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Review: 'Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast'

GameProWorld


Platform: PC

By Darth Destroyer

(IDG) -- Bucking recent trends in "Star Wars" gaming, "Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast" is good. Really good. It's a balance of license and gameplay that brings honor to the "Star Wars" name and real Jedi action to your PC.

"Jedi Outcast" has one of the tightest stories of any FPS today. You are Kyle Katarn, the hero (and villain) of the original Jedi Knight and a mercenary for the New Republic. The game takes place years after "Return of the Jedi," so only remnants of the Empire remain. After checking out an Imperial Remnant base with your partner Jan, you get embroiled into a deep plot filled with intrigue, loss, and betrayal, and along the way, you regain your lost Jedi powers.

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Adding Jedi powers to an already-great FPS engine is a stroke of genius. Imagine if in "Quake III" (the game engine on which "Jedi Outcast" is based) you could hit a button and yank your opponent's weapon out of their hands, or wave a hand and throw five enemies against the nearest wall. Imagine cornering an enemy and lifting them with the Force, then choking them like Darth Vader. Then there's the lightsaber battles -- oh, the lightsaber battles -- which will have true "Star Wars" fans drooling on their keyboards and cackling with delight. You haven't done it all until you've fought two 'saber-wielding evil Jedi and defeated one with sheer skill before choking the other to death with the Force. Unbelievable. And...surprise! It all controls rather well with only the chaos of the lightsaber duels to detract from a feeling of total control.

Visually, "Jedi Outcast" looks amazing. Everything is as "Star Wars" as it should be; droids shamble and shine, stormtroopers flip and dance when they get shot, and blasters spurt color-coded beams across the battlefield. You'll recognize TIE fighters in their hangar and grin with satisfaction as a realistic-looking Lando Calrissian greets you from his prison cell. Only little flaws hurt the graphics, such as the fact that blaster bolts don't light up dark areas and tiny visible seams in textures make the characters look just a little abnormal. Other than those tiny nit-picks, though, the game is simply gorgeous.

Playing "Jedi Outcast" is a pleasure in and of itself. Raven has displayed great creativity in this title, especially in level layout and puzzles. The Force powers gave the developers a lot of leeway in what they could do with puzzles, and by and large, the challenges you'll face are more than your average push-box-jump-over-chasm FPS puzzles. There's a lot of find-key-find-lock stuff going on, but that's done very well. Jaded gamers will find exception, however, with many of the obstacles in the game. Jump puzzles, when they occur, are often frustrating in execution, and cliches like running through the air ducts and the now-ubiquitous "stealth level" are disappointing after playing through a few hours of ingenuity. Of course, "Jedi Outcast"'s sound is perfect, but, with this being a "Star Wars" game, you knew that already. The real star of this game is the gameplay, which alternates between great and brilliant. No matter what planet you're from, that's gotta rock.


 
 
 
 


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