Ask the average PC gamer what their favorite Star Wars game is and there's a good chance they'll name drop Obsidian's excellent Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic II: The Sith Lords.
Ahhhh, no. I've got to chip in one more voice here and say, no, that's just not the case. They'll bring up the original
KotOR, not
TSL. While reviews never tell the whole story, I have to point out that on Metacritic the PC/XBox versions of
KotOR rate at 93 and 94 respectively, while
TSL comes in at 85 and 86. On Amazon- where the reviews are done by consumers rather than professionals-
KotOR gets four and a half stars on PC vs. four even for
TSL- and notably the bundle that features both games gets three and a half.
TSL is about two-thirds to three quarters of a very good game, and a remaining one-quarter to one-third that is a rush job of cut-and-paste rooms and enemies and reams of expository dialogue. It's a shining example of wasted potential, from the tacked-on and unnecessary crafting system to the peculiar and immersion-breaking Influence system. I'm sorry, but I think if you
really asked the average gamer, you'd find that most people have far rosier memories of the original than the sequel, barring the influence of later-day Bioware resentment.
None of this is to say that I wouldn't love to see Obsidian working with the franchise again; between their experience (and learning from past mistakes) and the possibility of new, humbler management overseeing the process, I think there's the possibility of a very good game, there.
Just don't let them monkeywrench themselves by trying to throw an excessive amount of the increasingly popular "moral grey" into the mix. Guys, it's a world where there is
literally a dark side and a light side; clue in.
