Need a game to play: Mass Effect 3 or KOTOR 2?

[GodGoblin]

Hey guys so ive just finished off all the expansions for both Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim, Ive previously played KOTOR 1 and ME 1&2 and id like to finish off the series.

Any comments on which is worth playing? Or general moans, groans or good bits that can help me decide?

Im on Xbox 360 is makes any difference, thanks in advance! :smallsmile:

[Blackdrop]

Mass Effect 3

I don't even think you can play KotoR 2 on the 360. And it really isn't worth playing without the TSLRCM anyway, which you need a mod for.

[GodGoblin]

Cheers, but whats the TSLRCM?

[Blackdrop]

The Sith Lords: Restored Content Mod

It adds in a large hunk of the content that Obsidian had to cut to release the game, including restoring most of the ending. It also fixes quite a few of the bugs the game has.

[Krade]

They are both good games with certain glaring flaws. KOTOR 2's general unfinishedness and ME3's ending shenanigans.

I haven't played KOTOR 2 since I had an Xbox (not 360) so I'm not sure how well the gameplay has aged. I remember little in the way of specifics, but it was definitely enjoyable the five or six times I went through it.

As for ME3, it has most of the shine and polish of recently released game with little in the way of glitches and exploits (at least in the single player). The DLC ranges from solid to amazing and (I feel) are all worth the money (except for maybe From the Ashes, but I got it with the collector's edition so I didn't really pay for it).

I also remember hearing that EA was phasing out the Online Pass BS they started a few years ago. If you're buying used, wait and see if that pans out if you want to access the multiplayer in ME3. I doubt they'll issue refunds to people who bought passes before the program is discontinued.

I could get more specific with ME3 if you like, but KOTOR 2 is too far from recent for me to squeeze any more out of my memory.

[BWR]

You don't play KOTOR for the gameplay, you play it for the story and the companions.

[GloatingSwine]

KOTOR2's ending is better than Mass Effect 3s.

Even the version in the shipped product. And that basically doesn't have an ending it just sort of stops.

[SiuiS]

KOTOR2's ending is better than Mass Effect 3s.

Even the version in the shipped product. And that basically doesn't have an ending it just sort of stops.

The mass effect 3 ending has been corrected. The **** storm causin one no longer really exists, unless you go out of your way for it.

[Nerd-o-rama]

ME3 is a terrific setpiece conclusion to a trilogy of very high quality but often very cliché sci fi shooter-RPGs. You will have massive amounts of fun playing it, especially since you played 1 and 2 first.

KOTOR2 is the guys who made Fallout and Planescape Torment going depressingly nuts on Star Wars lore in a trippy character piece that's more of a commentary on what it means to be a hero or a villain or even your standard blank slate RPG protagonist in a seemingly black-and-white world like the Star Wars galaxy. It is also unfinished and a little tedious in actual gameplay, being old enough to be more of a real-time RPG like Neverwinter Nights rather than being somewhere on the shooter spectrum like ME and newFallout. Get it cheap, download the Restored Content Mod, then sit back and enjoy the story.

I guess the real answer is "did you like ME2 or New Vegas better? If the former, ME3. If the latter, KOTOR2, just forgive it for being even more of an unfinished mess than Obsidian's other stuff."

[satorian]

I'll echo the other folks who say you should only play KOTOR 2 on the PC with the TSLRC mod, and maybe the droid planet mod as well. If you are playing on XBox, I guess that leaves Mass Effect 3. Although if you are cheap like me and want all the DLCs without having to shell out another bunch of bucks, you'll wait another 6 months or so for an Ultimate edition to come out. I've been reading up on it, and most folks seem to think one is on its way.

[The Rose Dragon]

To be honest, aside from the fact that both have dialogue options, and take place in space, there is very little in common between the two games. One is a solid third-person shooter set around a mediocre and cheesy yet largely entertaining plot that requires having played two other games to fully experience, and the other is a buggy computer RPG that has very little connections with its predecessor that is, depending on who you ask, either an unappreciated masterpiece that exposes the weaknesses of the Star Wars universe and RPGs at large, or an annoying attempt at deconstructing too many things that tries way too hard and fails at being enjoyable as a result.

