Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy

The Good
This game takes all the fun parts from Jedi Knight II and expands on them. For example, in JK2 the lightsaber combat was a strong feature but you didn't receive your lightsaber until halfway through the game. This made replaying the game tedious. However, in Jedi Academy you have your lightsaber from the first level. In Jedi Academy there are more force abilities to learn but you will never have enough points to become a master at all so you can customize your character by becoming a specialist at some or have a little of everything. The lightsaber combat has been enhanced with the addition of two more saber styles: dual sabers and saber staff.

The Bad
Level design is very linear, but not lacking in variety. Graphics have not been enhanced and still use the Quake III engine which looks dated. Audio is what we've come to expect from Star Wars. The classic soundtrack still repeats. The voice work is good for the cut scenes but enemy taunts a repetitive and sometimes don't make much sense - especially if you've just effortlessly slaughtered their friends and they're still telling you "You are weak". Enemy AI is very lacking, even on more difficult levels a force grip and push over a ledge is good enough to dispatch most of your enemies.

The Bottom Line
Fans of the Star Wars and the Jedi Knight series will be pleased with this unambitious release. Those who were hoping for something more than a rehash will be disappointed.

The Good
Graphics-despite the apparent age of the Quake3 engine, they managed to pull it off again with JA. A new game engine would have smoothed all the rough edges out and improved the look of the game.

The game is not very difficult. There are no real puzzles to solve, just use your force powers and good sense and you'll beat most of the levels in a flash. It was very satisfying to see various Star Wars worlds like Tatooine (and Chewbacca) and Hoth with emphasis on action and adventure instead of boring puzzles and infinite mazes or labyrinths. I liked the action emphasis of the game because levels which are too difficult because of strange puzzles are so discouraging and detract from gameplay. Lighting for the levels was really good so I could always see the immense environments I was playing in. The single player was too short but it was very gratifying to breeze through this action-adventure that is full of jedi action from start to finish. Killing stormtroopers (stormies) has never been so much fun.

Riding those swoop bikes made me feel like I was part of the Star Wars adventure and that one level with the bike featured the best use of Star Wars music I have ever seen in a computer game. The tauntaun was also a lot of fun as I'd just ram into those stormies.

The game really has an emphasis on lightsaber battles whether you're playing single or multi-player. Those dual and saber staff weapons are truly a marvel as you can just slice through multiple enemies at once.

Creating my own character and seeing him through all this action made it more of a personal experience but with bad single player it dosen't measure up to JK or TIE Fighter.

The Bad
Single player mode was badly done in overall. You don't get to fight alongside Luke or play as Kyle, which would have been so fitting. Level design in the last few levels is atrocious, the momentum of the earlier levels is completely ruined by the last confusing levels. The music for the last levels is even more disappointing as they add no dimension to the last levels (or climax as some would refer to them as) unlike the levels in Jedi Knight or TIE Fighter. The last duel features music that really dosen't fit with the level.

The bad guys are so repetitive in this game. Dark jedi are used to such an extent that they cease to be a threat. Every corner you pass it feels like you'll fight yet another new reborn. The reborn say silly things like "you are weak" even when you slaughter tons of them. It's funny to see them say things like "now I, am the master" when you die because its really short-lived. They get easier to kill as you progress and even with force powers are no match for the power of the light side. The female dark jedi say really stupid things like "are you afraid?" and spoil the mood of the levels. Tavion is a pathetic boss and dosen't pose a threat in the final duel.

When you play as a dark jedi it's discouraging because unlike JK you don't get any dark force powers. You go to the dark side so late in the game that it makes almost no difference until the final duel. You're stuck with your light side force powers and forced to fight with that great guy Kyle Katarn. Unlike Tavion he's impossible to kill as he just slices right through your defenses as if he's more powerful than Darth Vader.

You don't get to go to all the places like Dagobah and there are so few levels with Kyle Katarn that you're all alone in your distant corner of the galaxy away from all the real action, so it seems.

The level with the mutant Rancor is so out of place that it has really no positive bearing on the level progress.

The Bottom Line
I'd buy Battlefront instead of this unless you really want to play as a jedi. The jedi combat is the prime element of the game and no other element of Star Wars is featured.

Buy at your own risk.

The Good
The lightsaber is cool. A couple new force powers and improved ways of using old ones. Using the 3 different kind of sabers and the 5 or so colors is cool. You go to a bunch of different planets. The music and voices is ok. You can choose your force powers. You can choose the missions to some extent.

The Bad
First, choosing "Light or "Dark" force powers has ABSOLUTELY no bearing on the game. Get all "dark" powers and you can stay on the light side. Max-out on "light" and you can turn to the dark side. The force powers are very unbalanced. Grip lets you choke guys like Darth Vader and throw them around. This allows you to barely use your lightsaber and just throw stormtroopers and dark jedi down cliffs or into lava. The game can be extremely easy. Stormtroopers are sit there firing lamely at you while you block their shots. Dark Jedi will, if you fight them, then just get a short distance away, turn off their lightsaber (!?) and sit there, allowing you to shoot at them and\or recharge your force and health. The toughest part of a game is finding where to go and not falling off a cliff. The levels are linear and boring. No civilians or anyone else. For no apparent reason, thugs or other non-empire guys will attack you. Also, I don't think street (or roof?) thugs on Coruscant should have powerful weapons like the disruptor rifle and thermal detonators while the supposed powerful storm troopers just have blasters and the occasional repeater and "metal gun". The story is ridiculous. Something about resurrecting a ancient sith lord using force energy stored in a scepter "sucked-up" from places with lots of force. Since the people trying to bring the sith lord back to life are evil, why not use the power on themselves. After all, even Darth Vader made an offer to Luke to help him overthrow the Emperor in Empire Strikes Back. In the beginning of the game, you get to "customize" your character, choosing species, looks, etc. However, this weirdly has no effect what so-ever. No change in abilities or anything else. Same voices even!!! All the missions are described as meet with this and talk with this, etc. But that never happens. You are always ambushed, or the guy you were supposed to talk to gets killed and almost every level is fundamentally the same. The game also offers almost nothing about your character's past or anything. You just slash your way through a seemingly endless supply of the same 7 or so different types of enemies. The "basic" force powers, speed, push, pull, and sense, unlike what you here in the training mission, are rarely used for anything. You don't really need to push any switches etc. this brings up the worst problem, the lack of depth. You won't go through a city, getting stuff to trade with other people or interact with anyone in a non-linear basis. The galaxy is nearly lifeless. it seems that the entire galaxy has either your allies, or mercenaries, dark jedi, stormtroopers etc. out to kill you. Boba Fett is in one of the missions. Normally, this would be a good thing, but they totally make him more of a nuisance then anything else. Mostly, he will just fire bursts of laser fire as you deflect them back, hitting him with his own fire. Occasionally, he will use his flamethrower or missile launcher, but not enough to show him to be a deadly assassin. Finally, absolutely no puzzles!!! If your not hacking and slashing through enemies, wandering from room to room, you're putting your cross hair over everything to see if it can be affected by the force.

The Bottom Line
If you are a die hard Star Wars fan, wait a couple of years for the price to get down to ten bucks. if not, avoid it, as it is a complete waste of money. (I spent 50 bucks on it and learned the hard way)