(thing) by Texwiller Fri Jul 17 2009 at 0:46:20

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (often shortened as KotOR II) is a role-playing videogame developed for Personal Computer and Xbox. The Xbox version was released 6 december 2004, while the PC version was released 8 february 2005. The game was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by LucasArts.

General description


The game is a sequel to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which was considered a commercial success and appreciated by players.
The original game was developed by BioWare. The developers at BioWare suggested LucasArts to hire Obsidian Entertainment to create the sequel because they were involved with other titles, such as Jade Empire and Dragon Age: Origins. BioWare suggested Obsidian because they often worked together with many developers of the latter company when they were part of Black Isle Studios.
The Sith Lords was built using an improved version of the Odissey engine, which Bioware licensed to Obsidian.

Plot


The game is set five years after the events seen in the first chapter, or 3951 years before the battle of Yavin seen in the fourth episode of the Star Wars esalogy, and includes new characters. At the beginning, the player can choose, indirectly and through dialogues with other characters, what happened to Revan, in order to retain consistency with the previous plot partially influenced by the player; if dialogue options are skipped, the canonical facts are chosen, that is, Revan is set as male and aligned with the Jedi. The beginning of the game sees the Sith victorious over the Jedi, now decimated and reduced to a mere handful of individuals. The protagonist of the game and main player character is a Jedi Knight who was banished by the order, who is thought to be one of the last Jedi. He is referred to as ''Jedi Exile''.

Some characters seen in the first game make a comeback as additional party members or are seen around. There are new locations, such as Telos, Onderon and its moon Dxun, Peragus II, Nar Shaddaa and Malachor V. Korriban and Dantooine, which appeared in the first chapter, are revisited.

Development


Obsidian began developing the game when Knights of the Old Republic was released on the Xbox.
Interview regarding development
The Sith Lords is built on an advanced version of the graphic engine "Odissey engine", which was used for Knights of the Old Republic as well. New characteristics include a larger number of combat stances and animations. Video on Gamespot

Obsidian Entertainment left much material and resources in some folders of the PC version of the game. This was to be used to create more scenes and cutscenes, which were ultimately removed from the final version of the game.
Producer Chris Avellone, during an interview, stated that he would have liked "to have more time" to work on the project, and that several pieces of storyline - including a planet inhabited by droids, M4-78 - were eliminated due to time constraints. Interview with Chris Avellone
Source files can be found in various folders. The missing content

Characters


*Main character
The player character (also known as Jedi Exile) can be customized in regards to gender, facial features, class and name. The character already starts with Jedi features (Force powers and ability to use a lightsaber). The Exile doesn't have a canonical name, but LucasArts specified that she's a woman, opposing Revan which has been established as man.

Gameplay


The game shows more advanced gameplay in contrast with what was present in the first chapter.

Building items


There are items which can be built and improved, for instance implants, grenades and med packs. Besides the working bench on the Ebon Hawk, the player can operate on T3-M4 the astromech droid, which works as a portable laboratory to create items, and can use the Disciple's help to make medical equipment.

Influence


The game introduces the concept of "influence", which is the amount of "trust" a character in the player's part has towards him. Influence allows the player to access "nodes" in the main story and to receive more tips and information about a given character (for example having a high influence on Atton will make him reveal his secret past as a criminal), or to discover some new abilities for them. Discussion about the influence system

Influence can be gained by behaving in a manner which is considered "appropriate" by a character in the party. For characters which are aligned with the Light Side (the good) an appropriate action could be saving someone's life, while for those aligned with the Dark Side (the bad) reacting violently to someone could be the appropriate thing to do. Influence points are lost in a similar manner, though in some cases the cause for point loss is not always clear.

Jedi training


It is possible to train some companions to become Jedi, so that they can use Force powers. With the exception of the droids, Mandalore and Hanharr, every companion can be turned into a Jedi. Even though they can't match the power of the Exile or that of Kreia or Visas, they become much more powerful than before.

Training a character requires a high number of influence points, for this reason many players, during their first playthroughs, miss the opportunity of turning their party members into Jedi.
The characters can be trained on both the Light and Dark side.
*Atton can become a Jedi Sentinel
*Bao-Dur can become a Jedi Guardian
*The Handmaiden can become a Jedi Guardian
*The Disciple can become a Jedi Consular
*Mira can become a Jedi Sentinel
Discussion about Jedi training of companions

Classes for the player


The class is set while creating the character.
*Jedi Guardian: good combat skills and resistance, poorer Force powers
*Jedi Sentinel: average combat skills, resistance and Force powers
*Jedi Consular: poorer combat skills and resistance, good Force powers

Prestige classes


These classes can be set when the character reaches level 15 and asks Kreia to intensify and specialize the Jedi training.

Light Side Dark Side
*Jedi Weapon Master *Sith Marauder
*Jedi Watchman *Sith Assassin
*Jedi Master *Sith Lord

Music and movies


Obsidian has released two data packets which improve music and cinematic quality. Cinematics are rendered with a resolution of 1600x680 instead of 640x272.
The screen must be capable of supporting a resolution equal to 1600x1200 pixel in order for them to display correctly. Which patches/fixes for Kotor2?

The sound track is compressed in MP3 format at a sampling rate of 10.9 kHz mono. Music is degraded to *MONO* 10kHz @ 48 kbit/s (analysis) Obsidian has released an additional patch for the music, which replaces the low quality files with high quality ones.

Cut content


Part of the original plot was cut due to time constraints and pressures from LucasArts. Some volunteers are developing and restoring cut material to be added to the main storyline ("cut content"). See ''The Sith Lords Restoration Project'' for more information.

External links


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