Category Archives: Gaming

Knights of the Old Replay: Telos

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Dantooine might be mildly more ridiculously fun than Telos when it comes to second planets but there’s something to be said for how much more immersive this “level” feels because there’s a heck of a lot to it. We make it to the Citadel Station orbiting Telos buuuuut there’s a slight problem: the Republic’s not happy and decides to imprison you because the destruction of Peragus sure does look shifty and by the time they’ve worked out it wasn’t your fault, someone’s stolen the Ebon Hawk. Jerks.

Citadel Station puts you in the middle of a battle between the very nice Ithorians and the very not nice Czerka Corporation and it’s not hard to guess which is the light side and which is the dark side option. (Seriously though: Czerka is the WORST.) It is fun that the Ithorians don’t mind condoning breaking and entering to help you along. Along the way, there are the usual ‘help out random people or screw them over’ mini missions and honestly, I think I might be a better person in video games than I am in real life because I’m not about to give a stranger 2000 credits any time soon. Continue reading →

Knights of the Old Replay: Peragus

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Aaaaand we’re back! I know, I know: it’s been awhile. Blame Celebration even if it was a delightful time but hey! We’re here again and that’s what counts. We’re kicking things off with the final step in this KOTOR journey and playing Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. It’s not just the standard game though. Oh no. I’m playing the modded version for the first time ever! For those who don’t know, KOTOR2 was basically rushed into stores and was never properly finished but much of the unfinished content was still on the discs… or something. (Honestly, I don’t really know what I’m talking about with coding stuff.) What I do know is that people have been working pretty much ever since to build a mod that would restore that unfinished content into the game and that the mod was available when KOTOR2 was finally made available for Mac via Steam a few years ago. (That was such a great day.) I figured this project was a good time to play through the game with the cut content for the first time and, well, here we are!

The game starts with you waking up in a bacta tank on a mining station in the middle of nowhere. Oh wait and no one else is there except for all of the dead people and the homicidal droids. How could this possibly get any worse? (It gets worse.) Between the not-actually-dead creepy old lady and all the droids trying to kill you and the definitely not a protocol droid who is also trying to kill you and the Sith Lord who sleeps with vibroblades… not a great day. And this is on top of you being a former Jedi who was Exiled from the Order after the Mandalorian Wars. Continue reading →

Knights of the Old Replay: Unknown World and Star Forge

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Holy crap, I finally made it! We’ve saved the galaxy from the horrible Sith and especially from Darth Squiggleypants. (Side note: I’m sorry, JJM. I know his ridiculous last name was never supposed to stay canon but it’s funny and it’s Malak. I can’t help it.)

Now that we finally have all the map pieces, we can go to the Star Forge and figure out what the heck it is. Turns out that it’s a crazy efficient factory that’s been making all of the Sith ships and droids. (Hence why they’ve been able to be such a threat to the Republic.) Before we can make it to the Star Forge itself, a disruptor field knocks the Ebon Hawk down to the only planet in the system where there are a lot of other disabled ships and that really weird Rakata race who made the Star Forge ages ago. They are a weird looking species and I am terrible because watching them walk is kind of hilarious.

And now I get to kill a lot of rancors. Why? Because why not! It’s a great way to get some more XP as I have to fight my way through different parts of the beach and grasslands to go rescue a prisoner from the bad tribe so the good tribe will trust me because apparently Revan betrayed them last time and we really need to get into that temple. I also managed to stumble upon another new-to-me mini plot line! The not cool part of this is that the good Rakata tribe is looking into eugenics to try and solve their lack of Force sensitivity. The game lets you call them out but it’s still totally unnerving. Continue reading →

Knights of the Old Replay: Korriban

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Every time I’ve played this game, I’ve told myself that I’ll do the planets in a different order and every time, I always go to Korriban last because I just can’t help myself. When you do Korriban last, you get all these hilarious new dialogue options where you can tell people that you’re Revan and they just do not believe you. The other really fun part about Korriban depends on who you take with you. For maximum hilarity, I usually go with Canderous and Jolee because their commentary on everything is THE BEST. (Although I’m not sure now whether Jolee’s snarky remarks when you have to tell the Sith that your companions are slaves are cringe worthy or amusing.)

In a way, Korriban is kind of like a darker Telos. You briefly encounter people you’ll encounter again later as you make your way through the city and then—okay so I’m not entirely clearly as to why (aside from video game laws) we couldn’t just go around the Sith Academy but we don’t. Instead you have to get accepted as a student there. This couldn’t possibly go wrong. Once accepted, Master Uthar makes you and the other new students (yeah those people you met before) compete to be America’s Next Top Sith Apprentice and this, my friends, is where the funs begins. Continue reading →

Knights of the Old Replay: Leviathan

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I’ve been looking forward to the Leviathan part of the game since the very start because it’s when everything changes and it hits me in the feels every damn time. This is the part of the game that completely blew my mind when I was 14 years old and I still love it to pieces over a decade later.

