Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Posted February 7, 2004
Dauh dauh dauh (poorly hums the Star Wars theme).
In a galaxy not too far far away and a time not too long long ago Lucas Arts developed a very successful title that followed in the footsteps of ID Software's Doom series. This game was dubbed as Star Wars: Dark Forces, a riveting first person shooter for the PC. Moving into the future a sequential title was released, Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II . So depending on how you calculate, either Dark Forces or Dark Forces II marked the beginning of the Jedi Knight series, though Dark Forces II is said to be the beginning. Lucas Arts to extend the game play of Dark Forces II released another expansion title Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith. Well as time passed on, gaming consoles became more powerful and equipped to handle high resolution first person shooters. The first multiple console and PC supported of a Jedi Knight title to be released was Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Outcast. That brings us to the present, the third-ish installment in the Jedi Knight series, Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. While those of you familiar with the Jedi Knight series, you've been used to playing solely as Kyle Katarn who appeared in Dark Forces II and Jedi Outcast. However while Kyle returns in Jedi Academy, he's your mentor.
The story opens with fairly fresh Jedi trainee, Jaden (you) along with fellow trainee Rosh and some others traveling to Yavin 4 to complete their training under Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to become full fledged Jedi's. However the transport ship is shot down in part of a much more diabolical plan. Since the Jedi's are fairly limited in numbers, the rescue response is almost all the nearby Jedi's, during which a female Twi'lek steals personal logs and data from Skywalker's room at the academy. But back on the planet where the transport shit crashed, Jaden and the other Jedi's find that the disciples of a long dead Master Sith Ragnos, the Cult of Ragnos have been draining force energy from the planet. As it turns out they've been draining it from other places as well. Join Jaden as he finishes his studies at the academy to become a full fledged Jedi under the guidance of Kyle and assists Skywalker in unrevealing the mysteries behind the Cult of Ragnos.
Gameplay:
Your Mission(s)
The actual single player mode is fairly short, with a total of twenty missions. Five are plot related and required, whereas the remaining fifteen, you need only play twelve. First you start off with a plot related mission, which is followed by a selection of four missions, where you can select which order and which four of five missions you wish to accomplish. After the fourth is completed you have the option to play the fifth as well. This repeats in the order of P-O-P-O-P-O-P-P, where P is a plot related, required mission and O is a set of five missions where four are required.
Character Customization
Unlike previous titles in the Jedi Knight series, initially you're given the option to customize your character's appearance. You can choose your character's species from Human Male, Human Female, Twi'lek Female, Zabrak Female, Kel Dor Male, or Rodian Male. Furthermore you can select a different facial portrait, torso clothing, leg clothing, clothing color and skin-tone color. Next in the character customization process you can choose your light saber hilt and the light saber color. As the game progresses you can also choose the fighting style Jaden uses from standard: a single light saber, dual: two light sabers (awesome!), and staff: a single hilt with blades at both ends (Darth Maul style).
The character customization continues with the force abilities. At the beginning of every O mission, you can increase your aptitude in a variety of both light and dark force skills. Though after accomplishing P missions you're standard force skills are automatically raised by one level. Each force skill has a max level of three. There are a total of three light, three dark, and six standard force skills.
Standard Force Skills
Force Jump: allows Jedi to jump to inhuman heights
Force Pull: pull objects and items toward him/herself
Force Push: push objects and characters away from him/herself
Force Sense: allows Jedi to see enemies, key objects when view is obstructed by objects or cloaked/hidden
Force Speed: slows down the real world, allowing the Jedi to move faster
Light Saber Throw: hurl light saber in a forward direction
Light Force Skills
Force Absorb: absorb damage inflicted on Jedi into Force energy from Jedi Forces such as Push, Pull, Grip, Drain, Lightning
Force Heal: heal Jedi's health
Force Protection: decreases damage taken from energy, physical, projectile, and explosive sources
Jedi Mind Trick: afflict target to ignore Jedi
Dark Force Skills
Force Drain: transfer life force a living being to him/herself
Force Grip: choke a living being (Darth Vader)
Force Lightning: hurl electrical attack towards targeted enemy(s)
Your Arsenal
This should be a given, but you'll always (well almost always) have your trusty light saber at your side. There are quite a variety of attack combinations associated with crouching, standing, running, and jumping positions, your style attack style, and your weapon style. As you progress in your training as a Jedi, you gain new options to different fighting styles. Initially you start off with medium, which is a harmonic balance of defensive and offensive capabilities, while the other two styles are fast which promote quick short ranged low damage inflicting attacks but saviors defensive capabilities, whereas strong provides long range high damage inflicting attacks but leaves you vulnerable to counterattacks. However these optional fighting styles are only available if you use the single light saber weapon style, both the dual and staff light saber styles can only take advantage of the medium fighting style.
