This was taken from a 3 page article in XBN.
CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! "Awaken" the little old lady voice in your head says. Welcome to the first and quite possibly the worst day of your life. You are a Jedi. A fallen away Jedi, not wearing any clothes besides some embaressing underwear, but a Jedi nontheless. The tank you've emerged from could have been a prison, a sickbed holding the restorative kolto, or a death trap. Who knows? Maybe a combination of all three... MIND YOUR MAKER
On thing is for certain : your hero is
not Revan, protagonist from the first Star Wars : Knights of The Old Republic, and so must be created from scratch. The character creation screens for
Star Wars : Knights of The Old Republic II-The Sith Lords will be instantly recognizable-changes here are strictly cosmetic in nature.
Developer Obsidian will add all-new faces, but for this first, exclusive playable, the only visages available are from the original game. Because the hero starts off as a Jedi he or she must be assigned a class : Jedi Consulars traditionally function as diplomats and concentrate on Force-related abilities rather than physical prowess and skill with a lightsaber; Jedi Sentinels tend to blend melee ability with Force works; and Guardians are the Jedi frontline troops (
that's me)
At once you'll note new skills and abilities. New proficiencies allow characters to become adept, at say, wrist-mounted weaponry. Special abilities allow for mobility bonuses, the regeneration of Force or vitality points, or extra damage done by two or more characters attacking the same person. The same goes for Jedi powers; new abilities let you control beasts, utilize your lung power for destructive effect, and even craft special lightsaber forms.
Later in the game the Jedi protagonist will be able to move past his simple Jedi origins to become one of six specialty classes. Depending on whether he or she is good or evil, the character can become a : Jedi Master, a Jedi Weapon Master, Jedi Watchman (wtf is a Watchman), or a Sith Lord, Sith Assassin or a Sith Marauder. Each has it's own unique advantages to confer, but as they're certainly not attainable on the death-laden, mining-colony of Peragus, they're very much a story for another time.
WELCOME TO PERAGUS, NOW GET OUT!
Welcome to Peragus, pardon the shotgun introduction. The Republic is ailing, perhaps even on the verge of collapse. The Sith, led by the dessicated and creepy Darth Sion, are ascendant. The Jedi are now largely extinct, with the surviving members scattered and in hiding. And the spaceship
Ebon Hawk has made it's way to Peragus, having winded it's way through an asteroid field to land at an undetermined location. You, my young Jedi, were stuck in a tank but have now been mysteriously freed.
This isn't Kansas, and it would take more than a rabbinical convention to make things kosher. The poor souls in the tanks flanking yours all dead. So are all the people in the hallways. The only living souls to be found, oddly enough is in the morgue. And she's pretending to be dead until you peek under the sheets. Call her Kreia.
In the midst of death and despair,
Lords plumbs its depth to find genuine levity, if not outright comedy. The elderly Jedi Kreia won't initially join the main character to explore Peragus, nor will she offer any insight into the mystery of who's been killing everyone. What she will do almost immediately though, is notice your fashion distress, quipping "You may wish to extend your search to find some clothes". Sadly clothes seem to be in short supply on Peragus. And the wacky pranksters at Obsidian relish making players explore in the near-altogether for a while, anyway.
Near the morgue a computer holds hints to the mystery of Peragus. The
Ebon Hawk arrived on Peragus damaged in a battle, with another unknown ship. Two droids have been recovered, and it should be to no surprise of the first game as to their identities. They're simply being listed as Protocol and Utility Droid. Oh, and another interesting tidbit : somebody order a lethal dosage of sedatives to be administered into the kolto tanks just as you escaped.
Obisidian has added new workstations to
Lords. Previously, you could use workbenches to modify existing weaponry and armor by adding new parts and upgrades, as well as augmenting your lightsaber with new crystals, but now...food, medicines, and chemicals can be tempered with in
Lords. It will be possible to take an item - a medpack - break it into peices and then reconstruct them to create new items. It's uncertain to what extend new items can be created, as the stations did not seem to be working properly.
Blasters are forbidden on Peragus, as Peragian fuel is only slightly less volatile then Seann Penn when exposed to photographers (don't ask wtf they're talking about). Now you know what created the asteroid field around Peragus...
WE WORK THE BLACK SEAM
The mining droids on Peragus have run amok, killing their human masters.Your first fights will be against Peragain mining droids, and combat, has been altered drastically. Fights still play out in turns, the dice roll still determines who lives and dies, and it's still possible to pause at any time.
Obsidian promises that the characters will be more dynamic this time around, performing more moves and recoils, but these had yet to be fully implemented in this preview build. And as far as blantly obvious changes there seemed to be only one. Now a player controlled character can opt to apply a medpack or another device to another party member instead of himself.
The first potential party memeber you meet is a lesser Han Solo. Atton Rand, rogue, waits for you in a holding cell. Your conversation with him is enlightening; it's here that Rand will prompt you to answer whether or not the Jedi Revan from the original
Knights of The Old Republic was a man or a woman. He then casually mentions that Revan went off to Korriban, the Sith homeworld, and simply dissapeared. Is it possible to leave Rand behind and do the unabashedly evil thing and let him rot behind a force field? Perhaps, but for playable purposes of the test, Rand is free and allowed to help attempt open up sealed parts of the mining facility. In combat, Rand proves incredibly helpful; each party member now has a special feature. Rand's is survival. If he's not the last one standing in a battle, he come back to life and regenerate health.
With Rand's help you'll be able to take control of your old friend, robot TM-34. As TM-34 you can open up some very important rooms and enable the main character to fully explore them. But calamity awaits. When TM-34 completes his task he's stuck down by an unknown advesary. Twent or so minutes in, you'll find some clothes."The whole half naked Jedi thing was wearing a bit thin" Rand tells you when our finally respectable.
A RONTO AMONG HUMANS!
You're a very, very bad man, HK-47. The meatbad hating protocol droid returns, and you'll meet him on Pergaus. when he sees you alive, he'll not that you are in fact, "a ronto among humans". and to say he's up to mischief is an understatement.
It would be inappropriate to discuss the scope and nature of HK's doings on Peragus. A good mystery should be preserved until all can enjoy it; suffice it to say the robot plays a pivitol role, and here
Obsidian has crafted plot elements rivaling those of the original
Republic. It may not suggest there are events on the first planet of
Lords similiar in nature to the grand revelation in
Republic that the main character was an amnesiac Revan, a brainwashed dark Jedi and former master of the Sith villian Darth Malak.
Once HK shows up things really start to boil. A huge Republic cruise, the Harbringer, appears and so do a series of black-clad Sith assassins whom materialize from nowhere. Kreia joins your party, and in rapid succession the mystery of who's been killing the miners is revealed. And the identity of the villian who ordered the lethal dosage of sedatives in your tank is also revealed. if the first few minutes of
Lords seem leaden, then the later ones will move like a young Muhammad Ali. Again, good taste prohibits spoiling the surprise.
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