughts regarding the respondent’s lack of intelligence and questioning his parentage, I resigned myself to the lag issues and actually haven’t really played since. There is no reason I should be having any problems at all running that game, especially since I can load and run games like WoW and Psychonauts, which are both highly graphics intensive, without any of these issues. Now that I speak of it, though, I think I am going to play Evil Genius again, simply because the game is wonderful and I miss it.

To my delight, KOTOR II gave me no grief whatsoever (aside from the bugs that are in the game itself, which were fairly minimal for me), and I was able to play it straight through. It took me about eight or 10 days to finish it, but only because I had to stop for work and I kept falling asleep at the keyboard after the fourth straight day or so. It should be noted here that regardless of my level of consciousness, I never failed to save the game before succumbing to total exhaustion. That is because I am hardcore.

Hardcore.

KOTOR II was very similar to KOTOR; the graphics and the feel of the game were familiar and comforting. The storyline is the best I have ever experienced in any game, period, and whoever is responsible for framing and editing the cinematics is either a hardcore, old school Star Wars fan or should be. It really did feel like an interactive film. There are tiny little cut scene nuggets where you’ll simply walk into a room and a very short cut scene will execute (usually to show you something you need to know, like a building or a group of guys who are waiting to kill you), but it’s almost seamlessly integrated with the gameplay so that it looks like you are in the middle of your own personal Star Wars movie. This game was film directed, and it shows. I got chills. My diehard Star Wars fan soul positively vibrated with joy.

And speaking of that, the Star Warsy feel of it is very much present and accounted for, moreso than, for instance, Star Wars Galaxies could ever hope to achieve. I found myself gripped by the game, simply for the storyline alone. I had to know what happens next.

The interactivity of your group members was both much better and a little worse than the original KOTOR; there is a very interesting character by the name of Bao Dur in the game, for example. He tends to piss off a lot of other players because his voice is very low, usually a whisper, really; but I found this quite appealing. It could be because I have a serious thing for Zabraks; but I thought Bao Dur rocked. Unfortunately, once you “Jedify” him, he stops responding to any questions and doesnt say anything else until the end of the game. A terrible waste of a potentially excellent character. I won’t say any more about him or his background because I dont want to ruin the storyline for anybody, but he could have been one of the most interesting characters in the game because of his history.

The other group members are also pretty interesting, especially Kreia, who has more than one trick up her sleeve. It stands you in good stead to keep a tight eye on her, whatever path you tread.

There is a lot more customization in the game as far as weapons and armour, and they have vastly improved the components you can get for your gear, as well. I had a double-bladed silver lightsaber that was so awesome I’m surprised it didnt melt my hard drive. I walked the Light Side the first time through; my Jedi was completely badass.

They have also added a “lab station” to the game; here, you can break down items into components you can then use to create things like med kits and stims. They are found in most areas of the game, which is incredibly handy; until you become more powerful, you rely on these medpacks to keep your ass alive, and until you can make a lot of money, you can’t afford as many as youll need, since they are reliant upon your Treat Injury skill, which in the beginning of the game is pathetic, like everything else.

The higher your Treat Injury skill, the better your medpacks work. Being able to craft them on the fly at a conveniently located lab station by breaking down the junk you loot is a welcome addition to the game. Both the improved workbench and upgrade components, as well as the new lab station feature, added an element of crafting to the game that delighted me to the core of my crafty little heart.

The gameplay was richer and more satisfying, as well. The game was longer and more detailed. The fighting was improved, and so was the dialogue, which was well written and very often utterly hilarious. I found only a few spelling errors here and there in the subtitles, and I found a couple of mismatches, too, where the characters will say one thing and the subtitles will read differently, or once, where the name of a ship has been changed in the dialogue but not the text. I leave you to discover these things on your own. I have fun ferreting them out, myself, and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone else.

The most annoying bug I experienced was during some dialogue scenes where you’d talk to someone who had more than one screenful of text to say, and instead of playing the scene one screen at a time, the game would advance you straight through all the dialogue until your reply menu came up, where you choose your responses. On a good many occasions, you can’t simply quit out of talking to whoever it is youre dealing with so you can check your message log to see what it was they said; you have to make a response and hope like hell you didnt just screw something up, because you really have no idea what theyre talking about.