Amongst your trust light saber you have access to a variety of firearms like the standard Han Solo sidearm DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol, the storm trooper's standard E-11 Blaster Rifle, and Chewie's preferred Wookiee Bowcaster. Other weapons include a long range sniper rifle, EMP rifle, thermal donators, and trip mines to name a few. Most likely you'll mainly rely on the use of your trusty light saber and force skills.
Controls
The controls are a bit akward in my opinion. I constantly find myself getting killed or very close to being killed, simply because I accidentally pressed the wrong button. There are two different distinct controller configurations given. Needless to say you'll find yourself constantly using the left/right thumbsticks and left/right triggers. Depending on your configuration, frequently when you're deftly avoiding a killing blow from multiple light saber equipped Siths, you'll accidentally click on the thumbstick while moving. Thus you'll use your currently selected force energy when you really didn't want to waste it.
General Game play
If you're familiar with first person shooters or the Jedi Knight series, you'll feel right at home with this Jedi Academy, though the viewpoint actually varies from first person to third person, depending on the weapon selected. You use your arsenal of weapons and force skills to slash, shoot, or simply destroy your enemies (and hopefully not your peers) and jump, run, walk, crouch, and solve very rudimentary puzzles. There are a lot of locked doors and doors that just won't every open, elevator shafts that go up and then immediately back down. Overall life as a Jedi is pretty exciting.
Optional Gaming via Single and Multiplayer Support
Other game modes included with this game are Duel, Power Duel, Free For All, Team Free For All, and Capture the Flag which can be played single player, 2 player split screen, 2 to 10 system links, and online via Xbox live.
Graphics:
The graphics in Jedi Academy are very similar to those of Jedi Outcast. In fact they are the same in regards they both use the Quake III engine to power. Overall the graphics are fairly impressive in terms of clarity, yet I'm sure they could be a lot better in high definition. Jedi Academy does support HDTV 480p. Unfortunately I'm restricted to component connection and will most likely never see the game in its true beauty. There is an option to adjust the brightness level.
Audio:
The audio is very crisp and clean. The Star Wars-like background music generally fits the each stage very well and heightens the Jedi-like-experience. The sounds effects are pretty much the same, but they do sound fairly good over a stereo set up. I unfortunately cannot evaluate the 5.1 surround sound as I'm limited to 2-channel stereo. There are voiceovers with the option to turn subtitles on for all voiceovers (both in game and cinematics) or only for cinematics. However you can also turn off subtitles. There are also options to adjust the volume level of sounds effects, music, and voice independently.
Conclusion:
After having purchased Sony Playstation 2 on launch date and not actually using it until the release of Final Fantasy X, I felt that purchasing the Xbox console would be a big waste at 300$. Now that the price of the console has dropped substantially I gave in and decided to get one. Why? Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic have received such rave reviews I felt it necessary. Not waiting to upgrade my computer to handle a 3D enabled game, this was the best solution. However after testing out the game I was turned off by the lack of real time action that we find in the Jedi Knight series. Well needing to purchase a game for my new system and having played Jedi Outcast on the PC, I decided to (somewhat) blindly purchase Jedi Academy. Needless to say I was very happy with my person. Jedi Academy turned out to be a very exciting game and perhaps one that will open a doorway for me to get back into first person shooters.
While I was heavily into multiplayer game play in the Doom series, games afterwards were simply too difficult for me. Having to control both movement and vision control, while shooting and selecting weapons in real time was just too difficult for my simple brain and as an added bonus I get severely motion sick from the first person view. Well Jedi Academy turned out to be a game that I could handle for the most part, which is due to the majority of the game being played in third person view, since I rarely wasn't using the light saber.
Anyways I found the single player story mode to be pretty exciting, however it was fairly short. In comparison to other first person shooters like Halo, James Bond: Nightfire [review], and Counterstrike [review] the single player mode isn't the real beef of the game. The Xbox Live! supported online play and system link multiplayer options are what really gives the game replay value. Unfortunately I can't really comment upon the multiplayer game play as I don't play multiplayer or online gaming at all. But I have played through the multiplayer game modes in single player mode which have provided moderate excitement. Playing repeatedly against the same AI scripts can get tedious after a while. Though if the multiplayer game play reflects the story mode, then you'll definitely be in for a treat.
Jedi Academy based solely upon the single player modes is a great game. While only a portion of the game in its entirety, one can only imagine how exciting dueling fellow Jedi wannabes in massive online combat.
