Rating: 
Summary: Let the battle begin!
Review: I have to confess that, even though I played the earlier Star Wars themed games like Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, I just couldn't get into them. The main problem I was having was that it all seemed too familiar. I know they were all well made games, but with all the blaster fire, puzzle solving, and platform jumping, it just felt like I was playing "Doom with Stormtroopers." Enter the battles of Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.From the outset, you realize this game is all about light saber battles. This may or may not be a big plus for you, but it's what I expected from the very first Star Wars themed game. Even as an inexperienced jedi, you can easily deflect blaster fire like it "ain't no thang." Since most of your opponents can do the same, your blaster quickly becomes second fiddle. You start off the game as a new student on the way to the academy to learn the ways of the force when you are thrust into battle against a cult of jedi (outcasts?) who seem to have developed a way to drain force power from the universe. Your training turns into trial-by-fire as you are sent to investigate this mysterious cult and learn what their plans are. As you are assigned to different missions, you are given a choice of light sabers and various force powers to can add points to. These include Light powers such as Push, Pull, Protection, and Heal, and Dark powers like Lightning, Grip, Rage, and Drain. As you complete each mission, your skill levels increase and your force powers increase their effectiveness as a result. While this is a nice touch, you start to wonder what the purpose of the academy is, considering you're not learning anything there. No matter, the focus of this game is on jedi battles, and that is where this game shines. We're not just talking one-on-one battles either, but against multiple opponents at times and Jedi Academy really blows the roof off close quarter fighting. You have multiple fighting styles you can specialize in, such as Fast (to defeat your enemies through sheer speed) or Strong (used to overwhelm an opponent's defenses.) Your fighting moves vary dramatically depending on which type of saber you select and, most importantly, the battles have the same intensity as they do in the movies. Blades crashing make the screen explode in color and kills cause a slow motion camera spin around the victim which adds a cinematic effect to the battle. As you progress through the game, the enemies get much tougher so it pays to learn combinations of force powers you can use with special saber moves. Simply hacking away at an enemy may work at the beginning, but it'll get you killed later on. The story itself is a little ho-hum, but at least the levels are a treat to look at. Depending on which mission you select, you'll find yourself battling opponents on Hoth, Corsucant, or Tatooine and you'll even run into some familiar characters from the movies and earlier games.
Finally, I run this on a fairly dated 1Ghz Athlon with 512MB Ram and a Geforce2 Ultra without problems at 1024x768. If you do run into problems, turning the dynamic glow to off, turning the shadows to simple, and turning the anisotropic filter to low or off will give you the most dramatic performance gains. As a quirky side note, it was a programmer at Raven Software who gave the cinematic effects to the now infamous Star Wars Kid video while this game was in development. While there is no official endorsement I'm aware of, I'm sure Ghyslain would be proud of this game. Hope the review helped.
Rating:
Summary: Lot of fun
Review: If you enjoyed Outcast, you'll like this. It's true that it was a bit short in comparison. Also, some of more powerful foes were not as tough as in Outcast -- I'm not saying that because I'm a great gamer, because I'm not. There was more fighting than puzzles in this one, which suits me fine. The dual and double-bladed lightsabers were awesome. I ended up with the latter and it served me well.
Rating:
Summary: Fun but not inspiring
Review: First off, Jedi Academy was fun. I had a good time with the additional Force powers and exotic sabre styles. The game is completely full of lightsabre combat and minimizes puzzle based tedium.
The downside includes a ho-hum story. It's not bad, just not inspiring. If there had been consequences for dark side power development and evil acts throughout the story it would have been a lot more interesting and engaging.
I had a good time playing this game and will do so again but this is not game of the year material.
Rating:
Summary: Decent expansion for Jedi Outcast
Review: Jedi Academy is a fun enough game. If anything, it is a nice expansion of Jedi Outcast--gameplay is essentially the same, and as in the case of Outcast, playing as a Jedi Knight has never been better. As in Outcast, Force powers and lightsbaer combat have been greatly increased since Jedi Knight. One of the, ah, INTERESTING new features in Jedi Academy is some fancy combo moves, such as overly-dramatic stabs and more needless twirling of the lightsbaer. I call this interesting because, while it looked cool, I found it annoying when my character engaged in an overly dramatic, slow stab whilst he is getting shot at by a bunch of stormtroopers. I'd rather he just made a quick swing and killed the guy so I can turn around and deal with the other 10 guys trying to kill me. Force powers are also better. It's true that it doesn't really amtter which Force pwoers you use, but I thought each side had a nice balance. Force jump in particular has been nicely improved--you can now run up and jump off walls. One Force power glitch I HATED, however, was how for Grip you sometimes couldn't throw people over the edge...they would just skirt along the edge of the cliff. Another problem was that, for some levels (especially Coruscant), my computer had trouble dealing with the landscapes. As a result, gameplay was sometimes choppy. Character customization isn't really as cool as I thought it would be. It's a nice idea, but ultimately I found myself just impatient to get on with it. In particular I wanted more species (I would love to be a Gamorrean wielding a lightsbaer). However, it was nice to finally wield a double-bladed lightsaber. As in the case of Outcast, there were some Star Wars consistency issues that felt a little strained. Apparently there is a Force-scepter that can store Force residue and use it to empower people with the Force; I don't know about you, but this doesn't feel very Star Wars-ish to me. Another problem I had was with the stormtroopers with jetpacks and Jedi-assassin droids--again, these made me feel like I was playing outside the realm of Star Wars. And for some reason alien species (such as Greedo's species) speak like humans in this game. Also, I find it very annoying how every Jedi in the game can dodge a disrupter shot EXCEPT for mine. Finally, in one of the later levels you encounter a Rancor that, well, you'll know what I mean when you see it. All in all, though, this game is enjoyable. The designers made a nice attempt to create different feels for each mission so that they didn't get repetitive, such as a Dune-ish world with sandworms and a swoop level (a level which, while I appreciated the effort towards different gameplay, I also hated). While no great improvement over Outcast, this game is a nice continuation of it, and presents some elements that hopefully will be expounded upon in the next Jedi Knight game.
