Written by Jeff Buckland, 9/17/2003
Played on:
Windows
Raven Software put together an arguably great game with Jedi Knight 2, their follow-up in the long-running Star Wars first person shooter franchise. And only a year and 3 months later, they have belted a new sequel out: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. While the series' main character, Kyle Katarn, plays a fairly big role in this game, you actually play as a new Jedi student. The question is whether Raven has added enough gameplay to warrant another $50 purchase.
Raven Software has been using the Quake 3 engine literally for years, and I hope that this is their last game using it. You can just tell that this game was made as quickly as possible, as many things haven't changed - I'm also guessing the decision for a quick sequel was a major factor in going with the same engine again. The game engine also includes no major new graphical features for Jedi Academy, which is disappointing considering the visuals we are seeing in other games today.
Raven has pushed the engine farther than they ever have with Jedi Academy, which is good, but of course this means higher system requirements over JK2. For an engine that looks as drab as this, I really expected better performance overall. At the very least, Q3 is a very stable, compatible engine, so you won't have to worry about constant crashes or the like.
The official site's FAQ mentions all kinds of new engine enhancements, few of which seem to make the game look much better at all in my opinion. Ragdoll model support is at least in here, and is used just lightly enough on character models to make it worth having. Some games go overboard with the ragdoll thing, making characters fall totally limp as soon as they die. There are also burn marks that can show up anywhere on a character if they get hit by a lightsaber, which is actually a nice touch.
If you really want, you could run this game on the minimum possible requirements, but I really wouldn't suggest it. Even at the lowest possible settings, I found the game hardly enjoyable on my old P3 600Mhz with 256MB RAM and a TNT2. Then again, I am expecting more than 30fps with at least somewhat decent visuals; someone with a computer like the one listed above is probably a little more forgiving. Despite that, I think a GeForce 1 and an 800MHz CPU would be a better minimum system.
The most obvious interface change that Jedi Academy offers over its predecessor is the ability to customize your character and lightsaber. You get a choice between male and female characters, and also between several races (Human, Rodian, Twi'lek, Zabrak, etc). On top of that, you can choose your lightsaber hilt & color when you start. When you progress partway through, you can pick between the Heavy & Fast saber styles, which is a nice change from JK2 which automatically gave you Fast and then Heavy. There's more than that as well; we'll get to that later.
If you've played a Quake 3-engine game before, you can probably guess what the controls are like. The gameplay does include some new moves over JK2 that you'll need to master to punch through difficult enemies' defenses, so get a little practice. Otherwise, there is one notable removal from the last game: there are no longer items that you can pick up and use later. This is a welcome simplification to the game in my opinion, as one already has to juggle all those force powers and weapons as it is.
If you turn the texture quality all the way up, Jedi Academy looks almost decent albeit with a pretty low polygon count and ugly outdoor scenes. As you can expect, the Quake 3 engine does great with indoor scenes, but go outside and you'll get lots of fog in the not-too-far distance and some very simplistic environments. Thankfully, Raven only use the large outdoor levels as a change of pace, so most of the game is in closer quarters where the engine looks best.
Many of the game's weapon and character models are recycled from JK2; Luke Skywalker, Kyle Katarn, the stormtroopers, and a few other characters look exactly the same as last year's game. While we do get a couple of new weapons, all the old ones are unchanged (as well as their special effects).
The game will have you traversing many levels that aren't physically connected to the previous one; since the whole thing is structured for the player to planet hop and do quite a few one-level missions, you will be visiting plenty of unique locales. Some of these work very nicely, while others (like the Hoth outdoor level) are very disappointing from a visual perspective.
Unlike the highly linear JK2 storyline, Jedi Academy allows you to choose your missions, at least to a certain extent. For most of them, you get to pick which ones come first, and can even skip one out of five missions when sent out on assignment. You can also use any combination of light side or dark side powers, just like Kyle did in JK2, but now you get to choose which specific powers come first.
You eventually will have to pick a side permanently for the plot's sake, but it seems to have no effect on how your force powers are used. You're also not forced to choose a side until near the end of the game and it really doesn't change the gameplay all that much. Either way, you'll still have to do the same levels no matter how you configure your character.
On top of this, the missions are set up in a tiered style; you'll do a level or two that ties in to the central plot, then run off on 5 missions you get to choose from, then another mission or two that you have to do. This goes on for three total tiers; it's a pretty cool system that gives a little freedom to the player not usually seen in an action game. And unlike previous Raven games, this gives you freedom without forcing you to backtrack through previous levels (which is rarely any fun). Each level itself is pretty linear, though, so don't expect being able to get through certain areas in multiple ways.
