Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Best in series"

This game shocked me when I first played it. Sure, the first KOTOR was epic, but this one was twice as epic. It outdoes everything the first game did, and then some. This game taught me more about life than most games care to do. Like the Mass Effect series, Knights of the Old Republic II is a game that you can care about and become emotionally invested in.

Gameplay: 9/10
I wish every game could be like this one. The gameplay is simple, yet complex. There is so much depth to be had in it, and yet it is so easy to grasp. In a way, you control your character more than you're used to. Every move is yours to decide in combat. Near the end of the game, you will have more skills than you will care to deal with. It's all part of becoming a master of epic proportions. The only bad thing is that some of the skills & powers that are made available to you are too hardcore for the game to handle. For instance...why would you want to sacrifice health for force power? The game simply does not give you much reason to do this. Sure it might be convenient at one point in time, but it never really is. The fact that it's available though means a lot. After all, "openness" in a video game is only an illusion, and customization is more about what you DON'T use than what you do use.

Graphics: 9.5/10
Nothing can dissuade me from loving the graphics of KOTOR. It looks and feels like Star Wars. You will barely even notice that most of the areas you roam around in are broken up by loading screens. It's more illusion kinda stuff, again. In terms of actual story, you will travel across the Star Wars galaxy like nobody ever has. In terms of actual gameplay, you go very little. The graphics and epic backdrops distract you from this though. I guess what I'm saying sounds like complaining, but it's not.
The characters are realistic! I can't tell you how many times I've carefully studied the motions on the character's faces. They even look corrupted if you go to the dark side. They look healthier if you go to the light side. Mass Effect doesn't even do that!

Story: 14/10
Yes, I gave it a fourteen out of ten.
This story beats out any game you've ever played. The story of this game is the hands-down best one I've ever played, second only to Chrono Trigger. I can say that because Chrono Trigger is a SNES game, and fits into a different category.
KOTOR 2 will take you deep and dark places that the Star Wars movies just don't do. You will want to play this game many times.
"As one trained in the force, you know that true coincidences are rare."

If you haven't played this game, you need to. You will love it from start to finish. You will need to play it more than once to experience all it has to offer. At the game's final final moments, you won't even know how to feel about the experience you just had. It's like....the ultimate ending to the ultimately best and most dramatic book ever. It leaves just enough strings attached, and wraps up what you want to know. Throughout the journey, you might feel that the game is making more questions than answers. But trust me, all will be made clear.