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**Might be some spoilers in this**

Just beat the game and so I figured i'd make a lil teaser review for those that can't play it. First off i'd like to say that Lucasarts does one heck of a $hitty job in porting and beta testing. KOTOR 2 for PC is buggy. Can't believe it got approved thru beta testing. Biggest bug is a few times the dialog skipping. Then its also recommended to save often since never know when it might crash on you. I've never seen such poor work on a Mac port so there some hope for you all. Be glad you get the game later if you do.

Story

Anyways, as ppl have read, story takes place 4-5yrs after the events of KOTOR. It is not a total gloom and doom plot like what I had read others say that the dark side had won the first/etc. You get to control that in the first few hours of the game. When questions come up you have to sorta fill in what happened. So if you beat the first with Dark side ending or Light side ending it, your input from that will sorta control how KOTOR 2's story runs.

Unlike what others might have said, the story is quite nice despite its downfalls. I had my reserves since Bastila wasn't gonna be in this as a playable . But they pulled it off. However, the game's biggest faults lie here in the story too. Trying to piece together a background story for your character was not implemented properly. They approach it like the first KOTOR but instead of you not knowing anything, they provide you with the idea of a story then let the player fill in holes as it goes. Sounds good till you try it since they give you really nothing to reference your choices on.

Story is also somewhat predictable to a point. It doesnt reveal it all but you kinda get the idea who is gonna be who in the end and what will happen. Those that know how Jedi usually act from the movies and other games will figure out what the end could be real quick. Its just how you get there that you don't know.

Now unlike KOTOR you do not get to learn very much about your other allies thruout the game. You either are expected to already know or they just flat out tell you. I didn't care for it one bit cause there is little depth in the characters because of it. The characters also left a lot to be desired. Not as fun as the first game in someways. Specially since there is no Bastila to annoy . Man I loved annoying her, it totally made the first game for me .

When you play KOTOR 2 you quickly will see lots of small plot problems and holes. They don't take too much away from the experience but enough so you notice it. You also do not spend a lot of time on each world compared to the first. On a couple worlds you can just land do what you need to do and take off without completing any of the side stories of that world. Before in KOTOR those side stories really had a lot to do with the main plot, but not in this game. Lil too easy for me so I was disappointed.

Gameplay

This game shines in this area. You can do more with this game than you could with the first. If they had only added being able to level Jedi above level 21 then i'd have been happy but they went beyond that. Its awesome being able to have a super powerful Jedi for once. Then the weapon upgrading and creating goes all out. The new Force powers are also really handy to have.

Overall things handle the same. If you did the first you'd adjust really well to this since its really the same controls with some extra options added.

Graphics

What the heck happened?! This game looked good in the trailer!!

Ok I was happy with the first KOTOR's level of detail. But then the maps in it also were very nice too. KOTOR2 however is nothing new, infact compared to it's original, I personally think its not as detailed or as well designed. The worlds you visit do not make you go "oooo nice" as much as they did in the first. Infact, I don't think I ever once was impressed by the graphics in this compared to its predecessor. Yes the graphics engine both games use is old but with the first they really did try hard to make up for that. In KOTOR 2 you can quickly see that its an old engine. They don't use the DX9 shaders as much it seems.

With that said there is one more thing to add in this category. Some of the CG movies are utter crap. They look like old graphics scenes used from games in the late 90s. Now not all were bad, just the few that were made me go "eewww, this is soo 1999."

Sound

Overall pretty decent. I personally liked the first better but the audio was good enough in this. The one complaint being that sometimes audio would cut out on movie scenes. Another bug of that game that wasn't fixed.

What is really nice this time is they added a music player into the main menu so you could listen to the music anytime. But since there really wasn't any songs I cared for a lot, I won't use this feature much.

Hardware Reqs

Same as the first KOTOR. I ran it on a 1.64Ghz Sempron/FX5600/512MB RAM and it was smooth to a lil choppy. Tho I must say, most if not all choppyness came from smoke and explosion effects. Having a better GPU would help a bit i'm sure.

Overall

Despite it all, its worthy of a 4/5 rating on its own. But when you compare it with the original its more like a 3/5.

If ya liked KOTOR, this is a must buy to see what happened after the first and to see where they will go with the 3rd game. Lucasarts really should have done it better. Think they got confused trying to do soo many multiple plot lines depending on choices you make. Would have been better to just stick with one or 2 main plots like they did in the first.

In the ending I did, it left it at an Empire Strikes Back type moment which just made you want to see what would happen in the next game. The conflict goes far beyond what you thought in the first KOTOR. Deals a lot with what is lurking in the shadows. For these reasons it was worth the price for me. I wouldn't recommend this to first time players of the series or to ppl that didn't like the first game.

This would be a nice Mac port so if anyone from Aspyr reads this, please consider porting this!! Just please without the bugs .