The force is with you....sort of.... (Jedi Outcast - Jedi Knight II (PS))

Member Name: the_guru

Product:	Jedi Outcast - Jedi Knight II (PS)
Date:	02/04/02 (506 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great "Star Wars" atmosphere, fun single-player puzzles, nice progressive, fast-moving design

Disadvantages: Expensive, poor multiplayer levels, irritating and unbalanced multiplayer gameplay

"Jedi Outcast : Jedi Knight II" is the latest offering from games stable Raven Software, a "Star Wars" themed first person shooter based on the "Quake III" engine.

Raven have achieved great things in the past with the Q3 engine - notably their superb "Star Trek" themed shooter "Star Trek Voyager : Elite Force", which attracted a cult following thanks to excellent mapping and superb weapons balance.

"Elite Force" did come in for some criticism for a rather short single-player experience, but proved to be a superb multiplayer game - it made its contemporary release "Quake 3 : Team Arena" look rather primitive and unpolished by comparison. It's no surprise that Raven were quickly seen as the next big thing in Quake 3-based shooters, and are working on "Quake IV" as we speak.

Jedi Knight II follows on from its predecessor, putting you back in the role of special agent Kyle Katarn, who has set aside his force powers for fear of turning to the dark side. Kyle and his sidekick Jan are now hunting out the last pockets of Imperial resistance, and uncover some sinister goings-on as they sneak into a hidden imperial base.

Kyle has access to an array of weaponry that he picks up as he progresses through the adventure - eventually he receives the Jedi's lightsaber, and his force powers begin to awaken again. Naturally, there are lots of "imperial entanglements" to be had along the way.

The puzzles in the single-player game are tricky and require some thinking and a great deal of exploration. However, there's a nice progressive feel, and you will rarely find yourself completely stumped - wandering about a bit will usually uncover something that you've missed, taking you on to the next level. The puzzles were definitely reminiscent of "Elite Force", but I suppose there's only so much you can do with the same game eng

ine - if you are new to the Quake 3 engine, I think you're likely to find some of them very challenging indeed, right from the start, and might run in to some difficulties.

The single-player game itself carries off the "Star Wars" theme very well - the background music adapts to the situation, giving you sinister music whilst you're creeping around, and pumping "Star Wars" themes when battle erupts. Samples straight from the films greet you when you disturb stormtroopers, probe droids and the rest.

The multiplayer game was a real disappointment IMHO - the whole feel of the game seemed to be creepily reminiscent of "Unreal", and there's a distinct lack of skill and imagination in many of the multiplayer maps. There are several modes of play, including capture the flag and team free-for all.

Whilst the lightsaber is an interesting development, it's not easy to control and few people seem to know how to use it - consequently there's lots of frantic, close-quarter semi-random dashing and swiping going on, which makes multiplayer a confusing mess at times. Additionally, at higher force-power settings the lightsaber automatically negates and reflects most of the missile weapons from the game, providing the user is facing you, which clearly shifts game balance in favour of the sabre. Coupled with this, the other weapons themselves are feeble, have a slow rate of fire and fire absurdly slow missiles. Maybe this was to favour the experienced lightsaber user, but on the whole it feels messy, badly designed and doesn't seem to echo the sophisticated weaponry of the films.

What's more controversial is the incorporation of "force powers" - whilst these are great for the first-person game, in multiplayer there's a steep learning curve where you'll be held, zapped or pushed off walkways with apparently little comeback. Once you learn how to use them, they're g
reat fun, but there are also noticeable "bugs" in the game that allow someone who's learned how to exploit the bugs to radically upset game balance. Instant, guaranteed kills with no comeback are possible by exploting the push/taunt and back-stab techniques, and CTF games are ruined by an absurdly-fast combination of speed and force rage, which can see the flag back at the enemy base before you can do anything at all about it.

I have a medium-power PC and an ADSL link, but found the multiplayer game ran quite poorly at the default settings - would quite often give the characteristic Q3 "stutter", particularly when it went into the pretty death scene animations (very reminiscent of "Unreal" again !). The game is obviously tuned for contemporary high-end games machines, and needs a bit of messing about with to be comfortable with last year's jurassic-era kit.

On the whole, it's a great, atmospheric single-player game for the "Star Wars" fan, but so far multiplayer has been a disappointing experience. Maybe it's the fact that nobody really knows how to set up a server to give the most enjoyable game - too much force power allows exploitation of the bugs which destroy game balance.

I had great expectations after "Elite Force", but I have to admit I've been slightly disappointed. It's essentially the reverse of "Elite Force" - a fantastic single player experience, and a buggy, disappointing multiplayer scramble.

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