Jedi Outcast and its predecessors in the Jedi Knight franchise made use of the Star Wars Expanded Universe canon to introduce not just characters and storylines that go beyond the usual Star Wars tropes, but also gameplay that makes playing as Jedi and Sith a rather exciting experience. Jedi Academy intends to continue this tradition, with some refinements to Jedi Outcast's formula that is otherwise recycled almost wholesale.
The story mode in Jedi Academy appears to be a continuation of that in Jedi Outcast. The main protagonist of the Jedi Knight series has re-embraced his destiny as a Jedi; he is now one of the Masters (and thus a teacher) at the revived Jedi Academy, teaching the next generation of Jedi.
However, the player character is no longer Kyle Katarn, who has been relegated to the role of an important side character in the story mode. Instead, the protagonist is now Jaden Korr, one of the most prominent members of the next generation of students to arrive at the academy.
Before the player begins the story mode, the player is given the chance to customize the appearance of his/her character according to traits like several different races, body types and gender. This may seem rather fun, but ultimately the appearance of the player character does not really matter to the gameplay and story; only Jaden's gender somewhat does, because the game has a set of voice-over scripts for either gender.
The disappointing insignificance of the player character's appearance may even be more pronounced when the player realizes that if he/she selects certain races that have non-humanoid head models, there will be little if any lip-synching and facial animations for models of these races. The tonal qualities of Jaden's voice-over does not change to reflect the canonical qualities of the voices of known races either. For example, the player may select a Rodian as his/her choice for Jaden, but Jaden's voice will not take on a synthesized quality to match how Rodians typically sound like.
The early parts of the story mode concerns the initiation of the player character into the Academy, effectively serving as a tutorial for those who do not happen to be veterans of Jedi Outcast. The tutorial is mostly adequate and thematically appropriate. However, it has to be pointed out here that the generation of students that Jaden Korr belongs to appear to have already grasped the basics and fundamentals of using their Force powers to enact superhuman feats even before their initiation into the Jedi Academy, which can seem to be a rather expedient plot technique; of course, the Star Wars Expanded Universe canon allows a lot of liberties to be taken with the canonical training process of would-be Jedi after Return of the Jedi.
That the initiation process would typically not have been uneventful makes for a good excuse to include segments on combat in the tutorial, and it is here that newcomers for the franchise will notice that combat is quite a tight affair, with controls for the player character being well within the player's grasp; veterans would be surprised by only a few changes, but then the controls were far from being seriously broken in Jedi Outcast anyway. The player character can run and jump around untiringly, and striking with the lightsaber is as simple as hitting the attack button while using the directional movement controls to impart direction to the slashes.
The strength and speed of the lightsaber swings are still governed by stance toggles, however. To those players who have considered such a control scheme to be cumbersome, Jedi Academy would disappoint those who had wished for a change. However, the stance toggles can still be re-mapped in any which way, so ergonomics are at least not an issue.
The tutorial sessions will also demonstrate to the player the most basic of Force powers, which remain unchanged from Jedi Outcast, such is their simplicity and utility. The abilities to push and pull things around telekinetically as well as jump very high are still plenty entertaining and practical in a game world powered by the idTech 3 engine, which by then was known for very amusing physics.
Eventually, the tutorials are replaced by plot advancements that are more serious, which are plausible due to the Jedi Academy's active involvement in counter-espionage efforts against the Imperial Remnants, whom Luke Skywalker and associates consider to be still threats despite the dissolution of the Empire. Short on manpower at the time, Kyle Katarn makes the decision to involve his two students, which include the player character, in the covert jobs that he has been given.
Every level in the story mode serves to present some plot device that rationalizes the player character's actions in it, namely the entertaining mayhem that a Force-using combatant may unleash on his/her opponents. There is a story to be pursued, but it is, at least for the first two-thirds of the game, quite linear.
However, the developer has noted the complaints about the linearity of the storyline in Jedi Outcast, and so has introduced some form of flexibility into the progression of the story mode, or at least that of its gameplay portion.
