tiredTwo nights ago,
petemagyar and I were watching TV, catching him up on Sopranos episodes from before he got hooked. So I played some UT2K4 as a break from my 
kingfoxhalo2 adventures. Instead of being one of the top scorers on my team, or at least in the top third, I was scoring in the bottom quarter. It seems that something has gotten in the way of my UT2K4 habit, and my skills have gotten rusty. Now it seems that kingfoxhalo2 won't be getting posts for a while.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
runstaverun and windexcowboy about prestige classes and combat styles. At my computability class, I kept on sneaking looks at it until the break, when I let another student flip through. Checking in at the helpdesk before going back to 
the_boke, someone handed me a survey about video game addiction. One of the questions was about the rush of opening a new game being a high point. I looked down at the bag clutched in my hand, up at the poll, and felt the shame of an addict.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.
petemagyar emerged from his room, went to the bathroom, looked at the clock, and went back to bed. At that point I could ignore the fourth dimension no longer, and passed out as well.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.