In a galaxy not too far far away and a time not too long long ago Lucas Arts developed a very successful title that followed in the footsteps of ID Software's Doom series. This game was dubbed as Star Wars: Dark Forces, a riveting first person shooter for the PC. Moving into the future a sequential title was released, Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II . So depending on how you calculate, either Dark Forces or Dark Forces II marked the beginning of the Jedi Knight series, though Dark Forces II is said to be the beginning. Lucas Arts to extend the game play of Dark Forces II released another expansion title Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith. Well as time passed on, gaming consoles became more powerful and equipped to handle high resolution first person shooters. The first multiple console and PC supported of a Jedi Knight title to be released was Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Outcast. That brings us to the present, the third-ish installment in the Jedi Knight series, Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. While those of you familiar with the Jedi Knight series, you've been used to playing solely as Kyle Katarn who appeared in Dark Forces II and Jedi Outcast. However while Kyle returns in Jedi Academy, he's your mentor.
The story opens with fairly fresh Jedi trainee, Jaden (you) along with fellow trainee Rosh and some others traveling to Yavin 4 to complete their training under Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to become full fledged Jedi's. However the transport ship is shot down in part of a much more diabolical plan. Since the Jedi's are fairly limited in numbers, the rescue response is almost all the nearby Jedi's, during which a female Twi'lek steals personal logs and data from Skywalker's room at the academy. But back on the planet where the transport shit crashed, Jaden and the other Jedi's find that the disciples of a long dead Master Sith Ragnos, the Cult of Ragnos have been draining force energy from the planet. As it turns out they've been draining it from other places as well. Join Jaden as he finishes his studies at the academy to become a full fledged Jedi under the guidance of Kyle and assists Skywalker in unrevealing the mysteries behind the Cult of Ragnos.
Gameplay:
Your Mission(s)
The actual single player mode is fairly short, with a total of twenty missions. Five are plot related and required, whereas the remaining fifteen, you need only play twelve. First you start off with a plot related mission, which is followed by a selection of four missions, where you can select which order and which four of five missions you wish to accomplish. After the fourth is completed you have the option to play the fifth as well. This repeats in the order of P-O-P-O-P-O-P-P, where P is a plot related, required mission and O is a set of five missions where four are required.
Character Customization
Unlike previous titles in the Jedi Knight series, initially you're given the option to customize your character's appearance. You can choose your character's species from Human Male, Human Female, Twi'lek Female, Zabrak Female, Kel Dor Male, or Rodian Male. Furthermore you can select a different facial portrait, torso clothing, leg clothing, clothing color and skin-tone color. Next in the character customization process you can choose your light saber hilt and the light saber color. As the game progresses you can also choose the fighting style Jaden uses from standard: a single light saber, dual: two light sabers (awesome!), and staff: a single hilt with blades at both ends (Darth Maul style).
The character customization continues with the force abilities. At the beginning of every O mission, you can increase your aptitude in a variety of both light and dark force skills. Though after accomplishing P missions you're standard force skills are automatically raised by one level. Each force skill has a max level of three. There are a total of three light, three dark, and six standard force skills.
Standard Force Skills
Force Jump: allows Jedi to jump to inhuman heights
Force Pull: pull objects and items toward him/herself
Force Push: push objects and characters away from him/herself
Force Sense: allows Jedi to see enemies, key objects when view is obstructed by objects or cloaked/hidden
Force Speed: slows down the real world, allowing the Jedi to move faster
Light Saber Throw: hurl light saber in a forward direction
Light Force Skills
Force Absorb: absorb damage inflicted on Jedi into Force energy from Jedi Forces such as Push, Pull, Grip, Drain, Lightning
Force Heal: heal Jedi's health
Force Protection: decreases damage taken from energy, physical, projectile, and explosive sources
Jedi Mind Trick: afflict target to ignore Jedi
Dark Force Skills
Force Drain: transfer life force a living being to him/herself
Force Grip: choke a living being (Darth Vader)
Force Lightning: hurl electrical attack towards targeted enemy(s)
Your Arsenal
This should be a given, but you'll always (well almost always) have your trusty light saber at your side. There are quite a variety of attack combinations associated with crouching, standing, running, and jumping positions, your style attack style, and your weapon style. As you progress in your training as a Jedi, you gain new options to different fighting styles. Initially you start off with medium, which is a harmonic balance of defensive and offensive capabilities, while the other two styles are fast which promote quick short ranged low damage inflicting attacks but saviors defensive capabilities, whereas strong provides long range high damage inflicting attacks but leaves you vulnerable to counterattacks. However these optional fighting styles are only available if you use the single light saber weapon style, both the dual and staff light saber styles can only take advantage of the medium fighting style.