At the end of every level , the player is given some points to spend on Force powers, both passive and activated. The player can choose which powers to invest in, which is a welcome change from the almost inflexible and linear character progression in Jedi Outcast. Moreover, there can never be enough points to purchase and improve every Force power, so this prevents the player character from becoming too overwhelmingly powerful and also introduce some replayability (albeit in a cheesily expedient manner).
If there is a significant complaint with this particular set-up of the story mode, it is the developers attempt to have the player's choices seemingly have an impact on the story when they do not.
As the player picks up and bolsters Force powers here and there, the disembodied head of Luke Skywalker appears on-screen to comment on the player's choices, such as a word of caution if the player is picking up more Dark Side powers than Light Side powers as well as words of wisdom such as the intentions of the Force user defining his/her moral compass instead of his/her chosen Powers.
Minor Spoiler Warning Ahead: This may seem to suggest that the player's choices may alter the outcome of the game, but ultimately only one of them will; the choice is also binary, and only affects the outcome of the last few levels.
Speaking of disembodied heads, there is a mission briefing before every level that has a disembodied head of a character other than Luke Skywalker talking to the player (though it can be Luke himself too). This may have been intended to emphasize the communication between Jaden Korr and his/her compatriots, but the disembodied head model that is simply pasted onto a small panel on the screen can seem rather jarring. Moreover, other than lip-synching and the blinking of eyelids, there are not any more facial animations to be had, which makes these heads even more unsightly.
The lack of emphatic facial animations also extend to the in-game cutscenes. The most significant of animations that suggest emotive expressions that the player would see is the raising and lowering of eyebrows, and even these are rare. This deficiency is perhaps most pronounced at one certain moment in the story, when the game provides a very, very close-up view of Jaden Korr's face, which remains wooden.
Said close-up also betrays the age of the idTech 3 engine. Even with Raven Software's improvements, the graphics of Jedi Academy would not prevent discerning players from noticing how old they are. Existing models in Jedi Outcast do look like they have more detail in Jedi Academy, but that is pretty much the only aesthetic improvement over Jedi Outcast. Textures for models can look very muddy if they occupy more than two-thirds of the screen. Shadows and lighting haven't been improved significantly either.
Fortunately, there has been improvement on the technical side of the graphics. This can be seen during heated battles among combatants of various types, where there is no noticeable slow-down. This improvement also accommodates the new types of animations that have been introduced to accompany the two new lightsaber-wielding configurations and the new kinds of enemies in the story mode, such that there are few technical bugs that can be seen with this new content.
As for the progression of the story mode itself, Jedi Academy will not disappoint with the fun that it offers. The protagonist may no longer be Kyle Katarn and the story may no longer involve the legacy of his ancestors, but it is still one that concerns the mysteries of the Force as well as the nefarious forces that are after the power that these secrets offer. The player will be defeating a wide variety of opponents, ranging from the ubiquitous cannon-fodder Imperial Stormtroopers and the remainder of Desann's Reborn (from Jedi Outcast) and new enemies such as the Imperial Dark Troopers, who wear massive powered-armor and wield heavy weapons.
Like in Jedi Outcast, the player will be utilizing the player character's Force-fuelled mobility and durability together with the judicious use of lightsabers and many guns to defeat various enemies in various situations and environments. Each battle will have the player thinking on what is the best strategy to use, and this happens even more often in Jedi Academy than in Jedi Outcast, which is a good consequence.
Unlike the first game, which had the player character starting with a wimpy default melee weapon, Jedi Academy has Jaden Korr starting out right away with the powerful lightsaber. This does somewhat dilute the utility of the other weapons that the player character starts out with, namely the Blaster Pistol and Blaster Rifle.
Many of the guns in Jedi Academy are recycled versions of the ones in Jedi Outcast. The Disruptor Rifle returns, practically unchanged; it still can bypass lightsaber-blocks, doors and crates, and has to be charged before releasing a shot when the player uses its zoom function. As in the previous game, the player cannot move around while standing and aiming with the zoom function, though the cheesy exploit of crouching and moving around still works.
