My Favourite Video Game Featuring: Seeking Sirens
My Favourite Video Game is a guest feature from bands and artists where we set them a simple task… tell us about your favourite video game. In this feature metalcore band Seeking Sirens took up the mantle and you can read all about their choice below.
My favorite video game of all time is Star Wars – Knights of The Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.
First and foremost is disclosing that I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, and this game has my favorite story outside of the Skywalker saga that takes place one thousand years before Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.
It’s before The Sith created “The Rule of Two” allowing the existence of many Sith Lords with unique elements and backstories all vying for supremacy that tie together and core the overall story arc. The Mandalorians are also at the height of their power and warrior culture in the years before this story takes place, and the game gives amazing insight into the race and culture that shows through in the mandalorians we see in the movies and series today. The game play is kind of turn based, which I’ve always had an affinity for, and there are dialogue and action choices every step of the way, even in the complex character creation that includes gender, which affect the overall play and the endings. Good, evil, lawful, chaotic, everything in between, and you can alter that arc at almost every step of the game. I have replayed it at least a hundred times by now and I’m still not sure exactly which way I like to play through it best.
The game came out around the end of the original Xbox console cycle. I actually think the 360 may have already been out or on pre order when it was released. They re-released both KOTOR installments digitally on the Xbox One which ensured I still on occasion pick it up for another run through to this day. It’s a hugely deep game that delves deep into so much of Star Wars lore that a hardcore fan like me always wondered about. Different lightsaber crystals and what they do, the parts used in their construction, The Hutts, and how even a thousand years before Jabba the Hutt they were still the lords of crime in the galaxy, the bounty hunters’ guild, The Sith Empire in the outer reaches of unknown space, man, the list goes on and on. I love watching all of the Dave Filoni produced stuff, including the most recent season of The Mandalorian, because he inserts all these little things and nods to this game and it’s story. In the first installment of KOTOR, you go to Tatooine and eventually have to slay a Krayt Dragon, even gaining the option of using the pearl you acquire from the corpse to make peace with an enclave of sandpeople if you choose. One of your party characters in both installments is an old assassin droid called HK-47, who also gets a nod in an episode on season two, with two HK units guarding that imperial officer in an episode near the end of the season. I know this is starting to sound like a love letter to Dave, hahaha, but it’s really just amazing to see a game I love so much get it’s due in the canon.
One of my most favorite aspects of this game is how well they repeatedly put you in a position where you could easily turn from the light side to the darkside, and even back again. No matter what you do with your character creation, it can only be human and for good reason. It cleverly illustrates just how our humanity can make the most noble and best of the Jedi, or the most terrible endowment of evil and blight upon the galaxy. It makes you a part of it all. It makes you understand all those “certain points of view” that Obi-wan talks about in the very first Star Wars Film. Hell, you can even go completely off the beaten path and kill just about everyone if you want, The Sith, the Jedi, whoever. There’s elements of the story that make even that route make sense. It’s truly awesome.
Anyway, long story short… If you like RPG’s, and you LOVE Star Wars, I strongly recommend you take a spin with Star Wars – Knights of The Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. I promise you won’t be disappointed, even with this old game.
