Two nights ago,
Last night, on my way to Baja Fresh, I swung by Livingston to pick up KoTOR2. Excitedly scarfing down my fajita, I pawed through the instruction manual, gibbering at

I'm not going to post about how long I played KotOR2 last night. A few of my co-workers know, and they're saddened. Let's just say that, if it wasn't winter, I would have seen the Grey. At one point, after swearing that I was going to go to bed for hours, I found myself playing the demo game on the CD after fighting myself to exit the fun game itself.
Crack!
Non-spoilery observations:
- Walking around the Ebon Hawk was a wonderful feeling, like returning to a childhood home. Things had changed, but it was still full of memories. Oh, there's the place where I practiced Pazaak, there's where I found the little girl, there's where Bastilla confessed feelings for me.
- As my former boss once said, Episode 2 seemed to be for all the crazy Boba Fett fanboys out there. The first chunk of KotOR2 seems to be meant for all the crazy HK-47 fans.
- Pazaak's still just as addictive, but they added new types of cards! Like M:tG, it just keeps on changing!
- The first time my main character got a pair of vibroblades and I hit the Y button to spin them in the air... it felt good. I can't wait to spin lightsabers again.
- I had forgotten how enjoyable yet turn-based the combat system is.
- It's hard to go to sleep when you keep on getting interesting job offers.
- Instead of reading a save game file to determine the final fate of your main character in KotOR1 (male/female, dark/light), a party member's dialog with you establishes that bit of back story.
- I loved the parts in KotOR1 where you had to play as someone else, or take a specific party to work together. KotOR2 has already done that to good effect a couple of times.
- KotOR1 I played as a light side soldier/guardian the first time through, then a dark side scoundrel/counselor the second time. *minor spoiler that reading the handbook will give you* This time you start as a Jedi, at least insofar as game mechanics goes, so I'm doing a light guardian then a dark counselor. *minor spoiler that you really should just not be a wuss about over*. It was harder to be a bad guy in the first one, I think, then in this one. The dynamic of the galaxy has shifted quite a bit over five years.
- Back when I first moved in to
the_boke, and at my residence before that, I remember racing over and over again, time after time, saving and reloading, trying to become champion everywhere. Racing's got a new twist, that I'm still having problems with.
- This game is crack.