Luckily, though, the last lines of the dialogue are usually enough to glean the meaning of what was going on, so you can at least hazard a close guess as to how you want to respond. I also had issues with the game crashing for no reason; this didnt happen with enough frequency to be annoying, but I highly recommend F4′ing every minute or so if you’re in an important area. Save your game. You’ll regret it if you dont. It also came in useful with that dialogue bug on the couple of occasions where I made some answers that it turned out I didnt want to make, after reviewing the message log. I was able to load the last saved game and go through the dialogue again so I could make the appropriate answers. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Save your game, or suffer the consequences.

The only real complaint I have about the game is the ending. There may be potential spoilers here, because it’s difficult to talk about the ending without revealing anything, so you are forewarned that if you dont want to know how it ends, stop reading here.

**POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING**

The end of the game comes when Kreia…who turns out to be Darth Treya…explains all the shenanigans she’s been up to and finally answers a bunch of questions you have supposedly had the entire time. You hook up with her on a planet that is only unlocked after you’ve found four Jedi and convinced them to return to the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, where she kills them.

She explains a lot of things to you, and that is when you discover that you have to abandon all your friends and wander alone, still in exile, and then the end. Really, that’s it. You get to click through a bunch of questions and then she dies and then it’s over. It was monstrously disappointing to me. You have no choice; she makes the choices for you. You can’t decide that you’d rather stay with your friends. You can’t decide anything. It’s just over, she dies, and thanks for playing. I was pretty mad. Mad enough that it really kind of spoiled the rest of the game for me, but only because the rest of the game was so damned good that it deserved an ending that was infinitely better than the one it got.

The ending struck me as being rushed and forced and only a draft of what the studio wanted the real ending to be, as though it were too close to public release to work on any further, which wouldn’t surprise me, since that’s how the suits like to behave, even though they should know by now that A) theyre assholes without even a single cell of creativity in their rancid bodies, B) that’s the very best way to piss off your player base, and C) we are willing and would prefer to wait even six extra months for you to properly finish a game, instead of rushing to release it half finished and terribly buggy.

But release it they did, and though I dont know if they rushed it or not, I do know that the sadly lacking ending is a terrible injustice to an otherwise magnificent effort by LucasArts and Obsidian Entertainment.

**END SPOILER WARNING**

So, in conclusion, or at least in preparation of conclusion, since after I stop writing this I have to do my laundry and I don’t want to, I have to say that KOTOR II is indeed one of the best games of 2005, or ever. I say “one of” only because Age of Empires III is due out this very month, on 17 October, and to say that I am excitedly looking forward to this release would be the understatement of the year. In fact, I think I’m going to go play the demo. Right after I put my clothes in the washer.

I still say fifty bucks is way too much to pay for a game, but if you’re on the market and looking for a game where you’ll have hours of fun, especially if you’re a Star Wars fan, don’t wait for the sale. Pick up KOTOR II. Except for the ending, you won’t be sorry. And you can play it at least three times: once to get the feel of the game, once to properly play the Light Side (which I’ll be doing next week), and then once more to play the Dark Side.

And if youre the sort of person who likes messing around with the group members you have to see how powerful you can make them, there are infinitely more playthroughs in store for you, since you have eight or 10 (I can’t remember) group members who are potentially phenomenal, most of whom are Jedi. You even get a Mandalorian and a couple of droids, one of whom I didnt get to use because I missed picking up one of the parts he needed in the beginning of the game.

Despite the fact that everyone says you will be given multiple opportunities to get the pieces he needs to repair him, I could never find the vocabulator anywhere after I left the home planet. So even though this is a spoiler, I’m gonna warn you to pick up that vocabulator off the assassin droid you meet on Peragus, or the chances are you’ll never see it again. At least, I didnt.

KOTOR II: I give it four and a half out of five stars. Totally worth it, and the only reason it doesnt have five out of five is because of a couple of glitches and mainly the extremely disappointing ending. Buy this game. You won’t be sorry.