Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

"A review from a person who's never played the first three games of the series"

Okay, I'll be honest. I never played Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 1 or 2(tm). I had heard that these 'Star Wars'(tm) games were the very best Star Wars(tm) games ever made. I didn't know anything about them because quite frankly, I didn't think a Star Wars game could actually blossom on a PC.

I'm sure you've read the reviews from other games who are radical about the series; I'm also sure you've read gamespot.com's review. Well here's a review from a person who's never played any of the previous games in the series.

GRAPHICS:

Lets face it, as much as try to ''downplay'' the importance of graphics over funfactor and gameplay, were normally only lieing to ourselves. Who shell's out the money and takes the time to put a computer together if they can't make the game look neat.

Jedi Outcast(tm) is one of the top games graphically I've ever played..period. That's not to say the game is without flaws. The game does boast a high polygon count so if you have a high end video card I think you'll like what you'll see. The game runs well on low and high end systems; however, Raven(tm) did take a few shortcuts.

I can't explain the rather ''dull'' texture's in some area's of the game. It's like playing a game in pure 32bit color, then all of the sudden out of the blue sky a texture comes along that looks like it was rendered with 256 colors. For instance: In the first area when you start the game, you'll gush over the pure eye candy, then you'll enter the first building and say ''What's this guy talking about? Their's no ''Low Resoultion'' textures''..to you I say..Look up, and when you look you'll say ''Danggg, that's not right.'' To make the game look good on all range of system's Raven(tm) had to throw some low end texture's in the game.

Rest assured though, that the game boasts EXCELLENT graphic's. THIS GAME EASILY HAS THE BEST LIGHTING EFFECTS ON THE PC TO DATE in this reviewer's opinion. I really enjoy running around blasting storm troopers and fighting with light sabers hacking limb's off(yes you hear that correctly.)

Raven(tm) who was charged with the games engine,(Solider of Fortune) has done an excellent job at manipulating the Quake 3: Team arena engine in such a fasion that you actually believe you are a Jedi. Good job Raven(tm), I for one througly enjoy the game's Graphic's.
<PLEASE SEE THE BOTTOM FOR MY SYSTEM REQUIRMENTS FOR JEDI OUTCAST>

SOUND

The highest point of Jedi Outcast comes from the sound. I admit I own a Sound Blaster Audigy and the Klipsch ProMedia 4.1's(Which are LucasFilms THX certified), but Outcast sounded great on a set of JBL's that hook onto your monitor and come with Compaq computers as well.
Everything is here, lightsaber sound's, blaster sounds, excellent voiceovers. If you are lucky enough to have surround sound speaker setup and have access to Creative Labs EAX sound format, I would suggest turning this on. Their is a light verus night difference in the sound.

I wouldn't expect anyless in this derpartment though. LucasArts(tm) produces some of the very best sound effects on the PC.

STORY AND GAMEPLAY

As a golden rule with my reviews, I never go into the story at all. What a may consider a ''non spoiler'' you may be upset at; however, I can say the story is very will written and obviously a lot of attention was paid to detailing. Again I never played the first games in this series which is another reason why I won't go into the story.

I can say though that the gameplay, while taking a few hours to get used to is very comfortable. I had fits for the first 15 minutes trying to find a good keyboard layout.

Yes Jedi Outcast(tm) is a first person shooter. What's that? Youre part of the four percent that loathe first person shooters? No problem, Raven(tm) added a very well done 3rd person point of view to compliment those who prefere a more Tomb Raider Point of View.

The actual development system is nicely done. The game itself is broken up into numerous levels in which the main character Kyle Katarn can increase his level of using the force. Yes, I said the force.

Easily one of the major highlights in the game Kyle has the ability to use different force powers. Each level Kyle gains another force power or force level. Their are 8 force powers and 3 level's to each. If you don't follow think of the old nintendo game Mega Man<tm>(we've all played one of those games:-) When you beat a boss you gained his power, the only difference is, in Jedi Outcast(tm) you simply need to finish the level.

PERFORMANCE

I had no problem installing Jedi Outcast(tm), it ran fine without any hitches. I like to play games at 800x600 resoultion. I use an ATI Radeon 8500 128DDR LE(tm), I was able to run Jedi Outcase(tm) in the highest detail settings(32bit color and 32 bit color depth) with 16x Antiscopic filtering and 2X AA at about 75 FPS. at 4x AA the Frame Rate dropped to about 56-60 and at 6x(only the Radeon 8500 supports 6x AA) I was able to get 35 FPS. When I turned the Antiscopic Filtering to 8x and AA to 6x, I was able to reap about a steady 43FPS. Honestly, I couldn't tell the different between 6x and 16x Antiscopic Filtering. On another note I would set the AA at 4x since there did not seem to a difference at all between 4x and 6x AA. Even at NO AA, the game didn't seem to have many noticeable jagged edges. One last note, the AA was on quality not performance. On average add 6 more frames if you decide to run on performance AA over quality AA.

If you are running a Nvidia GeForce(tm) based card, I'm sorry I have no numbers to report though I'm sure you can find good benchmark results with Jedi Knight(tm) on the web.

MULTIPLAYER

Very well done! Raven(tm) gets a pat on the back from me. Their are the normal modes of deathmatch and capture the flag as well as numerous other modes. Their is a lightsaber challange(Mastering the lightsaber is a game in it's own right) you have access to. Another Kudos goes to Raven for adding ''bots'' or computer controlled players. Their are quite a few different ''bots'' you can play against all with differnent AI level's. If you do not have internet access or just simply hate human beings(which some of us do) No worries, you can load a game with just bots. Which is my personal favorite.

OVERALL

Jedi Outcast is a great game that gets it all right(except for those few low resolution textures). I thoughly enjoyed the single player game which ran about 20 hours. The game which consist's of one CD; has numerous difficulty levels to play at. Good job Raven(tm) and LucasArts(tm).

REVIEWER'S SYSTEM

AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (1.412Ghz)
ATI Radeon 8500 128DDR LE(250/250)
Asus A7v266-E (Via KT266A chipset)
512DDR Micron
40gig 5400RPM Fuji HD
Sound Blaser Audigy mp3+
Windows XP professional

REVIEWER'S RECOMMENDED SYSTEM SETUP FOR JEDI OUTCAST(tm)

AMD Athlon 750(mhz) or Intel Pentium 3 (733)
256 of system memory
32 DDR video card(Direct X 8.0a compliant)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/02, Updated 04/06/02