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(first posted 3/25/2005)
Black Isle lives on! If you know me, you know I'm a major fan of
good PC RPG games by BioWare and Black Isle. I've played Planescape:
Torment, Baldur's Gate, Fallout, KOTOR, Icewind Dale, etc., and I
loved them all! Especially Baldur's Gate II, which is still my
favorite game of all time. And now, created partially from the
remains of what used to be Black Isle Studios, comes a company
called Obsidian! And they get to make Star Wars: Knights of the Old
Republic II. Yay! Ignore the uninspiring subtitle "The Sith Lords"
and buy this great game. By the way, if you haven't played any one of the games I listed above, go do so, NOW.
WARNING: THIS PAGE CONTAINS LOTS OF SPOILERS! But it also contains
lots of useful tips, if you read it... I don't write this stuff just
for the finger exercise, you know.
I've played through KOTOR 2
three times now, twice on the Xbox and once on the PC: first, as "Justyn"
the Jedi Sentinel/Jedi Weapon Master, a sort of Chaotic Good "me"
character who ended up killing all the Jedi by accident. Oops. How
was I supposed to know that if you let even ONE Jedi Master die they all
decided to just kill you? After
that I played as a truly evil Jedi Consular/Sith Lord named Lord
Plutark, who managed to corrupt his entire party to the Dark Side,
MUAHAHAHAA! Finally, when the PC version came out, I played as Krysta (a name taken from my Star
Wars Fan Fiction), a truly upright Lawful Good female Jedi. I
decided to make LEGO versions of Plutark and Krysta, but not Justyn,
because in my LEGO KOTOR world, HE is Darth Revan! See my original
LEGO KotOR figs for more on that...
Kreia, Krysta, and Atton wandering on Taris's Citadel Station. Yes,
I put more thought into my backgrounds this time. Aren't you proud
of me? Citadel station really is grey and orange.
Atton Rand is the first
character to join your party. At first you think: human male
pistol-wielding NPC with romantic subplot... is this a Carth clone?
No, he's actually a more unique character. If you want to
learn about his past, be SURE to take him with you to the Refugee
sector on Nar Shaddaa! After I did that, I liked Atton. He's a
Jedi-hating scoundrel who can block his mind from the Force, using
"slippery mind" as they say in D&D... Just the kind of character I
would like to role-play in the SW universe! I like the way this
minifig turned out, especially the shoulder-things. They're made
using the same decals as the chest, just wrapped around and stuck to
the back.
Krysta confronts Atris and
the Handmaiden. When I first heard her name was "Atris," I
thought... Myst? You know what I mean if you've played Myst. I built
the Atris minifig as an afterthought. That's why it's, um, very
similar to my minifig of Saruman the White from The Lord of the
Rings. I might as well talk about Handmaiden here: She's a female
fighter who joins your party if your character is male. She is a
great fighter, especially after you make her a Jedi, but I don't
like her. She's too much like a D&D monk, and I hate D&D monks. She
also has a disgusting hairstyle. I think, for a LEGO, white Ron
Weasley hair from the Harry Potter sets would represent it best.
Bao-Dur is a male Iridonian
mechanic who fought with your character in the Mandalorian wars. He
has TONS of handy skills, more than anyone else, and is pretty good
at melee fighting. By the way, yes, he is an Iridionian, and he is
ALSO a Zabrak. Techinically, they're the same thing. I think "Iridonian"
means he is a Zabrak from the planet Iridonia. That behind him is
his pet Remote droid. Didn't I come up with an amazingly inventive
design for him? Huh?
One of the great things
about KOTOR 2 is that now you can turn your allies to the Dark Side
(or Light Side) along with you! I just HAD to make a Dark Bao-Dur.
Bao-Dur is not as boring as some may think. As long as you actually
bring him with you when you go on your "adventures," you'll learn a lot
more about him, and eventually turn him into a Jedi (or Dark Jedi, as the
case may be).
Ah, the two most memorable
characters of the KOTOR series (and the only ones featured on BOTH
game covers): The droids! The evil assassin droid HK-47, the most
popular character in KOTOR (sort of like Minsc was in Baldur's
Gate), and T3-M4, the cute little astromech droid. Hot tip: To
repair
HK-47 as fast as possible in KotOR2, first make sure you check the bodies of all HK-50 droids
you kill in the game, and second, go to Nar Shaddaa as soon as
possible and check
all the droid shops there. Once you complete Nar Shaddaa, you can
build HK-47 and let him join your group. I improved my LEGO HK a little
from before with new decals and got rid of the grey on his head.
Here's the spoiler I warned
you about. Yeah, Kreia, the old woman who joins your party at the
beginning of the game, is the main baddie of KOTOR2. If you're like
me, you guessed it a long time ago.
Don't let her old age fool
you, Kreia is one powerful woman. She can kick the Jedi around
like nothing and kick the hides of all your party members. She's
tough as nails when you face her in the end of the game too. Another
useful tip: she can't cast Force powers while held with an adhesive
grenade! If you run up to her and toss a sticky grenade down, both
of you will only be able to use melee attacks. That way you can kick
her butt. She's only good with the Force.
Kreia vs. Darth Sion. This
is how Kreia loses her hand. What Kreia says right here reminds me
of 1984: "I betrayed you and you betrayed me." To
make my Kreia minifig, I made a custom face decal and put one of
those braided Indian hairpieces on it. Then I painted the white hair
on it and put a LARGE brown decal over it to represent the hood
coming over her eyes.
Mira vs. Hanharr on Malachor
V. Mira is a female bounty hunter who joins you on Nar Shaddaa if
you're Light Sided when you come there. Hanharr is a Wookiee bounty
hunter who does the same if you're Dark Sided. I like Mira better.
