By Elias Dounis on May 8th, 2004

A New Hero
Once again using the Quake III engine, Raven Software has returned to the Jedi Knight series of games in the Star Wars Universe. With their previous game, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (for the PC, Xbox, and GameCube), Raven delivered an enjoyable First/Third Person Shooter that caters solely to the Star Wars crowd, or in other words, a mediocre action game that would be deemed crappy by all those other than plastic sword wielding fanboys. Like always, a multitude of Star Wars fans picked up LucasArts’ table scraps and immediately began to yearn for more. Therefore, Raven soon started development on Jedi Academy.

In Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, you no longer play the series’ long time protagonist Kyle Katarn. Instead, the game allows you to create your own character from a very limited amount of customization categories, including gender, species, and attire. Although, no matter what your character looks like, his or her name will be Jaden, a mysterious entity who has managed to construct their own lightsaber without any prior knowledge of The Force. Jaden becomes recruited to Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy in order to learn the ways of the ancient religion and become a Jedi. However, Skywalker’s Jedi Academy runs into a few problems with the Dark Side, where a Dark Jedi cult plans to resurrect a powerful Sith Lord from the dead by collecting a large amount Force Energy spread throughout the galaxy. Knowing that Jaden is strong with The Force, Masters Kyle Katarn and Luke Skywalker see Jaden as wise choice for unraveling this mystery of the Dark Jedi…

Poor Presentation Values Strike Back!
You would think that with a gaming publisher as large as LucasArts, we would be playing games with unmatched presentational values. However, this often not the case, and Jedi Academy is a perfect example.

From the moment you press the Start button, you’re treated to a very dull, yellow on black, menu screen which just screams lack of creativity. In fact, you may have even seen the same exact one in Jedi Outcast (Surprise!). Then upon starting your first mission you’ll observe that Jedi Academy’s visuals are everything short of being commendable. Quite simply, the graphics of Jedi Academy are weak compared to those of even another Xbox Star Wars game by the name of Knights of the Old Republic. Character and landscape models are decent, texture work ranges from passable to crappy, and the addition of constant framerate problems just kills it. The only praiseworthy graphical feature of Jedi Academy is the amount of cool looking Force Power and lightsaber animations that you’ll run into throughout the course of the game. I’m particularly fond of the cool lightning bolt effect of Force Lightining and the death animations shown whenever Jaden or an enemy is defeated; the death dealing blow is put into slow motion, creating a cool, dramatic scene.

From the audio standpoint, Jedi Academy is full of classic Star Wars themes and sound effects, along with some bearable voice acting… While it’s great n’ all to hear themes from the Classic Trilogy, the way they’re supplemented into game’s action sequences makes them feel out of place. They appear to be spliced together, jumping from one to the next in a muddled fashion. If this audio aspect could have been avoided with an original soundtrack, I would have preferred that instead, because it has gotten on my nerves enough for me to bitch about it in this review. However, the hum, screech, and grinding of a lightsaber always manage to put a smile on the face of this fallen Jedi.

The Return of Linear Gameplay
Some of today’s best games are those which give an incredible amount of “freedom” to players, and unfortunately Jedi Academy isn’t one of those games. Jedi Academy is a linear game, one in which every task or mission given to you throughout each of the game’s levels is easily accomplished by moving in a straight path from point A to point B. There aren’t any areas to explore, locals to converse with, or any other kind of elements that are related to great games like Knights of the Old Republic. Most of what you do in Jedi Academy is hack your way thru groups of Stormtroopers and Dark Jedi, in which you’re often aided by fellow lightsaber wielding allies, or taking on groups all on your own. In an odd twist (taking into consideration the tone of this review), the hack n’ slash gameplay of Jedi Academy is quite entertaining, thanks to the nice pacing of action during each of the game’s levels. Either that or it’s just the thrill and fanboy love of wielding a lightsaber.