Despite earlier posts, The Sith Lords without the content mod is still an acceptable game if you can overlook some possibly game-breaking bugs and the utter absence of a proper ending. Like Mass Effect 3, everything before the last two hours stands well enough on its own. If you can't get the mod, still want to play the game, and want to avoid the ending frustration, you can stop right when you go to Malachor, quit the game, and go watch Star Wars videos with lightsaber fighting online.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Admittedly, the high point of the game is the return to Dantooine and the villain's speech there, at least for me. The thematic elements of Malachor are pretty much covered in the Korriban cave dungeon if you chose to do that, although after seeing the villain's epic villain speech on Dantooine, I'd kind of want to watch the conclusion to it myself.

[Philistine]

@OP: What did you like about the previous games in each series?

ME3 is your go-to choice for a generic third-person shooter with heroically botched writing in a "Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off" setting - unless you're really into shooters (and possibly even then), you're probably better off just looking up the resolution scenes for your favorite NPCs from the prior games and watching them on youtube. The story is, however, a direct (if poorly executed) follow-up to the first two games, as ME was planned to be a trilogy from its earliest conception. For me, ME3 (mostly, but not entirely, that godawful ending) was bad enough to retroactively wreck the previous two games in the series.

KotOR2 would be the choice for a radical* (whether that's good or bad is up to the individual, but it's unarguably different) take on the Star Wars setting and genre. The story's connection to KotOR is necessarily indirect, since KotOR was never intended to launch a series and its conclusion didn't leave much hanging. Even more problematic, the sequel's tone is arguably unsuitable for Star Wars, and for various reasons (which could be, and have been, the subject of many, many rants all by themselves) the game shipped in an obviously unfinished state.

[Tiki Snakes]

KotOR2 would be the choice for a radical* (whether that's good or bad is up to the individual, but it's unarguably different) take on the Star Wars setting and genre. The story's connection to KotOR is necessarily indirect, since KotOR was never intended to launch a series and its conclusion didn't leave much hanging. Even more problematic, the sequel's tone is arguably unsuitable for Star Wars, and for various reasons (which could be, and have been, the subject of many, many rants all by themselves) the game shipped in an obviously unfinished state.

Yeah, we probably don't need to re-hash those rants here. Suffice it to say, I'd strongly recommend a release-day, no dlc, unpatched ME3 over KOTOR 2. I'd probably rate ME3's infamous unexpanded ending as head and shoulders over what little sense KOTOR 2 managed, but I fully accept I have quite strong feelings on the subject and YMMV quite a lot.

I think a simpler way to decide is that quite simply, KOTOR2 just wasn't finished, is a lot older and uglier and the gameplay is significantly less polished and well designed. ME3 may polarise opinion, but it's newer and prettier, with more interesting and more rigorously designed gameplay, some genuinely great voice acting and a competent multiplayer mode. It's pretty hard to find a reason to suggest KOTOR 2 over ME3, really, because even if we go with a very uncharitable review of ME3's plot, that still only brings it down to vaguely comparable levels, from what I remember of the car-crash that was KOTOR 2's plot.

[Squark]

KOTOR 2 with the restored content might be better, but given the OP is on an xbox, that's irrelevant. Also, I'm not sure KOTOR2 even works on the 360.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Mass Effect 3 is very similar to ME2, but better in every way. The story is less rigid with more sidequests, the additional weapons and weight system make combat more fun, and the moral choices resemble "generous or pragmatic" rather than "mother teresa or baby-eating murderer".

I enjoyed KotOR II even without the patch, and it has its incredible moments, but overall it's not better than the first KotOR. The companions are a little more varied, but the combat's almost exactly the same. The crafting system is interesting despite being incredibly confusing at first.

Overall, I'd call KotOR II a game you should play, but Mass Effect 3 a game you need to play.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Mass Effect 3 is very similar to ME2, but better in every way. The story is less rigid with more sidequests...the moral choices resemble "generous or pragmatic" rather than "mother teresa or baby-eating murderer".

(Middle point redacted because I agree with that one)

You sure we were playing the same game, boss? ME3 was much more linear than 2. Not in a bad way, since everything was driving toward a particular conclusion rather than being a sandbox of "Shepard, go do **** until you find the plot, I'll bankroll it", but still. And the moral choices in 3, barring the ending, tended a lot more toward extremes of utter bastardry vs. Space Jesus, at least in my assessment.

