The Force has stayed strong with the Xbox. The critically acclaimed role-playing game, RPG, has come back for another epic chapter in the story that takes place long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords comes with more features and even more worlds to explore.

Five years after the events of KOTOR 1, all of the Jedi have been wiped out in the Jedi Civil War with Malak. The Jedi Order is no more. You, an exiled Jedi, are the only one who hasn’t chosen which path to take. You must do your best to try to regain your connection to the Force and find out what has happened.

You still have the free will to decide which side to take; the Light Side or the Dark Side. With each choice is presented to you, you decide what do say to the people and depending on their reactions, decide what type of person you will become. As you travel to more planets, you will meet more people who will join you on your journey. One major feature the game boasted this time was that your decisions will also affect your team’s alliance with you. In order to change their alliance, you must gain influence with them. You do this by talking to them and saying things they way you think they want to hear. Some characters like you to be sympathetic, while others would prefer you to use more brute force to solve matters. For example, one character in a situation would like it if you would use a grenade to “cleanse” the filth from a cantina. Deciding what to do in this situation can make you gain or lose influence. Choices like this also affect your Light and Dark alignment as well.

You also have the power to make your non-Jedi party members Jedi as well. This takes serious conversations with your party members. The one character I turned into a Jedi took 15 minutes of conversation for him to start his training.

The gameplay is still the same as the first one. The combat is based on a d20 system, where dice rolls are used to calculate damage and effects to enemies (no real dice are seen).

KOTOR 2 is a solid RPG. It has great character development, great storyline and tons of things to uncover. This game could give Halo 2 a run for its money in the realm of Xbox. I actually stopped playing the first Halo and picked up the first KOTOR.