I like the Star Wars universe. I like some Star Wars games, but especially Knights of the Old Republic II. It’s a game that I will go back to again and again, when there aren’t any good game out there. It’s like comfort food (your favorite pizza, beverages etc.), you know exactly what you are getting.

The game itself is a huge improvement from its predecessor, which is also a game that I would classify as a comfort food game considering that I’ve also played that multiple times, although I think I’ve played KOTOR II more. While KOTOR II’s story doesn’t have a.m. Night Shyamalan twist as in the first one, it was still excellent writing by Obsidian.

In KOTOR 2, you play as The Exile, who cut herself (yes, this is canon) off from the force, and was exiled from the Jedi Council following the Mandalorian war. You start out by waking up within a mining facility, on an asteroid. 

Someone tried to kill you but failed. You also learn that, for some reason the Seth is out to kill the last of the Jedi, i.e. you. You tried to explain to them that you are not a Jedi, but they will have none of it so you decide to kill them all, because why not? You gain EXP as well, so it’s a win-win.

So you decide to gather a group of rag-tags consisting of an old woman, some guy you met at the mining facility, a blind woman, your old colleague, a few droids, a historian, a bounty hunter (or a Wookie), and Mangalore himself. Your party is now complete and you now must find out why the Seth are attacking you.

You find out eventually who is the main culprit. It turned out to be the mad woman and her one disciple, sending these Seth cannon-fodders at you. The twist is not as great as KOTOR I, when you find out slowly that you are actually Revan. It’s a twist, but it’s not a What a Twist twist.

So you try to save her, because light side (even though the amount of cannon-fodder you’ve actually killed should have turned you dark LONG AGO). The story ends with you being rescued by your ship, but by who? That will be in KOTOR wait, there’s no sequel? Only an MMORPG? [head to brick emo]

Going back to Obsidian, it was well known that KOTOR II was shipped with quite a lot of contents cut, most likely due to time constraint from my understanding. However, the fine folks of TSLRCM did some magic and released the excellent Restored Contents Mod, which in my opinion definitely upped an already excellent game into something even better. 

Ample bug fixes, as well as unlocking new dialogue choices, which were prerecorded by the Obsidian team but were not used. (see here for complete list)

As with KOTOR I (and I’m sure, to some extent, the KOR MMO), choices in-game will push you towards either light or dark side. Even though I’ve played this game multiple times, I still can’t get myself to play as a dark side character. 

It’s similar to the mass effect series, where my preferences will always be paragon over renegade. It’s not the kind of game that I would try to be.

Although in games like the GTA series and Saints Row III and IV, where simulated violence doesn’t have much consequences, I would go wild (especially Saints Row III, where once you’ve finished the game and gained enough money to purchase all the available upgrades as well as god mode, you can just have a blast).

Why do I find KOTOR II fun? It probably is a Star Wars thing. The lightsabers, the force, the pet rock. I just find the game enjoyable (I’m not a picky gamer, at least I don’t think so). Wandering around the galaxy, fighting canon-fodders, it’s all surprisingly enjoyable. 

The more fun part, however, comes with within the game via a save game editor. I’m sure the purists would scoff at me for even considering cheating, but the late-game becomes just that much more fun to grind through when playing as a light-side character with force lightning and stasis. 

Your foes will literally just melt away in seconds. I’m sure there are reasons for the game shoving so many canon-fodders at you when you are very close to finishing, but it’s just more satisfying using stasis and then frying them to nothingness.

In summary, KOTOR II is a comfort food game for me. The dialogues are great, the game mechanics is decent, the Restored Contents Mod makes it essentially a new game with lots of new contents (including 1x new planet), the ability (mainly via cheating) to use force lightning as a light side character to melt all that stand in your way. Definitely lots of fun to be had.

The base game is like a pepperoni pizza, it’s good, but one can always improve on it. The Restored Contents Mod did just that, by adding lots of extra, some planet-sized, toppings to your favorite pizza and making it even better.