[Marnath]

(Middle point redacted because I agree with that one)

You sure we were playing the same game, boss? ME3 was much more linear than 2. Not in a bad way, since everything was driving toward a particular conclusion rather than being a sandbox of "Shepard, go do **** until you find the plot, I'll bankroll it", but still. And the moral choices in 3, barring the ending, tended a lot more toward extremes of utter bastardry vs. Space Jesus, at least in my assessment.

I don't remember any renegade choices in 3 that didn't boil down to "I'm going to do this unethical thing because it helps the final goal of strengthening my fleet." Putting a hit out on Oraka, choosing the bombing fleet at the price of letting a turian colony burn, even siding with the geth is pragmatic from a certain point of view. I mean, the quarians were the aggressors all the way through and the geth do seem more formidable especially if you saved the heretics whereby the quarians took heavier losses. Siding with the geth gets you a very formidable fleet, and it's hardly your fault that the stupid quarians wouldn't back down.

The only thing that comes close to utter bastardry in my opinion is betraying the krogan. Sabotaging the genophage cure, and purposefully ignoring the bomb so that it goes off just when Eve has rallied a huge percentage of the population including most of the fertile females and the children. It's arguably worse than what was done after the krogan rebellions, because when the bomb goes off it almost certainly kills enough of the krogan who can reproduce to be the death knell for the species.

Even that is sort of pragmatic, if also the worst war crime anyone has ever committed. Use the krogan against the reapers, and ensure that they can never be a threat to galactic stability again. It's absolutely the most evil thing a Shepard can do though, don't get me wrong.

[Sith_Happens]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lo9wZsPUiU0/UN6Uc84lyLI/AAAAAAAADgU/Ieq0YTNS334/s320/why-not-both.jpg

[The Rose Dragon]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lo9wZsPUiU0/UN6Uc84lyLI/AAAAAAAADgU/Ieq0YTNS334/s320/why-not-both.jpg

Money, my dear boy.

[Talderas]

I don't remember any renegade choices in 3 that didn't boil down to "I'm going to do this unethical thing because it helps the final goal of strengthening my fleet." Putting a hit out on Oraka, choosing the bombing fleet at the price of letting a turian colony burn, even siding with the geth is pragmatic from a certain point of view. I mean, the quarians were the aggressors all the way through and the geth do seem more formidable especially if you saved the heretics whereby the quarians took heavier losses. Siding with the geth gets you a very formidable fleet, and it's hardly your fault that the stupid quarians wouldn't back down.

The option where you choose between saving the Hanar homeworld or saving the Spectre. If you take the Renegade option you save the Spectre and basically lose out on the Hanar homeworld war assets. Get Kasumi Goto in ME2 that way you get both.


The only thing that comes close to utter bastardry in my opinion is betraying the krogan. Sabotaging the genophage cure, and purposefully ignoring the bomb so that it goes off just when Eve has rallied a huge percentage of the population including most of the fertile females and the children. It's arguably worse than what was done after the krogan rebellions, because when the bomb goes off it almost certainly kills enough of the krogan who can reproduce to be the death knell for the species.

I think your opinion of the Krogan is tainted by Wrex. Grunt is far closer to the Krogan as a whole and even he isn't like them. They were a problem. The Krogan were only spacefaring because the Salarians raised them to fight the Rachni. They would have died out on there own if it weren't for them.

[Rustic Dude]

Kotor 2 tends to be dirt cheap on steam and even if you are a XBox gamer it will run well on any computer you have. With the restoring content mods it becomes a masterpiece in my opinion, so it is the game I'd recommend.

Also, no silly npcs like Asian Space Ninja Guy or Hologram kid.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I will be quick. KotoR 2. Always. ALWAYS. KotoR 2.

It works on 360 (I've played it) and PC, so it's entirely up to you. KotoR 2 is unfinished, true. But it is still a better story/game than ME3 finished.

I cannot begin to properly explain how good KotoR 2 is. So I'll let him (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9LgUXdxkE0) explain.