Rating: 
Summary: like getting into a "Star Wars" movie
Review: What's with those amazon.com people - there are reviews for "Jedi Knight: Outcast" in this product listing and for "Jedi Knight" in the Outcast listing. The two are different games (JK was released in '97; Outcast followed in '02). This review is for the older game.Though it's the older of the two games (and its age is showing, even if you haven't played the new game) JK is still a great and worthwhile game. Actually the second of the Kyle Katarn games (the first was "Dark Forces" from '94) JK was a huge leap over its prequel, and more relatively innovative than the newer JK. Both are shooter-games that have you play freebooting mercenary Kyle Katarn. (Katarn had begun as an imperial commando but was eventually turned against them. Not immediately a rebel ally, Katarn did undertake missions for them). The empire is gone when JK starts, but pockets of lawlessness and imperial power remain. Katarn, still not a member of the alliance, takes time off to hunt down the man who murdered his father. Unfortunately, Katarn learns that the killer is Jerec, an evil Jedi and master of other evil Jedi. Cruising the galaxy in a mother-huge star destroyer, Jerec searches for the legendary "Valley of the Jedi", a burial ground of jedi knights and a repository of their power. Should he locate the Valley and tap its energy, warns a dead jedi, Jerec will become "a supernova of stars". Complicating Katarn's situation is his betrayal at the hands of a greedy droid named AT-88, but he gets past that to link up with his frequent ally, Jan Ors (the lovely Jan Ors), and picks ups the trail of Jerec. As he makes his way through the game, Kyle learns the ways of the Jedi and picks up nifty Jedi powers while he's at it (the powers are sort of like cheats that are brilliantly incorporated into the story). He must also solve problems and navigate various levels (or maps). In another first (and not used again in Outcast) the game allows you to choose which direction you want to go - light side or dark Jedi. The differences are that each side has its own powers, and at least one of the last maps and cut-scenes are different depending on which side you're on. As a Jedi, you also finally (virtually, anyway) get your hands on a lightsaber. Your saber is handy for cutting through things, but mostly you'll need it for the game's "boss levels" when you must confront Jerec's army of evil Jedi. Saber and Jedi powers aside, the game also faithfully models the weapons and other technology of the Star Wars universe, and wraps things up with John Williams great score. This is an old game - the graphics are not as fluid as in Outcast, the puzzles less imaginative and the enemies not as overwhelming. It's still a worthwhile game because it tries (and goes a long way) to being an interactive "Star Wars" movie. The levels are well designed and arranged in a way that supports the game's tight narrative. Unlike "Dark Forces" or "Outcast", JK's story is simple, which allows the game's maker to tell the hell out of it gamewise rather than simply seek new ways to toss enemies or challenges out at you. Rather than endure an endless series of levels and new foes, you actually feel like you're working to a big finish. The "movie" aspect is sustained with a series of cut-scenes using FMV - video scenes w/actors - rather than just short sequences animated with the graphics engine. (I admit, everybody hated FMV when it was used in the late '90's, but I loved the scenes here. It was the closest I'd gotten to watching a new SW movie until "Phantom Menace" came out and, if the acting isn't Oscar caliber, it certainly beats either of the last two flicks). In short, JK was pretty cutting-edge when it debuted about 6 years ago, but it still rules because its makers put storytelling on par with gameplay. Everybody lambasted this game when it came out for relying on its own proprietary game engine rather than using "QuakeII". I've played both games - while Q2 may have a better engine, JK has the overall better game. One last warning: rather than jump to the sequel, LA released a companion disk a year later, "Mysteries of the Sith" - a flawed, bit still @ss kicking expansion set featuring Mara Jade. Though LA eventually released a single package with both games, the "Classics" AFAIK only offers JK. I'd check on-line auctions for awhile since both are great games. Until somebody decides to re-map JK/MotS for the Quake-III engine used for Outcast, "Jedi Knight" will reign as the empire of Star Wars games.
