Okay, so my brother-in-law gave me a copy of KotOR 2 for my birthday. Some may remember me bitching about this game several times. It was the game that convinced me that Lucasarts was no longer a company deserving of my money. Now, my original copy of the game is lost in the mists of time (I don't remember whether I gave it to a colleague or just threw it out the last time I moved), but getting it again made me think it over. So many people have said good things about it, that I wonder if perhaps it is worth my time again. The copy I got was purchased in England, so I can't return it anyway.
So, after a lengthy introduction, here's my question: What's the current state of the game? I played it right when it was released, and it was bugridden as no other game I have ever played. I know patches have been released since then, but I don't know how much they have fixed.
Also, there's the Team Gizka restoration project. From what I've been able to gather, they stopped reporting on their progress long ago, and while they insist that they are still working on it, they are unwilling to say anything about what the status of the project actually is.
So... Is it worth my time and energy getting this game installed and working on Vista? Or should I consign it to a box in the shed, or maybe find someone else who might be interested?

Interestingly enough (or not), I've recently started playing through KoTOR 1 and loving it. I fully intend to run through KoTOR 2 once I'm done. Despite the bugs, and only being about 80% complete I really enjoyed it. Give it a bash, I say.

I'd box it and lie that it was great.
I stopped purchasing PC games for a while because developers were releasing them half finished. Telling themselves well fix it all with a patch and me waiting with baited breath for something that never happend.
Oh wow, it crashed again. There goes another 50$ down the toilet. Who's to blame? Well it seems the company that made the game has disappeared and your game is no longer supported. What a shock.
Used car dealerships do that same crap to duck lawsuits.

The thing is, I HAVE played all the way through it, back when it came out. And I must say, I've never felt as thoroughly shafted by a game as I did at the end of KotOR 2. The only reason I kept playing was my conviction that in spite of the massive bugs and obvious content cuts, the story had to have a truly epic ending. And I think we can agree that the ending of KotOR 2 was less than epic, if not non-existent.
I agree that KotOR 1 was phenomenal, and much of what pissed me off about number 2 was precisely the obvious brilliance of the game. I wouldn't mind the bugs and the content cuts so much, if the game itself had been shitty. I'd just have counted it as a loss and moved on. But it's obvious to see what KotOR 2 could have been, but wasn't, because of the stuff mentioned above.
So what I want to know is, if I play it again today, with all the patches and updates that have been released in the intervening time, will I still have essentially the same experience as I did with the original, unpatched game? Because if the answer is yes, I see no reason to voluntarily subject myself to such levels of frustration again.

Ah fair enough. I certainly did get the "is that it???" feeling at the end. The thing is, I enjoy the RPG elements of KoTOR 2 so much that it softened the blow. I also enjoyed the story aspects and was able to focus on that in order to feel less let down.
Either way, I don't actually know the states of the patches/mods but I'll be interested to hear what others have to say. If you're still wondering in a week or two I will have gotten round to KoTOR 2 and I can tell you myself :).

just be prepared, you don't get off the tutorial crater for around an hour and a half, its torture.

Worst opening area in a game.
The only thing I remember being better about KoTOR 2 than the first is that when you were in a spacesuit you could move at normal speeds instead of being slowed down.
After I beat the original KoTOR I immediately played it through again. I have never played through KoTOR 2 again.

agreed.

temple of trials takes 10 minutes. KoTOR 2's opening took over an hour.

I always felt that KOTOR 2 had much more potential as far as the story went because of how much darker/less obviously black and white as the first one was but unfortunately it never really pans out and ends up being convoluted. The ending also is underwhelming as it is confusing.
And I absolutely feel like the opening of that game is what prevents me from wanting to play through it again (ive done so twice already)

Hmm, this does look rather promising. I'll keep an eye on this, rather than the Team Gizka one. They (Team Gizka) seem to be the Duke Nukem Forever team in disguise anyway.

I've recently started to play it. The first thing that bothered me was that the graphics are really not as good as in KOTOR1. I guess it's due to the lack of time Obsidian had to complete the game, and maybe they have not the same artistic talent than Bioware...
Anyway, concerning bugs: one of the most frustrating for me is during the swoop races. I just can't do them. In KOTOR2, you can (and have to) make jumps during race to avoid obstacles. But when I start a race, my swoop is already in the air, and I just can't lower it. It's like the swoop is stuck in jump position.
I've tried every patch available, but no one worked. Very very frustating, cause swoop races are a good way to make easy money...

Personally I loved KOTOR2, even with all the shitty coding it was a great all round experience.
Yes there were almost game breaking bugs, yes certain lines of dialogue could irrevocably break character quests, yes the cut content could account for a full chapter of any other game and the ending was a bit of a fizz but given that they had months cut from the development to meet a pointless christmas release date (I mean who buys star wars games ONLY at christmas for fucks sake?), I think they did a damned good job.
The antagonists were interesting and unusual for a star wars game with very interesting motivations, the NPCs you could recruit felt different and interesting rather than being cardboard cutouts, many of the major quests were weird and cool, the moral choice arguments in the game actually felt like something more than "here beggar, have my entire fortune" vs "Mwahahahaha you want me to give you something? Here have force lightning" and the game had HK47 which is NEVER a bad thing.
As for the stability of the PC version, I've never used it. Given what I've heard I'd tend to suggest getting the xbox version if you can play it

Maybe I got lucky, but I made it through KotoR 2 twice without encountering a game-stopping bug, nor even a situation that crashed me to desktop. The rushed, and almost empty ending aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I'm not sure how much of the "hole" at the end of the game is due to the deadline, and how much of it is due to Obsidian being terrible at ending games they intend to follow up with a sequel (given that there was supposed to be a KotoR 3 and how badly the ending of the NWN2 OC sucked).