Is that a lightsaber in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? (Jedi Outcast - Jedi Knight 2 (PC))

Member Name: Judgee

Product:	Jedi Outcast - Jedi Knight 2 (PC)
Date:	26/04/02 (700 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, varied, engrossing

Disadvantages: bas quick save, some obscur puzzles

Being more of a strategy game player, I was not overly excited when a brand new copy of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast came my way. Fortunately for me, a friend had been given the game as a present and his computer (so old it is almost clockwork!) couldn't handle the game system requirements. Outcast is more of a First Person Shooter (FPS) and not being gifted in the hand/eye co-ordination department, it was a few days before I loaded it onto my hard drive. I was completely blown away by this game. It is a FPS but it is so much more than the average game in this area. So let me tell you more.


You play Kyle Katarn, a former Jedi Knight that almost succumbed to the dark side of the force in the previous game in this series Jedi Knight: Dark forces II. In case anyone hasn't cottoned on yet, this game follows many aspects of the well-known story lines in the books/films called Star Wars. For anyone unfamiliar with Star Wars (yes it may be possible, if unlikely!) The basic premise behind Star Wars was the continuing struggle between good and evil. Set in space, the two sides battled using a mystical power of nature called "The Force" which was a certain kind of sixth sense/telepathy/religion all rolled into one! (well you try summing up Star Wars in one paragraph!)


Anyway, I digress. Kyle is now a mercenary working for the New Republic, having relinquished any formal connection to either side of the force and handed in his lightsaber. Accompanied by his friend and lover, Jan Ors the two are sent to the planet Kejin to investigate an Imperial Listening post that was supposedly abandoned. However, transmissions were intercepted by the New Republic suggesting the place was not only active but also indicating that something was a foot in the mystical valley of the Jedi's. Again for anyone not familiar with Star Wars the New Republic are on the side of the light,the Imperials on the side of the Dark. There is an on going plot w
ith this game and therefore I will say no more about the story. I must however mention that although some of the aspects and characters from Star Wars are used, the plot relates to none of the books/films in any other way!


You start the game with a few basic weapons that generally zap, stun or blow up the bad guys. As the game progresses you are given the opportunity to pick up better weapons and much needed extra ammo and medical packs. Switching from different weapons is a simple process of using the scroll button on your mouse. If you don't have a scroll mouse you can use the keyboard but trust me, the scroll mouse option is better. Firing involves either the left mouse button for a basic shot or right mouse button for the weapon special shot. Moving the mouse around moves your screen view and the arrow keys on the keyboard moves you forwards, sideways, etc. So there you go, simple controls that even the most cackhanded of mortals (such as myself!) can easily get to grips with. There are other keys involved throughout the game but again these are simple to learn and you only use a few to start off with and use more and more as the game progresses, which means that the learning curve for the controls is very good. You also start the game with an armour belt which at maximum is 100% as is your health. If your belt is depleted you start taking damage to your health which if it reaches zero, you are dead! The belt can be powered up through various methods during the game and I like this system. It means that very rarely will die from a couple of shots, which can be frustrating in other FPS.


Now, turning to "The force" aspect of the game and this is an area that really adds to the game enjoyment. At the beginning you have forgotten all your powers, but as the game progresses they start coming back to you. These involve being able to jump higher, slow down time, etc and best of all, you eventually get your lightsaber back! The
lightsaber weapon is absolutely fantastic! I really enjoyed using this weapon (it's a laser sword for anybody who doesn't know!) To start off with you can only really bash people over the head with it or throw it a short distance. But later on you get to use better attacks and can actually control it from a distance, you can even hit lazer shots back at the bad guys! (anyone for intergalactic baseball!). Trust me, when you get to this stage of the game, the gameplay really takes off!


The graphics are superb as the game smoothly scrolls through the various scenarios. The scenarios are many, indoors, out doors, swamps, compounds, tunnels you name it, the game has it at some stage. I did encounter some problems which I believe were connected to the system requirements. The minimum requirements are:

Pentium II 350 MHz
Memory 64 MB ram
16 MB graphics card

I have a system with more than double those and yet my computer did struggle on the highest graphics settings. Indeed I ended up playing the game with the lower to middle range settings, at which the game ran a lot smoother. So you have been warned. Anyway, even at the lower/middle range settings, the game looked great, particularly the lightsaber and some of the detail that went into it. You really have to see it to
believe it!


The music is very atmospheric and as you would hope if not expect, all comes from the films (even if the storyline wasn't!). It is used to great effect and really helps with the overall feel of the game. The sounds, well it could just be me, but one bang or zap sounds just like any other bang or zap. The usual bad guy mutterings can often be heard in the distance giving you a hint as to when you might be encountering one of them around the next corner. Still, not bad in the sound department, not bad at all!


The story is superb! Cut scenes throughout the game are fun to watch and inform you as to what is happenin
g and what you are expected to do next. You as the hero, has a good deep husky voice (oh you are just so macho!) and Jan sounds like a real babe (actually it sounds like the actress who voiced Elaine Marley in Monkey Island 4? Mmmm) Anyway, they are not too obtrusive and let you get on with the action without being unduly interupted.


As for the difficulty I guess I have to admit that I played it on "lightweight" mode! Oh come on I have already admitted that I am cackhanded! Anyway there are various levels of difficulty and starting off can immediately seem a little bit fiddly, but that soon passes. As already mentioned, the game is structured so that you learn to use more keys as the game progresses. This aspect was well thought out, so a big thumbs up for the makers in this area. After all, how many games have you bought that you soon gave up on because it took so long to learn the controls? Quite a few in my case but not this one!


Well I haven't really criticised any aspects of the game yet. So I guess I should really mention two areas in particular. First off, the games quick save option. You do need to save the game a lot and frequently. The problem is that the quick save button failed to work for me. Therefore I had to go through the normal save option which although it only took a few seconds with practice, it did get on my nerves after a while. Also when I tried to reload a saved game after dying, it worked fine for a few reloads and then started to take forever to load them up. I found the only way to solve this was after approximately ten reloads, I would turn the game off and restart my computer. Perhaps this was down to my system specifications or maybe I still had too many visuals turned on in the set up? Then again it could just be a bug? You have been warned!


The second problem was actually in the gameplay puzzle solving. In order to progress you needed to solve various puzzles such as pressing a
button somewhere to get access to an area somewhere else. These were not always easy to find. In fact without a little help, I don't think I would have found them at all? My advice to anyone buying this game would be to download a good "walkthrough" off the internet. I found an excellent one, but it requires permission to publish it on my review. So you'll just have to find it yourself. I am sure you can find it or one similar though and believe me, you WILL need to refer to it on the odd occasion, in order to finish the game!


The game has a multiplayer facility where you can partake in games over the internet. I haven't tried this option but I am sure that it would be a lot of fun! I will leave that aspect of the game to someone more in the know!


Overall I really enjoyed this game. The gameplay is varied and interesting with an excellent plot. The weapons are great (love the lightsaber, I want a real one!) and in the game you even get to climb into one of those giant walker tanks and reek havoc (that is REALLY fun!) Ok so there are a couple of aspects that I would sort out, as I mentioned earlier. But they are really so small compared to the overall enjoyment of the game. You could really just forget that I ever told you about them (after all, one of the problems at least, could be down to my own computer!) I almost cried when I reached the end of this game, it was that good I just wanted to carry on playing! I would thoroughly recommend this game to anyone, just cancel your appoints for a while because you will soon become totally engrossed in it! What are you waiting for? Go out and buy it and... may the force be with you!



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