After a healthy wait, the third installment of the Jedi Knight saga continues in this latest release. Fans of the earlier games will be at home with the basic setup: run around lovingly crafted Star Wars locales, zwapping Storm-Troopers with a lightsaber and generally spoling the Evil Galactic Empire's plans. Where this latest installment differs from the older games is that for the first time you WON'T be playing as spy-turned-Jedi, Kyle Katarn.
"Horror," you gasp, "don't tell me he's gone forever!". Well no, he'll be making a special guest appearance, but this time as one of your Jedi instructors. As the title suggests, the game offers players the chance to join Luke Skywalker's Yavin IV Jedi academy a sort of Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry, but for Jedi. Instead of playing as a familiar Star Wars character, the game allows players to create their own, unique, Jedi apprentice by customizing your species, sex, clothing etc, allowing for literally thousands of configurations.
Even better, as you progress through the non-linear missions that you'll be dispatched on by your instructors, you'll be able to specialise in a particular saber style...the basic single-saber, the Anakin-inspired two-saber approach or the pyrotechnic staff-saber, of Darth Maul fame. Saber combat is the main focus of the game, but you can still grab a handy blaster to zap things with.
After you've sufficiently honed your skills in the one player game you can take the fight online (with your custom character, naturally). New multiplayer modes include an objective-based team game called 'Seige', and the ability to re-enact the climactic Qui-Gon/Obiwan/Darth Maul threesome from Episode One in the new 'Power Duel' mode its a two against one saber showdown...what better way to prove your force mastery than by thwapping 2 birds with 1 stone?
So, loads of new tricks up the Lucasarts' sleeve, no doubt all wrapped up in the usual gorgeous graphics and sound. If Jedi Outcast is anything to go on, this game will be a must-have in any Star Wars fan's collection.
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I don't really consider myself a gamer, but I do consider myself a major Star Wars geek. One day I spotted "Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy" in a list of upcoming games. That was it -no detail, just the name of the game, but I *knew* I had to have it.
This game was a good buy -I'm very happy with JA. Players can customize their character, build their own lightsaber (and later decide between dual sabers or a saber staff), choose their Force powers, and take on numerous enemies on different worlds. The early levels are easy, but the last tier of missions gets harder. All those Sith groupies get pretty hard to take down! (Force Grip works really nice, though -just drop 'em off a nice, high ledge. *evil grin*)
I do have a few quibbles with the game -for instance....
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The Force powers you choose don't actually have an impact on if you choose the light side or dark side. As far as I know, you can go all dark powers and still choose the light side, and vice versa. I prefer a sampling of all powers, except Drain and Rage.
Also, I'm annoyed by a certain bounty hunter's invulnerability. I blasted away at him with rockets and lightning and he *would not* die. I even tested this by putting on cheat codes (and there are some fun codes, btw), pulling out the heavy guns, and blasting him until his health bar went completely down, and he still didn't die. Fair warning, y'all. Use Force speed or something.
In addition, let me just say that the story line is pretty lame, and some of the voice acting is awful. But hey, it's Star Wars...remember that acting isn't what it's all about. You're nodding your head -yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
It's all about the lightsaber. The color, the hum, the screams of the enemy as the blade slashes through them...most satisfying, indeed. Although I beat JA soon after I got it, I still play the game. If you call yourself a SW nerd, you must get Jedi Academy. My quibbles are minor; my enjoyment is off the chart.
Love that 'saber.
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(Note: This review is for the PC version of Jedi Academy). Jedi Academy is the sequel to the excellent Star Wars game, Jedi Outcast. It is a shorter game, which includes almost twenty mission that last a total of 20-25 hours. However, it seems more substantial than just an expansion pack and offers several new things that have not been seen in the earlier Jedi games. Overall, I do still think that Jedi Outcast is the star of the series. Nonetheless, Jedi Academy does shine in a number of areas.
Gameplay: Much the same as Jedi Outcast. Your overall mission is to stop evil Jedis from resurrecting Marka Ragnos, a great Sith lord who has been dead for a long time. You have access to the Force and force powers (like push, pull, heal, speed, sense, grip, etc.) throughout the game, and you can actually decide which powers to specialize in. The game does have an alternate ending (depending on whether you choose a light or dark path in the penultimate mission), but only the final mission is affected. The game is fairly easy to learn, and the controls are straightforward (keyboard and mouse). Where Jedi Academy differs greatly from Jedi Outcast is the mission structure and the lightsabre fighting.
There are 3-tiers of missions that you must complete, each tier with five missions (you can do just 4 or all 5). In addition to these 15 missions, there are missions between the tiers for a total of about 19 missions. You can do the missions in each tier in any order, though most people will probably do them in the order in which they are listed. I would recommend doing all of the missions, although you can skip one mission per tier. Generally, the missions are interesting and do tie the larger story together. The only bad thing about the missions is that some of them, like in Jedi Outcast, have a heavy dose of first/third-person "shooteritis"--that is, you'll be looking for doors, switches, hidden passages, jumping sequences, and other annoyances much more frequently than seems necessary. About all of the puzzles can be figured out if you are willing to do enough head-scratching and trial-and-error attempts. However, the puzzles really do not add anything to the game, except for some occasional frustration.