The Wookiee Bowcaster also returns pretty much unchanged, as are the Imperial Heavy Repeater, the Golan Arms Flechette Weapon (Star Wars' equivalent of the shotgun archetype) and the Merr-Sonn PMS (the equivalent of the rocket launcher archetype). The Thermal Detonators, Trip Mines and Detonation Packs also return with their area denial and ambush roles, and yet are still pretty much useless against Force-using opponents (which are also just about everyone else in multiplayer). The DEMP-2 is still a weapon that is intended to be used against robotic/mechanical enemies.
That many of the guns in Jedi Outcast return wholesale without any changes can result in a sense of déjà vu, and perhaps some disappointment as well to veterans of Jedi Outcast.
The Stouker Concussion Rifle (or the Stouker for short) is the only new weapon in Jedi Academy, if the new lightsaber configurations are discounted. If archetypes of sci-fi shooter weapons are to be used to describe it with, it can be considered a rocket launcher with very fast delivery, at least where its primary firing mode is concerned. The secondary firing mode fires a continuous beam of energy. Yet, while it is different from the other weapons, there will be nothing that veterans of sci-fi shooters haven't seen before in the Stouker.
(However, it has to be mentioned here that the weapon may be a bit imbalanced for multiplayer; where in the story mode this weapon is balanced by enemy Force users' uncanny ability to reflect its shots away with Force Push, the fast moving projectiles of the primary fire mode can be a bit too much for human opponents.)
As in Jedi Outcast, the Force powers are the stars of the game. The utilitarian powers of Jump, Push and Pull return, as do the mostly defensive Light side and offensive Dark side powers. They exist in name in both the story mode and multiplayer (which is something different from the designs of Jedi Outcast), but have different implementation to somewhat cater to the need for gameplay balance in both game modes. However, the implementation is a bit uneven.
The story mode implements Force Sense, which allows the player to track down enemies as well as objective markers (and other kinds of markers that would reward exploration). This Force power likely has been introduced to address a problem in Jedi Outcast, which is that there is no visual aid to guide the player to the current objective and that the game relied on linear level designs to shoehorn the player along. Jedi Academy still has levels that are designed for linear progression, but there are more side-paths to take now and so the new Force power of Force Sense is handy for helping the player discover any loose ends to be tied or the general direction of the objective.
However, it appears that Raven Software is reluctant to introduce this power, which is technically a wall-hack; it has attached a lot of cheesy drawbacks, such as its high activation cost and the removal of regeneration of Force Points as long as it is active. It is worth noting that these are drawbacks that the multiplayer version of this power has, and these drawbacks do not fit into the single-player mode, where gameplay balance is not exceptionally crucial.
The Light side power known as Force Absorption has received a change. Previously, in Jedi Outcast, it was a hard-counter against Dark side powers. Now it is a hard-counter against all enemies that have a tendency to use a lot of Force powers on opponents, since its protection also includes defence from hostile Force Push and Force Pull as well now.
In the story mode, the AI-controlled Force users are quite balanced in their approach to fighting the player character, so this power can be considered to have unsatisfactory utility in the story mode. However, in multiplayer, it is a great tool against Force-spamming opponents. That the activation of the power doesn't appear to have any significant visual indication until enemies actually have their Force powers being absorbed away can make this Force power a bit overpowered, but the change in this Force power fills in important thematic and gameplay gaps.
The story mode receives a different variant of Force Protection, which will be useful to those who prefer to use the Force defensively. In story mode, Force Protection merely has an activation cost, thus helping the player cope with enemies that will never appear in the multiplayer segment for reasons of gameplay balance. In multiplayer, it remains essentially unchanged, which is probably for the better.
