Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

"Jabba's Palace or Bantha Poodoo? An inside look into Jedi Outcast"

LucasArts is unique in the world of video games. It's unique because it's the direct spinoff of Lucasfilm, the producers of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and a number of smaller and lesser known movies. LucasArts has one distinguishing characteristic about all their games. Essentially they all kick butt. From their earliest point and click adventures, heck even to their latest point and click adventures, LucasArts magically creates lush and living worlds for you to enjoy. Their recent masterpiece Grim Fandango proves how much care and time LucasArts spends on every little detail. Enough about them, lets talk about Jedi Knight 2.

Jedi Outcast is the sequel to Jedi Knight, a game in which your character (Kyle) must venture with his lightsaber through perilous Empire locales and beat up Storm Troopers. This was easier said than done, because the lightsaber had a rather unique fighting style and the other weapons that were available just didn't add up to the fancy and stylish Jedi Blade. Kyle learned much about the Force, and dropped his Jedi ways somewhere in-between the two games due to ''temptations''. You have to give him some credit, he really doesn't want to be on the Dark Side.
Now Kyle has a new problem, a large and looming threat that could spell disaster for the New Republic.....

A Galaxy Far, Far Away... A Sound Card Close, Close at hand

It would be a joke to say that this game doesn't have amazing sound. Everything from blaster pistols to sabers sound exactly as they do in the movies. Also, the voice talents are excellent, with even Lando getting his real actor's voice! The game excels at sound more than it excels at anything else. Of course, this is LucasArts we're talking about. Skywalker Sound does the sound effects.

Fully polygonal, trilinear filtered Space Wookies!

The game has graphics, I'll say that much. I highly recommend an NVidia RIVA TNT2 or higher. Of course, your GeForce 3 or 4 would help nicely. The game sports realtime lighting, trilinear filtering, 32 bit textures, and all sorts of bells and whistles. It looks good.

A Jedi knows not the forces of hatred.... but he sure knows how to have a good time!

It's got an online multiplayer that gives Unreal Tournament a run for it's money. Im not joking, either. You can engage in ''duels'' with someone else and have all sorts of lightsaber antics. It would be rude to give away all the details, but its safe to say the Multiplayer is amazing.

Star Wars Wonder!

Get this game. It is everything you wanted Star Wars to be.

Phange's Super Uber Game Award!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/02, Updated 04/14/02