Unlike its predecessor, Jedi Academy puts gamers in a third person perspective and equips them with a lightsaber from the get go. No longer do you have to torment yourself with what seems to be a piss poor first person shooter. Equip the heralded blade of the Jedi and slice the arms off of Stormtroopers, Rodians, or even some familiar droids. Quite simply, the lightsaber is your weapon of choice in Jedi Academy. Any blaster or thermal detonator is pretty much obsolete. However, when coming into contact with a Dark Jedi in a lightsaber duel, your chance of victory is pretty much based on luck. It’s either hit or miss. You can either defeat your opponent with one swing of your lightsaber or get into a heated five minute duel. It’s just plain luck my friends, and unfortunately for the impatient and those less experienced gamers, these Dark Jedi are difficult to kill. Often, even more difficult than some of the games lightsaber wielding bosses. Although, smart gamers will utilize the games saving feature, which allows you to save anywhere at any time, and just like Remedy’s Max Payne 2, this “quick save” can be used to cheat, saving after each an every Dark Jedi you’ve killed.

When coming in contact with the Dark Jedi you’ll notice that they use their Force Powers efficiently, blasting bolts of lighting, tossing your body around like a ragdoll, and going into a powerful rage, increasing their strength to where it becomes even more difficult to confront them. Likewise, Jaden also has a nice assortment of Jedi Powers which he/she can use, both Light and Dark, like the ones mentioned above, as well as the ability to heal, increase his/her speed, to perform a Mind Trick, to increase his/her awareness, along with a handful of others… However, there’s a problem. Possibly due to the button configuration on the Xbox pad, it becomes a hassle to use any Jedi power other than Force Heal, that is unless a specific situation calls for the use of another, such as the use of Force Speed to jump great lengths, or Force Push/Pull to maneuver a block or switch to solve one of the game’s easily solved puzzles.

In battle Force Powers are pretty much useless. While Mind Trick does prove to be useful against Stormtroopers and other Imperial Remnant forces, against Dark Jedi it’s a whole different story. You see the Dark Jedi are somewhat immune to any Force Attack Jaden attempts to use. They simply block everything, whereas it seems impossible for you to do the same against theirs. So in battle the only Force Power which seems necessary is Force Heal.

These Force Powers mentioned, are those which can be earned throughout the course of the game. Before each mission you will be asked to improve your Force Power in a particular area. Your strength in each area is determined by which you believe is most useful or entertaining throughout the course of the game. However, there are a few Force Powers that cannot be altered in that same fashion. Instead they are improved with the progress you make in the game, acting more like stats that improve themselves rather than Force Powers.

As mentioned earlier, Jedi Academy is more or a less a third person hack n’ slash action game. But there are a few moments in the game where you jump onto a speeder bike, identical to the ones seen in Return of the Jedi. Unfortunately, any stage involving the speeder bike is pretty much a pain in the ass to play through. The controls of the speeder bike are just too sloppy, causing players to give off a sigh of relief once the stage is over. Luckily, just one of these stages exist, but it does manage to drag on much longer than expected.

Just like in Bioware’s Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy does offer the option of turning to the Dark Side at a later part during the game. Doing so makes the gameplay for those last few stages, noticeably more difficult, since not only are you facing against Jedi for follow the path of the Light, but as well as those of the Dark, since Jaden is now has the thirst to become the strongest and most feared force in the universe. Sounds cool doesn’t it? Well, to some extent is, but in reality it doesn’t effect gameplay and gameplay decisions as much as in KotOR. It’s just not pulled off as successfully.

Now finally onto the multiplayer portion of the game… Luckily for those with Xbox Live, Jedi Academy offers a fun multiplayer experience for up to ten players, featuring game modes like Free for All, Capture the Flag, and Duel (one-on-one or the very interesting two-on-one Phantom Menace style) which can all be played against bots, via split-screen, LAN, or Xbox Live. In multiplayer, players can use any weapon of choice, including blasters while in the first person perspective, and as a result pure chaos can ensue onscreen, which offers an almost flaw redeeming experience. Multiplayer is one of the game’s most commendable aspects, and thankfully it runs very well on Live, so if you have the option to try it out, attempt to do so.

“What I told you was true… From a certain point of view”
In truth, Jedi Academy doesn’t really deliver anything too worthwhile compared to the many other third person action games available today. Because of this, I don’t really see any incentive for a non Star Wars fan to ever to have any reason to trying the game out. However, for the millions of Star Wars fans around the world, Jedi Academy is a Star Wars game that faithfully recreates the art of wielding a lightsaber in videogame form. It provides an experience that any fanboy is sure to enjoy from start to finish, and a game that should be considered for a purchase.