GiMpY-wAnNaBe
04-25-2004, 12:30 AM
Do or do not, There is no try
Well, you've played Dark forces, you p0wned in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, you blasted through Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, you smacked Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast like a 3$ whore, and now you're thinking of getting ready for Jedi Knight II: Jedi Acadamy. To sum up your decision: good choice. I have played all the games leading up to this addition to the series, and despite its short comings, it was still a hell of a ride.
Same s**t, Different day
The first thing you'll notice in this game if you've played Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast is that most of the stuffs been recycled, hence the mere one year between releases. And although these figures may be a year old, they're still in their prime. Even though all the graphics may look similar (or identical), you will notice some very different things in this game. For one, in Outcast, you had to play the first two hours with only a gun, the force is absent during this time. Although it does un-bleakien when you recieve your super-uber-cool blade of death(read: lightsabre), the overall score was hurt by that. The developers didn't make that mistake twice, this time you have your sabre from the first level.
Hard to see, the dark side is...
Well unlike the quote above the dark side is quite easy to spot, apart from their repetitive comments, you can spot them by all their bright red blades and their humerous interpersonal comments from time to time. The A.I. is probably one of the game's lower points since even if you're about 10 meters away they won't attack unless you attack first...regardless if their looking at you or not. The dark jedi will start making their condescending comments, but they'll just stand their waiting. Other than that the enemy is quite intelligent, they will try to sneak behind you and trap you from both sides, and the dark jedi use their force powers and lightsabres in nice combinations that make it both fun, but still a challenge.
Oh my god! They killed Kenny!...
Although there is no character pointed out to be named kenny, after you've killed several hundred sand people/storm troopers/dark jedi/rancors/tie bombers/good jedi (a few "accidental" times) it'll scarcely matter. The entire story takes place after the end of return of the jedi. Luke has made his own school on the relatively peaceful planet, Yavin 4. The game revolves around you being a new student who's done the impossible: build a lightsabre with no previous force experience. And it starts off action packed as your shuttle to the new temple on Yavin 4 crash lands and you need to make your way to the temple despite storm troopers and a dark jedi blocking your way. Bar none, the coolest thing in this game is the fact that you are no longer secluded to using only one sabre, you may choose to use a staff sabre, dual sabres, or switch between 3 different styles on single sabre (the last choice is a la Outcast, with three modes: light, medium and strong stances). All of the choices not only work fantastic, but look stunning as well. In addition to choosing your lightsabre colour, you also get to make your character as well, a mix and match type option, not too deep, but it scarcely matters since race has no impact on the story. Like Knights of the old republic you can choose to go light or dark, unlike knights of the old republic, it affects the gameplay minimally.
Standings: (all out of 10)
Graphics -- 8.0
Not stellar, but decent nonetheless. Even though it still utilizes the Quake III engine, this game pushes further than ever before. In addition, it makes it easy to play on a low quality computer, it was playable on a PIII 866 with a built in 16 Mb video card. And although most of the figures are recycled from the last game, they still work great.
Sound -- 7.5
You'll recognize all the good ol' tunes, plus a few new ones. The voice narration is alright, not superb, but its better than most games. What really drags down the score is the in game talking, sith jedi will use the same 6 phrases, while storm troopers will calmly ask "did you hear something?" as you're cutting thier arms off.
Control -- 9.0
The controls are amazing, extremely ueful and quite easy to use all your powers. There is a learning curve in order to fully integrate all your abilities, but once you do, there'll be body parts falling all over the place. Even the wall run and jump can be integrated in the middle of a battle with 3 sith jedi quite easily.
Gameplay -- 9.5
Despite small problems, this game is quite entertaining. You rarely ever get stuck and if you do, you usually get unstuck within the next 5 minutes. It took me about 12 hours or so to beat this game, and I'm getting ready to start again with a completely different set up (staff sabre :drool:).