Rating: 
Summary: Multiplayer not Sigleplayer game
Review: To give a little background, I've loved everygame LucasArts has put out in the star wars galaxy except for possibly Force Commander. However, in most respects Jedi Academy was a HUGE letdown after Jedi Outcast and its amazing replayability. First, the graphics in JA are much worse than JO, the game is more intensive on your computer, the missions except in a few notable exceptions are more vinnettes than missions, there is a very weak storyline that relies completely upon JO to have it even make sense, and except for the expanded force powers is a complete letdown. None of the missions is exceptionally challenging although a couple are frustrating in the fact you can't kill your nemesis until you complete certain steps (Boba Fett and the mutant Rancor) until you've done some x, y, and z that the game designers really fail to let you know about. However, JA does have ONE redeeming quality. If you are a multiplayer, AND like lightsabre duels then this game is a must have. There are expanded moves, 5 fighting styles if you include dual sabre and staff sabre, and the hokey instant kill moves that relied more on luck or used for newbie bashing are taken away be weakening them significantly (the rearward stab after knocking ppl down). In reality though, unless your a die-hard multiplayer jedi fan this game will just waste your time and money. Wait for the jewel case, or better yet stick to Jedi Outcast.
Rating:
Summary: The history is repeating
Review: Ok, more skills, Sith jedis, new planets, shoots and Jedi girls that look like Playmates. But, has anybody realized that we haven't seen the cities of many new planets? Is my imagination, or the most part of them are desert? And Coruscant? That's all about the planet? And Mon Calamari? Why we haven't seen their planet yet? What about battles in the forest? And underwater mission? And to end, the game for me has been very easy.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Game! Not just a rehash of the last one.
Review: If you like Star Wars or any of the Star Wars action games that have come out, then Jedi Academy is a game that you simply can't miss. I liked Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, but it has a few big faults. I LOVE Jedi Academy! This game takes what was great about Jedi Knight 2 and emphasizes it, and it eliminates what was bad about JK2. In case you haven't played a Lucasarts Jedi game before, this is a game that gives you the look and feel of being a Jedi Knight. You run around and do flips. You use the force to yank weapons from enemies' hands or to push them onto the floor. You shoot lightning out of your hands. You telepathically choke enemies like Darth Vader. You use a lightsaber to block laser blasts and duel with Dark Jedi. Jedi Outcast did a wonderful job of capturing that look and feel of being a Jedi, and I think that Jedi Academy does an even better job. This game is a sequel to 3 previous games, but you don't have to play those games to enjoy this one (but I would recommend playing Jedi Knight 2 anyways). At first glance, you think "Okay, I've seen this all before". The graphics engine is somewhat outdated, the guns are the same as the previous two games, and so are a lot of the enemies. But after you play for an hour or so, you find that gameplay is substantially improved. The action begins immediately (you start the game with a lightsaber this time), and it never stops until the very end. There are no annoying jump puzzles in this game, and no gauntlet sequences where you have to complete 8 impossible tasks in sequence within 15 seconds. Say goodbye to those 3D pixel hunts. The puzzles are much easier, and there are very few of those annoying snipers. You simply jump in very quickly and start slicing and dicing unfortunate enemies with your lightsaber. To put it simply, there is a lot more fun and less frustration. The game does a great job of mixing up the levels to keep the game interesting. Just when you think repetitiveness is creeping in, out comes a wildcard level that hasn't been done in the previous two games. A perfect example of this is the thrilling speederbike level, where you are flying around at 100 miles an hour and slicing enemies off of their bikes like it's a high-speed joust. There are other unique levels, but I won't spoil them for you by telling you what happens. Unlike the previous games, you get to customize the look, race, and gender of your character. Throughout the game, you get to assign light or dark force powers as you progress, like in Dark Forces 2. After the halfway point, you get to wield a saber in each hand, or a double-bladed saber ala Darth Maul. By the end, you are fighting an army of Dark Jedi and it never gets old. Near the end once, I met two Dark Jedi waiting for me on a walkway high above a fiery pit of lava. I used Force Speed to rush in and whack one across the gut before he knew what hit him. Then, I clashed sabers with the other guy for a minute before finally using my Force Push ability to shove him off of the walkway and watch him plunge to a ghastly death. One of the faults of this game is quirky lightsaber controls. The lightsaber is still very hard to control, and lots of the duels are mouse click-fests. That's a problem from the last game that wasn't fixed. Where this game lacks the most is production values. Specifically, the sound. The soundtrack is the same as in the previous Star Wars games, and it might start to grate your nerves. The voice acting is cheezy, and voice samples get repetitive, because there are so few. The graphics, on the other hand, are outdated, but the game makes up for it by making all of the scenery bright, colorful, and unique-looking. The scenery varies from the icy Hoth planet to the deserts of Tatooine, so it never gets repetitive. I like Jedi Academy better than Dark Forces 2 and Jedi Outcast. I like it more than any action game that I have played in a long time (at least a year). This is what a Star Wars Jedi action game should be. Don't be put off by first impressions or so-so-looking screenshots. This is a great action game.
