h, the quest to be good or evil is one fraught with peril and difficult decisions. Games learned these facts when they played through LucasArts’ and Bioware’s Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. Thanks to the game’s open-endedness and the ability to stray towards either the Light or Dark side of the Jedi life, the game became an instant classic. Today I got a chance to delve a bit deeper into the sequel Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II: Sith Lords, and while details on the new title didn’t flow like drink at a Star Wars cantina, I did walk away with some juicy new tidbits of information.

First of all Bioware is no longer in the picture. Developer Obsidian has been charged with putting the game together, but from the looks of how the game is coming together so far, they’re doing an admirable job. While my time with the game was pretty brief I didn’t manage to sneak a few peeks at a level that took place in Onderan. During the portions of the game that take place there you learn that the Republic is at odds with the local populace. Fights and skirmishes soon begin to break out between the two factions and as a player you get the unique opportunity to either try and quell the problem or actually stoke into becoming more intense. Since such decisions were a major feature of the first KOTOR, it’s nice to see that Obsidian is staying in track by including such enjoyable decision-making endeavors.

Perhaps the most notable new features of KOTOR II are the new force powers and feats. In all there will be about 60 new force powers and feats, including the impressive Force Crush that allows you to lift an enemy into the air and essentially crush their internal organs using the power of the Force. Feats will include 60 new abilities, most of which will touch on new combat-oriented aspects of the game. Taking into account that the first KOTOR suffered form some imbalance between melee and ranged combat, KOTOR II will sport more ranged combat oriented feats to help balance out the two styles of combat. The game will also include new fighting classes to go along with the new combat-based feats as well as 10 different characters that you can enlist the help of. This time around these characters will also change in appearance and ability depending on whether you take the Light or Dark path of the Jedi. If you’re a bad Jedi and eventually transform into a dark, foreboding bad-ass, they’ll also change accordingly.

The biggest surprise during my time with the game was the appearance of the new enemy Darth Sion, a man who has found his body nearly destroyed by the Dark side of the Force. Looking more like a grey-skinned zombie, you’ll run across Darth Sion and fight him on a number of different occasions. While I pressed for more information on him and his story, I was unsuccessful. Despite this, it’s obvious that LucasArts has big plans for him in KOTOR II.

My time with KOTOR II was short but impressive. All of the features that made KOTOR so much fun and enjoyable to play seem to still be in the sequel. Combat still seems intuitive and robust and the inclusion of so many new Force powers and Feats only add to the appeal. Stay tuned to Game Informer Online for more details about the game as they become available.