KOTOR2... It's got a totally different feel. KOTOR1 is super epic and is all about you saving the world. KOTOR2 is super personal and you saving the world isn't the focus or motivating factor. I love it because it's so different. Games aren't usually good at pulling off a personal story but KOTOR2 nails it in the same way that a great movie can nail that type of stuff. If you play that game not expecting something identical to KOTOR2, I think you'll love it in the same way that people like Super Mario World 2 despite it being radically different than its predecessor.
Phantom Dust... I think the storyline is good but the gameplay is insanely disconnected from it. The gameplay is something I think everyone should play. You've never played a genre mash up as good as this one. They took a card game and gave it crazy real time action like a shooter, except it's even more frantic but they managed to keep all the strategy of a card game. Imagine all those crazy attacks you see in a wizard battle, but picture you running around a 3D arena with those moves mapped to your face button. You're shooting out tree roots with bombs, jumping 50 feet in the air and doing a laser barrage... and none of this is turn based, it's all real time and you opponent can dodge, block or reflect all this stuff in real time. One warning is that this game ruins realtime JRPGs. This is the perfect system. It's existed since like 2003 but everyone seems to have missed it and thinks brainless button mashing is the only way to do realtime combat in a JRPG.
PS, Sports games are hardcore. You can not just jump in for 20 minutes and have a solid understanding of everything in them. Like Madden, your controls radically change depending on your position, whether the ball has been snapped or not, and whether you've passed the line of scrimmage or not. You can play the game on a very very basic ultra rookie level. And that's just the frickin control schemes. We have even begun to talk about the actual strategy and tactics of the sports. Casual doesn't mean that alot of people buy it. To me, hardcore just means the game is complex and requires serious time to even have a grasp of the basic controls. Most games are casual by that definition. Sports games are damn near flight sims in terms of complexity. This is an open challenge. If you've never played a sports game, rent Madden and tell me how easy you can jump in and be good at it. There is a level of depth and complexity that most other non-Sim games wouldn't dare include for fear of alienating someone new to the series.
