Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Jedi Outcast - PC & Xbox
Written by MuadDib.
In Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi outcast, you play as Kyle
Katarn who, was once a Jedi Knight, is a mercenary hired by the New Republic to
keep peace in the galaxy.
Developed by the makers of Soldier of Fortune, Raven Software and ported to Xbox
by Vicarious Vision, Jedi Outcast is an epic first & third person action
adventure game telling the tale of how Kyle Katarn reconnect with the force.
I sensed a disturbance in the force...
Players of the original Jedi knight game will know that Kyle
Katarn almost walked down the path of Dark side, and was saved by Mara Jade,
Luke Skywalkers' wife. Unable to trust himself as a Jedi, Kyle relinquished his
role as a keeper of peace only to return to his old mercenary way. However
during a mission Kyle was raged when he saw his partner, Jan Ors, was killed
before his eyes by a sith, Dessan, who once was a Jedi apprentice at Luke
Skywalkers' Academy.
Driven by anger, Kyle vowed to avenge Jans' death, but to defeat a sith he must
first reconnect with the force again.
May the force be with you...
The first two hours of the game is played purely in the first
person tradition. Later on, when kyle reconnect with the force, things gets more
interesting as you can wield light saber and do all sort of Jedi powers.
But you don't get all of the Jedi powers at once. Kyle must first familiarize
with some of the basic force powers like, push, pull, jump, speed and sight,
which allows him to see hidden objects. As you progress on, new force powers
become available such as force drain, force lightning, force protect, and force
grip which is my personal favorite.
Wielding the light saber is perhaps the best thing about Jedi Outcast. In single
player campaign you have the option to wield the light saber in first or third
person view. In multiplayer, however, only third person view is available.
Frankly third person view is the preferred choice since you can perform a lot
more moves that first person view can not achieve.
Mastering the Jedi moves are not hard nor easy. Some moves are easier to perform
while others are harder to since certain requirements must be present in order
to perform the move. for example to back stab your enemy, he must be behind your
character in order to back stab him.
Light saber, of course, is not the only weapon in the game. There are about 15
weapons ranging from the tiny blaster to wookie crossbow to the big rocket
launchers.
Controlling Kyle in first person is like any other standard fps on the market, but controlling him with a light saber and using the force is another story. The default key settings for force is horrible. It doesn't give the player enough time to act, although there are keys let allow you to select and use force which is handy at times but once you obtained more forces selecting them is a pain in the ass.
The Xbox controller does not have as much buttons as the PC do but you use the D-pad on the controller to select the force you want and then click the right analog stick to activate force.
Graphics.
There is without a doubt that Jedi Outcast is powered by the
Quake III Team Arena's engine, and it is a great engine for this game. The
characters are beautifully detailed and well animated, the environment texture
have a Star Wars feel to it and many of the Star Wars special effects are all
packed into this game. The light saber looks wicked in action so are the laser
effects.
Jedi Outcast may not have jaw dropping graphics but it certainly as hell doesn't
disappoint either.
The levels are huge and beautifully crafted to the Star Wars feel, however many
are designed poorly which may cause a lot of frustration.
I once got up to a point where there are no ways to proceed, I have looked for
hours only come to realize that there was a vent in the ceiling to jump in. Jedi
Outcast does this a lot. Another thing to point out is that many levels don't
give clear indication of where to go and you will often run into a dead end or
get stuck in one place for quite a while before you realize that the only exist
if perhaps to blow a hole on the wall or on the ceiling. The dead corpse
disappears which causes confusion whether you've been to the place or not.
The Xbox version while looked good but no was where near as good as the PC version. There were some frame rate problems and the texture detail looked a bit muddy compared to the PC standard but still at an acceptable level.
Sound.
The audio of their Star Wars games has always been a strength for LucasArts. The voice acting is superior thanks mainly to the legendary, but still readily available, Billy Dee Williams. I'd love to tell you he carried the whole game, but he merely reprises his role as Lando Calrissian, who pretty much steals the show in Jedi Outcast. The sound coming from the R2 units and stormtroopers in the game is well done. In fact, you can hear some pretty interesting conversations --for a bunch of clones anyway-- if you ever sneak up and eavesdrop on a group of stormtroopers. The music is all Star Wars through and through with familiar themes and original background music flowing together very well.
Jedi Outcast sports some very standard multiplayer modes, there are the usual
deathmatch, TDM and CTF. The unique modes to Jedi Outcast is Duel where two
players duke it out in a small arena, capture the ysalamiri, a mode that's a bit
like tag, and finally the Jedi master mode, which players have to find the only
light saber in the level if one player finds it he/she becomes the Jedi master
and other players have to take him/her out before he/she gathered enough points.
For those who are not network capable fear not, Jedi outcast comes with fully AI
controllable opponents (bots) for players to enjoy multiplayers offline. The
Xbox version also sports a 2 player split screen play with up to 14 bots to
fight against.
Overall: The force is strong with this one...
Star Wars Jedi Outcast is a great game that has an epic and engaging single
player story with many cool battles and light saber actions.
Good multiplayer for online and offline play that will draw you back for more
light saber duels. This is a game that no Star War fans or FPS fans should miss.
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