The lightsabre fighting is fantastic, period. If you thought that Jedi Outcast (or the recent Star Wars movies) had amazing duels, the ones in this game are absolutely phenomenal. A number of things have been added to enhance the sabre fights, including more attack modes, acrobatics, martial arts, cool finishing moves, etc. The big addition is the ability to wield two sabres or to use a sabre staff (Darth Maul-style). Playing the game on the second highest difficulty, I found that you can win most fights against dark jedi with minimal reloading of a saved game. However, by the last third of the game, you'll have to fight some truly nasty jedi, who will teach you some real lessons in how to both handle a lightsabre and inflict force powers (that is, prepare to save and reload often). This game gets a number of things right in regard to recreating a Star Wars feel and offering some great gameplay. However, the best feature, by far, is the realistic lightsabre battles.
Graphics: This is a good-looking game. Character animation, environments, weapons, and so forth look convincing. You can customize the appearance of your character (and lightsabre) at the beginning of the game, but not very much beyond a few racial, gender, and clothing options. Cutscenes are decent, but the character movements and lip-syncing are just not up to the quality you would expect in a game like this. Anyhow, I believe that the developers went out of their way to make the lightsabre fights look stunning, which is really the only reason to play this game in the first place.
Sound: All is well in the audio department. Most (if not all) of the music is from the Star Wars movies, so you can't go wrong there. The voice acting ranges from decent to very good. Weapons and atmospheric sounds are as they should be.
If you are a fan of the Jedi Knight game series, or simply like the Star Wars universe, I would definitely recommend Jedi Academy. In my opinion, it is not quite as good overall as Jedi Outcast (or as stable--even with the patch, it crashed on me about ten times, mostly during the loading of saved games). Still, if you can get it at a discount, it's well worth the effort.
Honest reviews on Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
This game was a solid addition to the Jedi Outcast series, but it seems a little short to me and lacking in character development. Part of it might have been the fact that they tried to make the player customizable, but with an engine already coded and tricked out as far as it could go, you'd think they would have made more of an effort to develop a plot and story. It's still better than what you see in the two "pre-quels", but there was so much more possibility there for this game.
Where was the large level like in Outcast were you were captured on a Star Destroyer and the asteroid level? Not to mention the huge rush of stormtroopers? Have Jedi become so numerous again that they could be almost the only characters that you'd encounter on a level?
Anyway, I'd say that this is a good game from an action standpoint, but it could have used better writing and plot development. The graphics wheren't anything we hadn't seen in the previous installment, and yet the story wasn't as strong as it's story.
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For everyone who has been dying to play this game, i absolutely cannot and will not blame you. I was waiting for this game for a while, and the preview seriously owned. Jedi Academy is the sequel to Jedi Outcast, which showed the fans what LucasArts is capable of. In this game, you play Jaden Korr, a person who constructed his own lightsaber without being trained. Thats great news because it means that you start off with a lightsaber of your choice. You choose the hilt of your lightsaber and the color. Also you can choose your race and gender. Another great asset is that the game has Xbox Live compatibility, and you can choose your forces after every level that you beat. Once you become a Jedi Knight, you can choose to have a new type of stance or new lightsabers! O ya, the Dual Lightsabers used by Anakin Skywalker in the Attack of the Clones, which means you have two lightsabers, or you can have the Staff lightsaber which Darth Maul uses. Thats probably the best part of the game. Also, in multiplayer, you dont have to unlock any characters because they are all there for you! However, there is no such thing as a flawless game yet. The game get extremely repetitive, for after a while you are always fighting dark jedi. You would probably think, "Hey, isnt that a good thing, going face to face in a lightsaber duel?" but trust me, because after a while you will just wanna give up. Also the game isnt nearly as long as Jedi Outcast, which was a major flaw. I beat this game in 5 days, but i didnt really stop because i was pretty much addicted. O ya---for all you Boba Fett lovers, Boba Fett is in the game! Hes in the story mode in one level, in which the only bad guy in the level is him! ha..yea..face to face 1 on 1 with a guy who can fly and has a flamethrower....He is also a playable character in multiplayer and he can have jedi powers and a lightsaber! Now here are your Pros and Cons
PROS:
New attacks and lightsaber of your choice plus create your own character
Game is very adventurous and is addicting.
story mode has about 15 levels
XBOX LIVE COMPATABILITY!
CONS:
Eventually you are always fighting Jedi
Game gets a little repetitive
Multiplayer is better in Jedi Outcast---Smarter AI and more fun levels.
Well as you see this game has a good amount of Pros and the Cons arent too much so if i were you i would at least try the game. IF you are a LucasArts fanatic i would definitely recommend this game to you. George Lucas does it again.
*Note* This game has a unique twist near the end of the game which reminded me of Knights of the Old Republic.....
