A short time after the events of Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast have taken place, you take the role of a young Jedi named Jaden are on your way to the Jedi academy on Yavin 4 to train with Kyle Katarn and none other than Luke Skywalker himself. No sooner have you arrived at the academy that strange goings on have you thrown into investigating the mysterious cult that has surfaced worshipping an ancient Sith lord. Being a continuation of one of the best Star Wars games to date, it has a lot to live up to and for the most part, it does. Although Jedi Academy continues in the same tradition of Jedi Outcast, it also continues with the same game play, style and even the graphics. It does however introduce a few new features by adding some new game play choices that make the game less linear.
Being able to customize your characters saber and visual appearance at the start of the game was a nice touch, as you can choose your race, whether human, Rodian or a Zabrak, being male or female and the color of your clothes. Also new to Jedi Academy is a feature that allows you to choose the path of your teachings by picking dark of light Jedi powers and by making certain choices during the game which also affect your alignment. Using the force powers you choose to learn between missions is great fun especially with powers such as grip and push. The large arsenal of weapons from previous Star Wars games has returned such as the Wookie Bowcaster, Thermal Detonators, sniping Disruptor Rifle, and of course your trusty light saber. This time around though instead of learning fighting stances, you can choose to learn a new style of saber such as the dual saber or the staff saber style made popular by Darth Maul each of which have their own special attacks. You also have some new physical moves as well such as wall walking and wall flips, which more than once was accidentally used to hurl myself off a ledge that I tried to walk along.
Many of the locations that you visit throughout the game are well known to both die hard fans and those with a passing interest in the Star Wars universe. You spend time on such worlds as Hoth riding on Taun Taun's, the sandy deserts of Tatooine and the skies high above the bustling city of Corellia. Each mission is different from one another and always involves an objective to complete whether it is disarming bombs high above the clouds in Bespin, recovering items stolen by Jawa's or fending off the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett while you try to destroy a depot of weapon caches. Although most of the missions are straight forward, there is nothing that can compare to the god awful speeder bike mission that have the absolute worst controls ever in any video game and actually made me want to stop playing right there, but thankfully it didn't last too long and the game went back to it's fine gameplay for the next missions there on out.
After you are finished with the single player experience, the real fun begins with Xbox Live and the online content of Jedi Academy. Along with the four classic multiplayer modes of Duel, Free for All, Team Free for All and Capture the Flag, there are two new multiplayer modes included. Siege mode is the typical attack and defend type of game type where one team defends a certain stronghold or object while the other team tries to break through. The second mode is called Power Duel and is like the regular Duel mode except this time it is 2 players versus 1 stronger player who has increased health.
Jedi Academy should definitely be on any Star Wars fan's must play list, especially if you were a fan of Jedi Outcast. The only real problem that stood out, other than the horrible speeder bike level, is that the visuals were still the same old graphics and being a year and a half after JO was released, it shows how dated the graphics are. Aside from that, the new features with sabers styles and force powers, new multiplayer modes, along with the storyline and superb voice acting makes this game one you will leave in your Xbox for some time.