In conclusion, stay in school, don't do drugs and have a merry christmas.
- Gimpy
Well, you've played Dark forces, you p0wned in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, you blasted through Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, you smacked Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast like a 3$ whore, and now you're thinking of getting ready for Jedi Knight II: Jedi Acadamy. To sum up your decision: good choice. I have played all the games leading up to this addition to the series, and despite its short comings, it was still a hell of a ride.
Same s**t, Different day
The first thing you'll notice in this game if you've played Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast is that most of the stuffs been recycled, hence the mere one year between releases. And although these figures may be a year old, they're still in their prime. Even though all the graphics may look similar (or identical), you will notice some very different things in this game. For one, in Outcast, you had to play the first two hours with only a gun, the force is absent during this time. Although it does un-bleakien when you recieve your super-uber-cool blade of death(read: lightsabre), the overall score was hurt by that. The developers didn't make that mistake twice, this time you have your sabre from the first level.
Hard to see, the dark side is...
Well unlike the quote above the dark side is quite easy to spot, apart from their repetitive comments, you can spot them by all their bright red blades and their humerous interpersonal comments from time to time. The A.I. is probably one of the game's lower points since even if you're about 10 meters away they won't attack unless you attack first...regardless if their looking at you or not. The dark jedi will start making their condescending comments, but they'll just stand their waiting. Other than that the enemy is quite intelligent, they will try to sneak behind you and trap you from both sides, and the dark jedi use their force powers and lightsabres in nice combinations that make it both fun, but still a challenge.
Oh my god! They killed Kenny!...
Although there is no character pointed out to be named kenny, after you've killed several hundred sand people/storm troopers/dark jedi/rancors/tie bombers/good jedi (a few "accidental" times) it'll scarcely matter. The entire story takes place after the end of return of the jedi. Luke has made his own school on the relatively peaceful planet, Yavin 4. The game revolves around you being a new student who's done the impossible: build a lightsabre with no previous force experience. And it starts off action packed as your shuttle to the new temple on Yavin 4 crash lands and you need to make your way to the temple despite storm troopers and a dark jedi blocking your way. Bar none, the coolest thing in this game is the fact that you are no longer secluded to using only one sabre, you may choose to use a staff sabre, dual sabres, or switch between 3 different styles on single sabre (the last choice is a la Outcast, with three modes: light, medium and strong stances). All of the choices not only work fantastic, but look stunning as well. In addition to choosing your lightsabre colour, you also get to make your character as well, a mix and match type option, not too deep, but it scarcely matters since race has no impact on the story. Like Knights of the old republic you can choose to go light or dark, unlike knights of the old republic, it affects the gameplay minimally.
Standings: (all out of 10)
Graphics -- 8.0
Not stellar, but decent nonetheless. Even though it still utilizes the Quake III engine, this game pushes further than ever before. In addition, it makes it easy to play on a low quality computer, it was playable on a PIII 866 with a built in 16 Mb video card. And although most of the figures are recycled from the last game, they still work great.
Sound -- 7.5
You'll recognize all the good ol' tunes, plus a few new ones. The voice narration is alright, not superb, but its better than most games. What really drags down the score is the in game talking, sith jedi will use the same 6 phrases, while storm troopers will calmly ask "did you hear something?" as you're cutting thier arms off.
Control -- 9.0
The controls are amazing, extremely ueful and quite easy to use all your powers. There is a learning curve in order to fully integrate all your abilities, but once you do, there'll be body parts falling all over the place. Even the wall run and jump can be integrated in the middle of a battle with 3 sith jedi quite easily.
Gameplay -- 9.5
Despite small problems, this game is quite entertaining. You rarely ever get stuck and if you do, you usually get unstuck within the next 5 minutes. It took me about 12 hours or so to beat this game, and I'm getting ready to start again with a completely different set up (staff sabre :drool:).
In conclusion, stay in school, don't do drugs and have a merry christmas.
- Gimpy