Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

"I sense a disturbance in my pants"

Do you like Star Wars? Do you like slicing up guys in white suits? Have you ever pretended you were Plo Koon? Then you should probably try Jedi Academy. In this sequel to Jedi Outcast, you take the role of Jaden Korr, a young individual who built his/her own lightsaber without any previous training, and is currently in the process of being trained to be a Jedi. You'll notice that I said his/her. This is because of one of the coolest aspects of the game, creating your own Jedi Avatar. You can use different combinations of gender/race, lightsaber hilt, lightsaber blade color, and later in the single player game, you'll have the option to learn different lightsaber styles, most notably Dual Saber fighting and the Saber Staff. I'll elaborate more on this later, but for now, onto other parts of the review.

The Story - Being that this is an FPS, you shouldn't be expecting much of a story. But the story was decent enough to hold my interest by using a few twists. The premise is that a mysterious ancient sith lord worshipping cult has been draining different locations of their force energy. Most, of the missions involve you ''investigating'' suspected cult activity, obtaining information, etc. A few of the characters you should be familiar with, Kyle Katarn is back in the game, but this time he only functions as your master, no Kyle missions at all, sorry. You'll always be playing as Jaden. Luke is still around, and even Chewbacca makes an appearence, but sadly, I didn't see Han with him.

The Graphics - The graphics themselves don't really seem too updated from when I last played Jedi Outcast. While this doesn't bother me much, I'm still mentioning it for the sake of the review. Not much noticible slowdown, with the exception of lag during some Xbox Live! Sessions.

The Sound - I didn't notice any problems with sound quality, but you can only listen to ''I sense you, JEDI'' so many times before it gets annoying. The music is the usual Star Wars fare. Which, while blending in with the setting, wasn't good enough to stick out in my mind.

The Gameplay - Thankfully, this game starts you with your lightsaber, so you can happily wade into battle while spinning your lightsaber around on the first level. While lightsaber combat is fun, not to mention helluva cool looking, that's the majority of the game. ''See stormtrooper, run over to stormtrooper, laugh as you lop off his arm and listen to him scream as he falls over.'' While using guns could make me more effective in some circumstances, I found myself using the lightsaber anyway. The game even FORCES you to use your lightsaber to fight other lightsaber wielding foes. Just try shooting a rocket at that dark jedi over there, he'll force push it right back at you. Lasers? He'll deflect them. Disruptor beams? He can dodge them. So if you planned on using all those guns you pick up, you'll end up switching back to your lightsaber soon enough anyway. So, if you're happy with running up to your (stupid) foes and hacking them with a lightsaber, then this is the game for you. It's still fun, but it can be bland and annoying at times. Force powers are a bit useful, but all you really need is the force heal and the force grip to completely obliterate the game. Force gripping and then throwing people into bottomless pits is still great, great fun though.

Multiplayer - Bots are availible, but personally, my favorite part of the game is going online and hacking other people with the lightsaber instead of just the AI. There are several different game modes, such as

-Duel (1 v 1 sabers only, blaster pistol optional)
-Power duel (2 v 1, the solo player has extra health/armor)
-FFA + Team FFA (guns can be disabled along with force powers for lightsaber fun)
-Capture the Flag (see above)
-Siege (choose from different classes to help your team complete objectives)

You can use a custom jedi model along with many other models while you're playing in multiplayer. You can also customize your saber like in the single player game. The dual sabers and saber staff all have one ''set'' of moves, whereas the single saber fighting style can switch to a ''quick'' fighting style, the ''regular'' fighting style, and a ''strong'' fighting style. This can allow for you to use a bit of strategy in your fighting technique, by trying to throw your opponent off. But sadly, it still all boils down to just running around and swinging your sabers in the enemy's general direction till he dies.

In conclusion, this game is worth a rental if you like Star Wars, or Action games. But you might be interested in buying it if you can play on Xbox Live.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/20/04