Rating:
Summary: Cool Graphics but a little confusing.
Review: For graphics, this game would get a 5 out of 5 stars, but it some areas, I almost HAD to use cheat codes to get by. I couldn't figure out what to do next. The story line is alright, but it's a little short. I would only recommend this game to you if you have considerable first-person shooter experience.
Rating:
Summary: One of the better Star Wars games...
Review: I had a lot of fun with this game, and SW fans will undoubtedly love it. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that it's too short and there isn't much replay value. That said, this game taps into one of a SW fan's most ardent desires: to go to Jedi school. Think of this as a Jedi Harry Potter game, where you get to design lightsabers (and re-design it halfway through the game, with the option to use 2 sabers or a dual saber), learn cool force powers (the Darth Vader choke grip is awesome and really useful for tossing fools off cliffs) and go on a wide array of missions from Hoth to Tattoine and Korriban. While I liked this game, I still feel that the best Star Wars game out there is Knights of the Old Republic (on Xbox and PC). It offers more depth and story and is consequently more engrossing. That said, if you are a fast-twitch gamer or a FPS fan, opt for Jedi Academy. If you liked Jedi Outcast, you'll love this. I actually didn't care for Outcast that much (horrendous level design) and found that Academy has much, much improved flow and is more intuitive. A fun game!
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible AI and not much new...not worth $50...NO WAY!!!!
Review: First of all, there are a ton of reviews for this product but the customer reviews here don't apply to this game! This game was just released, but the reviews are dated from last year and refer to old Lucas Arts games. That said.......this is a "nice" game but it leaves a lot to be desired. To defeat some of the tougher dudes and even the bosses, just find a high perch and keep shocking them with your dark force lightning power. They die easily without a fuss. Most of the Storm Troopers just stand idley by while you shoot or rip through their comrades with the light saber. I played this game on the second hardest setting and I was finished in 7 hours!!! Yes, $50 and all I got was 7 stinking hours of mediocre game play!!! I honestly believe if you are over 13 years old, you will be disappointed. There are some "Star Wars" loyalists out there that will say this game is great. Hey...I love the Star Wars trilogy too, but that does not make this game any better guys! It does not matter how mean or kind you are, it does not matter if you build up your Dark Force powers and use them alot. It has NO bearing or affect on game play. Truthfully, the Dark Powers makes this game easy to beat. You get the options of customizing your characters looks and clothing and you can customize your light saber's hilt and color, BUT again this offers no bearing on the game play. Just simple eye candy to make it look like the programmers did a lot of work. This game is not horrible but it is not much of an improvement over Jedi Knight II - that is the real truth. If you played Jedi Knight II - wait for this game to come down in price. If you have not played any of the Jedi games, WAIT for this title to come down in price after Christmas...you will be glad you saved yourself some money. Did I mention I finished the game in 7 hours!!!
Wait and save your bucks...games like Half Life 2, Doom III and others are just about to be released!
Rating: 
Summary: Jedi Academy Fixed all the problems
Review: I'll be brief, I played Jedi Knight 2 a lot. A lot of single and multiplayer.
I got this game just to be fair, as JK2 was getting old. HOLY CRAP. This game is awesome. It fixed everything I disliked about JK2. The slow motion add on scenes are the coolest thing in any video game ever.
The plot rolls along smooth enough, pretty linear, but hey thats what multi player is for. To those of you who aren't convinced.
Dual lightsabers.
Double sided light saber.
And new cool shock gun.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most underrated games of all time
Review: Don't let this game's age fool you. This game is fun. Once you can ignore the game's graphics, you will like this game. It has a plethora of puzzles, a good storyline, your character has many force powers, and a lightsaber to boot. I'd rather play this game than some of the newer games with all the advanced graphics but with real limited gameplay. You're a Jedi Knight in this game!
Rating:
Summary: This game has features like no other game
Review: We've all seen the Star Wars movies and many of us know what a lightsaber is, but how many of us have played the role of a Jedi on a computer game? This game is actually "Dark Forces 3", with familiar characters Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors once again as the heroes of the story (I actually like it when game sequels keep the main characters). Kyle does not start out with any force powers, but gets them later in the game. My favorite thing to do in the game is use force jump & then use force pull to pull your enemies way into the air and then watch them fall to the earth. I also use the force grip & use force push to push them into the air or off ledges. The game uses the Quake III Arena engine and the graphics are even better than Q3A. The facial expressions of the characters are almost cute and quite convincing. The sound is superb and the music is from the Star Wars soundtracks. With plenty of levels, weapons, characters, force abilities and a very good storyline, this game is one of my most favorites of all time. I've literally lost track of how many times I've played it in sp mode. At least a dozen over the past year.
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