My Knights of the Old Republic 2 is the first Old Republic game I ever played. Played it before the original Knights, and I played the XBox version, which could not be patched (or if it could it didn't matter since I was never online with this thing). After finishing the Bounty Hunter story mode in the MMO version I thought I'd go revisit this game, which I hadn't played in a very long time... many years.

Having just got off a MMO treadmill it's refreshing to do plunge forward without worrying as much about my level, the game was hard in places but the proper application of tactics got me all the way, in just a few days, from the beginning to the place where a shuttle crashes AGAIN, this time into the snowy polar region of Telos. It was nice to actually GET what the story was behind Telos is now, as with the Mandalorian wars, Revan and Malak, the whole bit. Makes KOTOR2 feel a little less isolated. The writers at times are very inventive and seem less stodgy than the KOTOR 1 counterparts, the latter seeming to desire to make everything fit a rhetorical pattern at times, though this organic feeling to conversations also makes things more prone to odd behavior. I do find a bit of joy in not being hedged into Good and Bad choices, even the good ones ended messily for me in the orbital station, and I got to be bad by proxy as a droid running around extorting money from innocents.

Of all the Old Republic games, KOTOR2 also does the best when it comes to modding and character builds. Even if SWTOR has more overall builds possible, you are given a lot of different options in KOTOR2 when it comes to breaking down and building items, and building characters. It really adds to the replay value, even if you're like me and just want to have someone shooting a gun rather than using Jedi magic.

I haven't crashed the shuttle on the polar caps yet... I get the feeling it's right there that things start to become a bit buggy and absent. Maybe it's not so much that the game is better in a lot of ways, but it is DIFFERENT, it shows what others might do with the same system and that's refreshing.

I'm not looking forward to the mess that's coming, and I'm not happy with all of their choices (at times they seem to channel more Star Trek than Star Wars), but it's a palate cleanser after all the Bioware stuff I've been playing this past year. I'm thinking of doing a comparison of the two KOTORs and SWTOR, I think all three are clear enough in my mind right now that this seems like an easy enough exercise.

Anyone out there try the modded KOTOR2?

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Although I know others have modded the game extensively, I more meant this new one which seems to be more complete in its additions and fixes: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-sith-lords-restored-content-mod-tslrcm/downloads