Force Rage appears in the story mode, with an incarnation that is far more powerful than that of the multilayer version. Activating Force Rage reduces damage done to the player character, who also cannot die in this state (he/she is merely left with a trickle of health if he/she has taken a lot of damage); he/she also gains a tremendous increase in damage with any weapon and an increase in speed at higher levels. However, Raven Software does not intend this Force power to be an automatic "win-button", so it has implemented drawbacks such as gradual health loss as long as Rage is active and a slow-down of the player character after he/she exits from the state of Rage.
In multiplayer, Force Rage takes on a different form; increasing its level only increases its duration and not its effects, which are also different; the player shrugs off half of any damage to be suffered, gains bonuses to attack and movement rates, and is unable to die. The health loss is removed, but the slow-down is still applied, which can be fatal in multiplayer matches. Nonetheless, this gives the Force Rage a risk-versus-reward flavour, which should be plenty satisfactory as far as gameplay balance is concerned.
While Force Drain has been in the multiplayer segment of Jedi Outcast and also in Jedi Academy, it was not available to Kyle Katarn in Jedi Outcast. In Jedi Academy, Jaden Korr has access to a form of Force Drain that is different from the one in multiplayer mode.
Instead of draining the Force, Jaden can attempt to leech away a victim's health instead. This can result in an impressive animation of him leeching away life from enemies that are physically within his grasp. However, from a practical point of view, this almost always fails because enemies have a chance to break out of the lock, and bosses are completely immune to its use. However, at higher levels, it gains better utility, especially if its ability to "overheal" the player character to up to 25 points above the nominal maximum of 100 for health is considered; the player character no longer has to be forced into a canned animation as well.
The Force powers that govern the use of the lightsabers return as well, though there have been some minor changes. In the story mode, Lightsaber Offense no longer restricts the use of the three lightsaber stances; the player character starts with all three available.
Instead, the lightsaber variants are now the game mechanics that restrict the use of stances. The lightsaber variants include the usual and regular single-wielded lightsabers, dual-wielded lightsabers and, taking a leaf out of the then-new trilogy of Star Wars movies, double-bladed lightsabers. The differences among these will be described shortly.
As in Jedi Outcast, the emphasis on lightsaber battles through the inclusion of impressive, gameplay-affecting animations has been retained in Jedi Academy. However, some of the complaints about their gameplay ramifications have also stayed.
As an illustrative example, there is an animation that had been intended as an execution move of sorts against enemies that had been knocked down sprawling onto the ground; the player character will automatically attempt to pull this off if he/she attempts to attack such an enemy, and if he/she is successful, he/she indeed scores a virtually immediate kill. However, the player character is stuck in this animation sequence, yet is still very much vulnerable to any attacks of opportunity while so.
Of course, one can consider that this move has been designed with a risk-versus-reward theme in mind.
Some other complaints have been addressed. One of these is that player characters that have been knocked to the ground are no longer restricted to animations that have them getting up right on the spot where they fell. Instead, they may now roll around or even Force-jump from their prone position. Of course, in Jedi Outcast, the player character can already perform these moves, but now they are even easier to perform in Jedi Academy, thus addressing complaints about cheesy exploits of animations.
The variety of special attacks with lightsabers that can be done with various control input combos has been retained in Jedi Academy, as are the parkour mechanics seen in Jedi Outcast. While these are not (largely) broken, Jedi Academy also introduces some new features for these.
The new features for lightsabers also concern the use of the three different types of lightsabers. The regular lightsaber is the easiest to bring to bear, while the dual-wielding option gives the player character wider arcs of hitting. This may seem to suggest that dual-wielding is a straight upgrade, but if the new Force-consuming attacks that all lightsabers can perform are considered, this is not exactly so.
Players can now perform a special attack by entering the primary and secondary attack input in quick succession. This will cause the player character to enter stylish animations, performing attacks that hit all enemies around him/her. However, such attacks consume Force, and often have very long animations that cannot be broken out of. In the case of the dual-wielded lightsabers, these drawbacks are especially pronounced, making such an attack with them almost impractical. Furthermore, the animation for switching into dual-wielded lightsabers is a little bit slower than for the other two.