Rating: 
Summary: too short and too easy
Review: Whereas the original dark forces and subsequent games focused on puzzles within the missions, jedi academy was more concerned with fighting with light sabres. There was almost no use for conventional weapons, the lightsabre wielding adversaries were easily defeated just by pushing as many buttons on the keyboard as you could and as fast as you could. In dark forces II it took a long time to develop as a character with enough time to have fun with the force. In Jedi outcast you didn't have enough time to have fun using advanced sabre techniques, and in jedi academy it was overkill. I just would like to have seen a game that had more difficult mazes and puzzles in the levels . . . or maybe I'm just getting smarter . . . It literally takes about 6 hours of solid playing time to get through this one . . . oh wait, I can play it again and try to find all the secret areas. Wait till you can buy it used.
Rating:
Summary: Not Much Changed but Game Play is Very Fun
Review: The subject says it all. Jedi Academy doesn't make any great leaps beyond Jedi Outcast. However, the game play is still very fun and there are some very interesting additions. So far my favorite addition is the mounts/vehicles. I really enjoy riding a mount or swoop bike while using a light saber as a weapon. Running down storm troopers on your tauntaun is great fun. Even more fun is high-speed jousting with swoop bikers that are chasing you. I am finding this to be a very enjoyable game. I would recommend the game in general but it is a must have for any Star Wars fans.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Game...Better than the last one
Review: STJK:JA played pretty well on my system (P4 2.0ghz, 384MB RAM, 32MB ATI video card), and only locked up once. The gameplay was smooth, the graphics looked great, and the challenges were a lot of fun. Here's the game in a nutshell. You play a character of your choosing (human male or female, or an alien) and your design (even the clothes on your back are custom). You're on your way to begin Jedi training, when something happens. You soon find yourself on joint adventures with your "master," or, if deemed easily done, by yourself. The game's scope is vast - lots of different worlds (including Hoth), and lots of NPC's. The best part, though, is what happens when you become a Jedi Knight (not an easy task, by the way). While you get to custom design your own lightsaber in the beginning, you get to choose your blade AND fighting style at the game's midpoint - and yes, you can choose a double-bladed saber, just like Darth Maul. Slaying dozens of Sith followers with the double bladed saber was just plain fun! What's not so good? There are quite a few of those silly little puzzles (e.g., throw a switch to deactivate a force field, but the field comes back on in three seconds), but other than that, everything is well put together. If you've played the previous Jedi Knight games, you'll really enjoy playing this one. Oh, yeah - one more thing: at a point during the game, you'll have to make a choice. Right before you decide, save the game right there. There are two endings to the game, and this way you'll be able to do both.
Rating:
Summary: Jedi Outcast Addon Pack
Review: This is essentially an add-on pack intended for fans of the original. Fans have always been creating their own game levels and mods since Dark Forces 2, but what keeps people buying the LucasArts add-ons is that they are always so much better than fan-created levels. The runaway tram level in this game is one example. Pros: - JA has some exceptional new levels with new locations to explore.
- More jedi powers and moves
- Ability to customize your own padawan. Cons: - You don't really feel like part of the academy. I remember in Wing COmmander, you really felt like you were part of the team because you got to go on missions with them and talk to them. In JA, you spend most of your time alone or with Kyle.
- Each mission feels like an add-on module rather than part of a whole story. If you have played thru all of the Katarn series, you will probably like this one too. It doesn't add much new but it is still quite enjoyable after a long day at work to come home and choke a few stormtroopers and Force push them off a ledge :) But I think the next generation of the series has to innovate the game significantly to keep the fans interested. Perhaps a series of training levels, like in a less tedious version of Kengo, that will allow you to increase your force powers and build your own saber fighting style, would be good. THen you could practice them in a Jedi Dojo.
Rating:
Summary: Where Outcast failed, Academy succeeds- in spades.
