There is nothing for me here now. I wanna learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father before me.
Technically Jedi Academy is a FPS because you can use various laser riffles, blaster pistols, Wookie crossbows and thermal detonators and all of this is done via first person perspective. However when you use your lightsaber (and you start the game with one) the game switches to a third person perspective. And let's face it just about everyone who plays this game want to be a Jedi and use a lightsaber so the entire game is played in third person. You start the game with one lightsaber and you get to choose the colour and hilt of it. During the game you can use various attacks by using left and right MB and use jump/crouch keys. The attacks are also dependant on where the enemy is and theoretically you can use many different forms of attacks (and the game tells you in a menu what buttons to push to do different attacks) but in practise the game becomes mostly a button-masher with you moving around a lot to avoid being hit by the enemy. The game is fairly easy so you don't really need to use any kind of strategy to survive but this may not be a bad thing. You really do feel like a powerful Jedi in the game and only stronger enemies or bosses will give you any problems.
You also have access to force powers like heal, protect, grip, and lightning. But you must put points into them first and you get one point after each completed mission. Each power has three tiers and hence become more and more powerful. You have four light side and four dark side powers but you can use both sides with no real repercussions. Even worse you are actually forced to put points into the other side by the end of the game because you get more points than there are powers on one side. Nevertheless the force powers are great fun to use when fighting enemies. The enemies consist of Storm troopers, guards, local baddies, cultists, dark Jedi and bosses. Using force grip and throw a baddie off a platform down into a lava pit simply never grows old! The only problem with the force powers is that you use Q and E to cycle between them and it can be tricky to pick the one you want in the heat of the battle. You can hotkey them to the F-buttons on your keyboard but it still doesn't work quite right. It would have been much better if the game would pause while you cycle through them. Another big problem with the game is that you don't have a map during a mission so you will often be wandering around trying to figure out where to go next. In one mission you must disarm five bombs in a maze-like environment and without a map this becomes extremely frustrating. Most of the missions are fairly linear and usually if you get lost and spend five minutes trying to find your way you will often do so, but there are a few puzzles in the game (especially in some of the later stages) and these puzzles really slow the game down.
The game uses the old Quake III engine but it looks fine if a bit blocky. But fighting dark Jedi who uses red lightsabers and you later in the game gets a double-bladed lightsaber (I picked green for my weapon) and these fights look super cool. Sparks are flying off the weapons and both the dark Jedi and you use force powers left and right and it's amazingly fun to look at. The sound is the usual John Williams score and all of the Star Wars sounds you know from the movies – in other words the sound is fine. The game is also very bug-free and work well with Vista (32).
All in all Jedi Academy is the kind of game that will never win any GOTY awards but are just a fun little game. I will say that much of your enjoyment will depend on if you are a Star Wars fan or not. If you are not a fan then stay away from this game because most of the enjoyment will come from the fact that you are a Jedi using lightsabers and fighting Storm troopers and known characters like Boba Fett. If you are a huge Star Wars fan like me (I was born a month before the first movie came out) then you will like this game for what it is – an easy and shallow romp through the galaxy using force powers and lightsabers and that is good enough for me.
PS: You can get the game from Steam as part of the Star Wars Jedi Knight Collection.