Amongst your trust light saber you have access to a variety of firearms like the standard Han Solo sidearm DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol, the storm trooper's standard E-11 Blaster Rifle, and Chewie's preferred Wookiee Bowcaster. Other weapons include a long range sniper rifle, EMP rifle, thermal donators, and trip mines to name a few. Most likely you'll mainly rely on the use of your trusty light saber and force skills.
Controls
The controls are a bit akward in my opinion. I constantly find myself getting killed or very close to being killed, simply because I accidentally pressed the wrong button. There are two different distinct controller configurations given. Needless to say you'll find yourself constantly using the left/right thumbsticks and left/right triggers. Depending on your configuration, frequently when you're deftly avoiding a killing blow from multiple light saber equipped Siths, you'll accidentally click on the thumbstick while moving. Thus you'll use your currently selected force energy when you really didn't want to waste it.
General Game play
If you're familiar with first person shooters or the Jedi Knight series, you'll feel right at home with this Jedi Academy, though the viewpoint actually varies from first person to third person, depending on the weapon selected. You use your arsenal of weapons and force skills to slash, shoot, or simply destroy your enemies (and hopefully not your peers) and jump, run, walk, crouch, and solve very rudimentary puzzles. There are a lot of locked doors and doors that just won't every open, elevator shafts that go up and then immediately back down. Overall life as a Jedi is pretty exciting.
Optional Gaming via Single and Multiplayer Support
Other game modes included with this game are Duel, Power Duel, Free For All, Team Free For All, and Capture the Flag which can be played single player, 2 player split screen, 2 to 10 system links, and online via Xbox live.
Graphics:
The graphics in Jedi Academy are very similar to those of Jedi Outcast. In fact they are the same in regards they both use the Quake III engine to power. Overall the graphics are fairly impressive in terms of clarity, yet I'm sure they could be a lot better in high definition. Jedi Academy does support HDTV 480p. Unfortunately I'm restricted to component connection and will most likely never see the game in its true beauty. There is an option to adjust the brightness level.
Audio:
The audio is very crisp and clean. The Star Wars-like background music generally fits the each stage very well and heightens the Jedi-like-experience. The sounds effects are pretty much the same, but they do sound fairly good over a stereo set up. I unfortunately cannot evaluate the 5.1 surround sound as I'm limited to 2-channel stereo. There are voiceovers with the option to turn subtitles on for all voiceovers (both in game and cinematics) or only for cinematics. However you can also turn off subtitles. There are also options to adjust the volume level of sounds effects, music, and voice independently.
Conclusion:
After having purchased Sony Playstation 2 on launch date and not actually using it until the release of Final Fantasy X, I felt that purchasing the Xbox console would be a big waste at 300$. Now that the price of the console has dropped substantially I gave in and decided to get one. Why? Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic have received such rave reviews I felt it necessary. Not waiting to upgrade my computer to handle a 3D enabled game, this was the best solution. However after testing out the game I was turned off by the lack of real time action that we find in the Jedi Knight series. Well needing to purchase a game for my new system and having played Jedi Outcast on the PC, I decided to (somewhat) blindly purchase Jedi Academy. Needless to say I was very happy with my person. Jedi Academy turned out to be a very exciting game and perhaps one that will open a doorway for me to get back into first person shooters.
While I was heavily into multiplayer game play in the Doom series, games afterwards were simply too difficult for me. Having to control both movement and vision control, while shooting and selecting weapons in real time was just too difficult for my simple brain and as an added bonus I get severely motion sick from the first person view. Well Jedi Academy turned out to be a game that I could handle for the most part, which is due to the majority of the game being played in third person view, since I rarely wasn't using the light saber.
Anyways I found the single player story mode to be pretty exciting, however it was fairly short. In comparison to other first person shooters like Halo, James Bond: Nightfire [review], and Counterstrike [review] the single player mode isn't the real beef of the game. The Xbox Live! supported online play and system link multiplayer options are what really gives the game replay value. Unfortunately I can't really comment upon the multiplayer game play as I don't play multiplayer or online gaming at all. But I have played through the multiplayer game modes in single player mode which have provided moderate excitement. Playing repeatedly against the same AI scripts can get tedious after a while. Though if the multiplayer game play reflects the story mode, then you'll definitely be in for a treat.
Jedi Academy based solely upon the single player modes is a great game. While only a portion of the game in its entirety, one can only imagine how exciting dueling fellow Jedi wannabes in massive online combat.