The player character with a double-bladed lightsaber forgoes the Saber Throw power, but in return gain a kicking ability that can be performed very quickly and cannot be blocked. This cannot knock down an opponent, but it will definitely mess up any combos that they are attempting to pull off. More importantly, the player can turn off one of the saber blades to convert the weapon to a single-wielded variant that can be used with Saber Throw, but this versatility comes at the cost of stances other than the medium one.
These features enrich the lightsaber battles even further than in Jedi Outcast, and cater to a variety of playing preferences. However, they do seem to render the gunplay even more bland than they already were in Jedi Outcast.
The additions to the parkour mechanics are mainly map-dependent, which can be a bit disappointing. On certain maps in both single-player and multiplayer, there are surfaces that had been designed to allow player characters to wall-run across them with gusto, resulting in impressive moments where player characters zip across vertical surfaces from one location to another. This is showcased in certain moments in the story mode, where Jaden Korr has to find a way up a vertical edifice, but with no options for stairs and elevators.
The usual multiplayer options that were typically found in Raven Software games (of then, that is) are in Jedi Academy as well: the player can play online or on LAN with other human players as well as bots. The session-hosting options that were in Jedi Outcast is in Jedi Academy too, such as restrictions on Force powers, weapons and pick-ups. The usual multiplayer match types such as Deathmatch and Capture-The-Flag also return in Jedi Academy.
A new variant of Duel is introduced in Jedi Academy, called "Power Duel". In this case, there are two combatants facing off against a single opponent, who is granted greater health and more Force powers than the other two in order to balance the game.
Siege is a new game type to the Jedi Knight series, though sci-fi shooter veterans would recognize its designs almost immediately. It is an objective-based game type, not unlike the one seen in the multiplayer variant of Return to Castle Wolfenstein (another Raven Software game). The attacking team has to complete a sequence of objectives, e.g. gaining access into enemy bases or taking out a target, while the other team has to delay them as long as possible.
To augment or complement the gameplay of this game type, some game designs that are not in other game modes (even the story mode) are implemented in Siege, such as weapon emplacements that can be used to hold chokepoints and jetpacks that give the player limited flight abilities for them to circumvent enemy defences with. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any tutorials for these game designs that are unique to Siege.
Game types such as Holocron, Capture-the-Ysalimari and Jedi Master have either been removed or subsumed into the remaining game types as mutators.
As with previous Raven Software games, Jedi Academy's coding is highly accommodating of mods, though support from Raven Software for these third-party add-ons is a different matter.
By this time, the use of the usual signature themes of Star Wars in Jedi Knight games would have been a forgone and perhaps even tiresome conclusion by now. These typically play during pivotal moments, such as the opening scene (which has the usual scrolling isometric text) and plot twists. Fortunately, there are some different music soundtracks, though some of these appear to be recycled from Jedi Outcast, with few of them being fresh.
As much of the game's Force Powers and weapons are recycled from Jedi Outcast, there are not many new sound effects to be heard from them. However, the new enemies for the story mode do offer some aural satisfaction, particularly those heard in a certain boss fight in the game against a certain monstrous creature that would be well-known to fans of Star Wars.
The voice-overs are perhaps the best part of the sound designs in Jedi Academy, not unlike those of Jedi Outcast. Voice-overs for important characters like Luke Skywalker and Kyle Katarn return to give them very fitting portrayals, while the ones for Jaden Korr himself/herself are no slouches, though the female one is a lot more emphatic in comparison. There is also voice-casting for signature characters of Star Wars that have cameos in this game, such as Boba Fett, and Wedge Antilles.
As in Jedi Outcast, tertiary characters, namely the enemies that the player has to face in the story mode, are also voiced according to their themes. However, the playback of their lines are selected randomly from a set that is specific to a certain situation, so there may be awkward moments where enemies appear to repeat their voice-overs; this is especially so with taunts.
In conclusion, Jedi Academy doesn't appear to be a stellar improvement over Jedi Outcast, but what Jedi Outcast did best, Jedi Academy did just as good, if not a bit better.