Everything starts when you leave whatever planet had the third Star Forge map piece and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Saul Karath’s ship, the Leviathan, yanks you out of hyperspace and everyone on the Ebon Hawk is about to be very screwed. We get about five minutes to come up with an escape plan aka: picking a teammate to come save our skins. I think that I usually use Canderous or HK-47 here but I made Twitter pick for me this time so Jolee got his marching orders. He wasn’t quite as easy to use for this as the tank that is Canderous but I just whirlawinded everyone who got in my way and ran away when there was too many of them and it worked out just fine. Continue reading →

Knights of the Old Replay: Manaan

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I just wanted to make sure you all know how ugly the Republic uniforms are before this retrospective ends.

Manaan and its Fish People (okay fine Selkath) hate fun and don’t want to just let me live my life. Apparently they take their neutrality super seriously and I’m not allowed to just get into fights with random people on the street. What’s the point then? Plus, I end up in their court all the dang time for one stupid reason or another and I hate having to argue my case to them because they always seem to hate me. (Jolee, buddy, you deserve a better side quest than arguing your friend’s court case because he was sleeping with a Sith lady and they think he killed her.)

Most of my surprises from this play through have come about because the game glitched. Not so this time! I stumbled upon a subplot/mission that I’ve never found before. Apparently I talked to the right Selkath and unlocked a whole section of the Sith embassy/base where they’ve been kidnapping Selkath youth and training them in the ways of the dark side. I had to prove to them that the Sith really are evil and take on a Dark Jedi Master or two along the way. Continue reading →

Knights of the Old Replay: Kashyyyk

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Back when I was a wee child, one of the first Star Wars books I ever read was Young Jedi Knights: Darkest Knight, which takes place primarily on Kashyyyk. Ever since, I’ve though the planet was super cool. It’s a city in the trees with very natural architecture and also a killer under-forest. Only the bravest can go down to the Shadowlands and return alive. Obviously that includes us.

When you have a wookiee in your party and you go to Kashyyyk, obviously he’s going to have some family drama that you need to deal with because that’s just how this works. Zaalbar is no exception to the rule. It turns out that he was exiled from his home for attacking his brother with his claws, which is apparently super terrible amongst his society. To be fair, he did it because his brother was dealing with Czerka slavers but no one believed him. Now his brother’s in control and holds Zaalbar hostage and sends you down to the Shadowlands to deal with this other crazed wookiee… who happens to be their father. (Family drama: not just limited to Skywalkers!) Continue reading →

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Teacups & 1UPs: Night In The Woods

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Imagine being an early-twenties college drop-out. Imagine moving back to your small, dying home town, a place that hasn’t really changed, but has also changed enough to be strange. Imagine struggling to understand the futility of life.

Now imagine you are also a cat.

This is Night In The Woods, an adventure game/kind-of-Western-visual-novel that stars a humanoid(ish) cat named Mae Borowski. It’s a game I fell in love with the moment I first saw a trailer, and continue to love now that it’s over. As per usual with Teacups, this is less a review and more a discussion. Therefore, expect some spoilers; maybe save reading this until you’ve played through the game.

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Knights of the Old Replay: Tatooine

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Anakin Skywalker was right: I hate sand. It’s rough and it’s coarse and it gets everywhere and the sands of Tatooine LITERALLY NEVER END. That’s what the game tells you if you try and go outside the Czerka boundary markers. You’ll just wander the desert wasteland and die if you keep going. (Note: The game does not let you keep going.)

Every single time I start this game, I tell myself that I’m going to change up the order of the planets and every single time, I go to them in basically the exact same order. Is it because of the story? Nah. (Okay it is for one planet.) It’s because I really want to get the crew members from certain planets as soon as possible. Why on earth would I go to Manaan first when I could maximize my time with HK-47?
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Knights of the Old Replay: Dantooine

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Dantooine… they’re on Dantooine… parts of the Jedi Council are at least. Honestly, I always forget how much I love this planet because it is so completely and utterly ridiculous at times. Take this woman Elisa. She wants you to find her droid because it’s all she has left of her dead husband. One problem: the droid ran away because she was treating him a little too much like her dead husband. Yeah. It’s exactly what your brain went to and it makes me laugh every time.

The real point of Dantooine though is for you to be accepted into the Jedi Order and learn to use the Force because you and Bastila have some sort of connection and some super weird dreams about Darth Revan. (In retrospect, my 14-year-old self should have picked up on this foreshadowing way sooner but more on that later.) This means that you’ve got to study the Jedi way of life, their code, make your lightsaber, and decide what class of Jedi you want to be. I used to go for Sentinel but then I realized that I just want more of those sweet, sweet Force powers so Consular it is! It’ll be a cold day in hell before I go for Guardian.

There’s one final test before they make you an official padawan: you must cleanse the ancient grove of the dark side taint. Or something like that. This is flashing warning sign number one that the Jedi Order is kind of screwed up. You have to redeem a Jedi padawan named Juhani who fell to the dark side after her own master was testing her and made Juhani think that she’d killed her. It’s kinda messed up. Incidentally, that’s a good tagline for the Jedi Order. Continue reading →