She has tons of useful abilities (wrist rocket launcher, can walk
over mines without being detected) and is great with a blaster
rifle. She's also hot. Much hotter than the Handmaiden or Viasas
Marr. In my "Justyn" game, I kept wanting to have a romance with her
instead of them. I took her with me everywhere, made her into a Jedi, and
everything...
And, on that note, here's
Malachor V. I loved this planet in the game; it had great atmosphere
and great music. Downright creepy. So I had to make this "little
slice of Malachor"... Oh, another hot tip: if you're a good
character, when you take control of Mira right here, just kill
Hanharr. Do you really want this carpet hunting you for the rest of
your life, even if sparing his life is the "goody-goody" thing to
do? Just put him out of his misery. He wants to die anyway (which
you can learn if you have him in your party as an evil character)
Mandalore, leader of the
Mandalorians! Ah, my favorite custom fig and my second favorite
character in both KOTOR games! Yes, he's actually Canderous Ordo
from KOTOR 1. It's no secret, you find it out right off if you
played KOTOR 1. I mean, he sounds the same, he says the same lines
when you talk to him, and he even gives you stimulants just like
before. Not to mention Kreia calls him "Canderous" at the very end. Another
hot tip: make him use melee weapons. He's much better with them than
ranged weapons. My LEGO Mandalore has a customized Jango Fett helmet
(cut and painted), the sword I used for my LEGO Zalbaar from KOTOR
1, and LOTS of decals.
Something you'll never see
in the game: Mandalore unmasked! Go check out my KOTOR 1 figs if you
haven't already...
I just couldn't take enough
pictures of Mandalore. Here he is striding onto the Ravager with a
Mandalorian footsoldier (improved from my KOTOR 1 Mandalorian...).
Another thing you'll never
see in the game: a female PC (Player Character) with Handmaiden in
her party (females instead get "Disciple," a character so boring I
didn't even make him). By the way, I based Krysta's armor decal off some actual
armor in the game; one of the suits you can wear and still use Force
powers while wearing. Only later did I discover something: they
actually look just like the outfit Zam Wessell wears in Star Wars
Episode II! D'oh! KOTOR 2 stole directly from the Star Wars movies too often... it also had the
Virago, Imprial torture droids, and various other "new" SW
technology things in it, even though it was supposed to be set so
many thousands of years before any of the movies! Are they trying to
say Mandalorian Basilisk War Droids looked exactly like the Virago?
I think NOT.
The evil party: Mandalore,
Plutark, and Dark Bao-Dur. Yes, you can have an orange lightsaber in
KOTOR 2. At least it looks orange (the ones called "silver" and
"Viridian" just look light blue and light green...). And yes,
Plutark is just my LEGO Darth Bandon from KOTOR 1 with a Darth Vader
head. So I got lazy...
Here's Lord Plutark about to
confront the Jedi he "saved." Yes, in my evil game, I
spared all of the Jedi so that I could kill them all at once! The Jedi back there are my
half-hearted attempts at the three Jedi Masters you have to find and
rescue. From right to left: Kavar, Vrook, and the guy with a lot of Z's and K's
in his name.
Hot tip: When you play KOTOR
2 as an evil character, make him a Jedi Consular/Sith Lord, NOT some
front-line fighter. Use of Dark Side Force powers is SOOO much more
fun than melee fighting or using Light Side powers. Also, if you are
able to turn all your good allies Dark BEFORE you dual-class to a
Sith Lord, then you'll get the Dark Corruption bonus on all of them
like I did, and turning them into Sith is that much easier. Oh, and
here's Plutark owning the wimpy Jedi Masters with Death Field.
MUAHAHAHA!
Visas Marr is a mysterious
Sith woman that can "see" through the Force. She joins your party
after you turn too far to the Light or Dark side so that Nihilus can
sense your presence. It took me a long time to get her in my Justyn
game, since I stayed mostly neutral in that game for a long time.
Yeah, Cesar Campos's Visas minifig is better than mine, I know! I
just didn't want to mutilate a LEGO hood to make her, is that okay?
Instead I used dark red minifig hair with decals on it. I think it
works fine... others seem to be more picky. *shrug* Never liked her
much anyway.
The Sith Lords... this
game's rather boring subtitle. Here they are: Kreia (Darth Traya?),
Darth Nihilus, and Darth Sion. For some reason, none of the Sith
Lords in this game dual-wield, or even use a double-bladed
lightsaber! I expected at least one of them to...
The confrontation with Darth
Nihilus. At first I thought he was going to turn out to be Darth
Revan back on the Dark Side, but he isn't. He's just some nameless
Sith Lord with a voice that sounds like a toilet flushing and can
eat whole planets clean of life through the Force.
Fittingly, when you face
Nihilus on the Ravager, he uses Force Death Field all the time to
drain your health. But he's still a total pushover. All that
intimidating buildup, and you can kill him SO easily... And you
don't ever find out anything about Nihilus's past, who he is, or
anything. In fact, his strange excuse for dialog isn't even
translated! He never says anything!
Darth Sion is much harder
than his nihilistic counterpart. He reminds me of the Nameless One in Planescape:
Torment (see my Torment LEGO customs)... a grey-skinned zombie who
can regenerate his flesh to heal his his wounds, and is practically
immortal. I wish KOTOR 2 had developed his character more. He would
have made a great main villain.
The heroes (uh, mostly...)
of KOTOR 2! This pic is Desktop-sized for your enjoyment. And also
for mine. I like to use my latest creations as my Desktop Wallpaper.
The character minifigs shown on this page were made using custom decals
(or "stickers" or "labels" if you prefer).
If you would like to make your own minifigs, we now provide a printing
service for our decals. Just click here:
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