Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

"Yay, Light-Saber Fights for everyone!"

Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Academy

Introduction: This game is essentially a Science Fiction-based, First Person Shooter, which takes place in the universe of the Star Wars Movies. Raven Software and LucasArts have designed it. It has a single-player Campaign mode and Multi-player, both Online as on a LAN, for up to 32 players. It is the third game in the Jedi Knight series.

Gameplay, 9/10: The gameplay is the most important and the best part of this game. It IS a shooter-game, but it has the famous Light-saber from the movies, and because I absolutely loved it, it became a hack and slash game for me. The controls are slightly difficult, cause there are like 50 buttons that you need throughout this game, but the basic combat-buttons are easy to learn, and very good. This game has slightly more variation than its ancestors, including some vehicles that you can use, a few new acrobatic moves and force powers, and, last but not least, the option to use two light-sabers at a time, or one double-bladed saber. When you use a saber, the camera-view turns to third person, which can be annoying at first, but you'll get used to it very fast, and then you'll like it.

Graphics, 8/10: Very good and realistic for this type of game. The characters look real, and so do the weapons. Especially the light-sabers are very nice, and the light-saber duels are amazing to look at. The character movement and the acrobatic moves are also very realistic, and add to the feeling of this game. The fact that you can jump 30 meters up in the air does not change that, but it can look a bit odd. The environment isn't very interesting, but a nice distraction anyway, this game plays mostly indoors.

Sound, 8/10: Wonderful, the buzzing sounds of light-sabers hitting each other, the explosions and laser blasts, the sound of the Stormtroopers marching in the space-ships. It all fits in. The voice acting on the other hand isn't very inspiring and doesn't match the graphics. The music is mostly from the movies, but I can't recall much of it, so it wasn't that impressive.

Single-player, 8/10: Good, very good. You can customise your character a bit, by choosing between 3 races, and male or female. You can customise your light-saber a lot, the hilt, the colour and later on in the game you can choose a double bladed or dual version. Each of those has a lot of special moves, which vary depending on the type of saber you have. The campaign takes you to a lot of different places from the movies, and a few places you've never heard off. After you've finished the few initial- training missions, you get 5 missions to choose from. You have to complete four of these missions and the fifth is optional. After that, you get a few force power upgrades, and five new missions. There are a lot of different missions, ranging from a standard fighting missions, to a speeder bike Race, and a fight with a Rancor. The boss-fights are way easier then in the previous games. And, after a while, you can choose whether you want to be good or evil.

Multi-player, 5/10: I didn't like this for a few reasons. The first is that everyone has the same health as you, which means that you get endless fights where people just run around each-other, looking for a chance to get a one-hit kill. The use of force powers just feels like you're cheating, cause they are very hard to counter and very damaging. That's why they are turned of on most servers, but those games are always full of people who do nothing but camping, and they use the same special move over and over again. Then, the players who have some skills are very unfriendly to new players, and when they are killed by one they start to whine that he's a “lamer”, or a “No-skill N00b” and they kick you from the server. For these reasons, I've tried the multi-player for a few days, and never again.

Story, 7/10: About average. This story seems like an excuse to get a lot of light-saber fights into the game, but that's the best thing in the game, so I don't mind. This time, you play as a Jedi Padawan named Jaden, instead of Kyle Katarn. He helps you on a few missions but you don't play as him. There is something with Siths stealing force powers, but I haven't really paid attention.

AI and Computer-controlled Characters, 8/10: Quite good. In fact this is much better then in most games. Enemies don't run into walls, your allies are actually of some use, and they behave different every time. The only annoying thing is the repetition of the voice action. Hearing the same thing for the tenth time gets boring after a while.

Replay Value, 8/10: Good. The single-player lasts for quite a long time, certainly if you want to play as both good, and evil. You can choose a different light-saber the second time, and slaughtering masses of enemies is always fun. And, with the use of the console you can spawn random enemies or allies, so you ca have a fight between 40 stormtroopers, 5 jedi and, a few random soldiers and Luke Skywalker, see one of the FAQ's for more information. The multi-player sucks, but if you play with some friends, it might be fun.

Final Recommendation: Rent or Buy
Buy. I think it's worth it, especially if you can get it for a low price. If you like Star Wars and especially the light-saber fights, then this is your game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/03/04