Review: Wow, where to start? As much as I tried to like Jedi Outcast, the game left a bad taste in my mouth- it looked like Star Wars, sounded like Star Wars, but it didn't play like Star Wars. The game had so many annoying little problems that it all but sucked the life from it. Not to mention a pretty dull story that lacked any sort of dramatics or imagination-grabbing aspects that the first game had in such abundance. Fast forward a little over a year to Jedi Academy- and a surprising treat. I must admit to not being very enthusiastic about it, I quite honestly am used to being disappointed by such things, and was in fact looking to purchase Homeworld 2 and stumbled across Academy and bought it in lieu of Relic's much anticipated sequel- not to mention the fact that I couldn't find it. I knew a little about the game, especially the fact that you were no longer going to be playing as Kyle Katarn- Dark Forces perennial hero, but instead a student of his. You start the game by designing your character- male or female, and a choice of races- human, Kel Dor, Twi'lek, Zabrak (the spikey headed guys like Darth Maul) or Rodian, saber type and color. Cool. I went for a sleek and sexy blue skinned Twi'lek woman to play as Jaden Kor, Kyle's prodigy who stunned the Jedi and Luke Skywalker by making her own lightsaber before even beginning her training. After that's complete, the game begins with your shuttle crashing near the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV and you along with your pal Rosh must make their way to the Massassi temple, avoiding local wildlife and then some stormtroopers. As it turns out, you oversee some bad guys siphoning something out of the temple. (For those who don't know, Luke Skywalker and Co. Defeated the Sith spirit of Ulic Qel-Droma, who had been imprisoned there 4,000 years before, during the golden age of the Sith.) Jaden is an expert pupil and receives training from both Luke and Kyle, guaranteeing she'll be a major bad ass by the time things start to get rolling. Raven really made me proud by taking us to a lot of new places instead of simply carting us off to the same old haunts seen in the movies, with the exception of Hoth, which has never been visited in the JK series. Much of the game involves tracking down a group that has been revealed as the Cult of Ragnos, (again, a major bad guy and one of the first Sith Lords, circa about 5,000 years ago.) And they appear to traveling around the galaxy and using a scepter that appears to have the ability to draw off ans store Dark Side energies. Okay, I knew at that point what their plan was, but players unfamiliar with the Expanded Universe may not click on it right away. There are a lot of missions, close to 25 and they take you on a galaxy wide tour of some very cool places, and there is lots to do. To their credit, Raven seems very adept at ripping every last ounce of life out of the aging Quake III Arena engine, but after this game, it's time to retire the old girl and move on to more versatile technology. It's almost five years old- quite a bit of staying power, but if they want to continue the franchise, they'd better upgrade. While textures were good and well detailed, the repeating patterns on walls and things like magma was very obvious, and it can't seem to push the polys on buildings or characters like many newer engines can. It does it's job, but just barely. Now, what they did improve is every aspect of game play that I hated in Jedi Outcast. Lightsaber moves are better, more effective, easier and more obvious when accomplished. Weapons no longer drill through your personal shields too fast, meaning you can hang in a fight longer than you could in Outcast. Everything is better- level design, story, character movement- they polished and revamped virtually every aspect of the game, making it more fun. Some levels were irritating, such as the never ending villains on swoop bikes, but for the most part I found myself really enjoying what I saw and did. This game improves on every weakness Outcast has- it's 10 fold improvement over the last game. Even the multi-player levels are better, though there aren't that many of them. I did find that dual and double lightsabers are unbalancing against a single blade- I played a few multi-player levels with two sabers and cleaned house a lot easier than I had expected. Plus, they incorporated a Force power system similar to the original Jedi Knight and reincorporated such powers in the single player experience like Protection, Seeing and Healing, all of which were strangely absent from the Outcast single player game. Plus, the game doesn't force you to use Dark Side powers if you don't want to- you have access to them, but you don't have to put points into them. You're a Jedi Knight, not some wormy Sith wannabe. I would have preferred not having them at all, but I guess there are people who think the Dark Side is 'kewl' and have to use the powers. With a new game engine like Unreal II/2K4, Quake IV or possibly even the new Half-Life 2 system, who knows what Raven will have in store for us next. All I do know is that it's time to retire the Arena engine. Additional (10/22/03) After reading the PC Gamer review, I must agree with their comment that this game's villains were very sub-par.
Rating:
Summary: Jedi Outcast Revisited
Review: Don't get me wrong, If I had never played Jedi Outcast (to which jedi academy is its succesor) I would think Jedi Academy is a wicked cool game! BUT, it seems LucasArts has simply re-released Outcast with a SLIGHTLY different look, the same graphics engin, the same weapons, virtually the same force powers, the same characters...and only with a slightly different setting and different locations. Ok, yeah, you can choose which color your light-saber you use and what you look like etc.... wow - I've never had that in a game before (note the sarcasm). In my opinion, games in a series are meant to evolve and change over time - like Warcraft for example...the graphics and characters and story changed dramatically between the 3 games. An even better example would be the Ultima series -each game was different than the one before it (with some similarities inherant in being a part of the same game series.)
In the end, Jedi Academy = Jedi Outcast - take your pick.
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