"Jedi Academy" has lots of cool levels and is nonstop fun.

User Rating: 8.8 | Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy PC
I agree with pretty much everything in the Gamespot review. This is not just a rehash of Jedi Outcast. This is a great game!! 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 The graphics engine is somewhat outdated, the guns are the same as the previous two games, and so are a lot of the enemies.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 script and the voice acting are cheesy despite the talent, 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 superior action game.