Good evening Maiko
Wha? Who said that? eh?
Me
Who? Where?
I’m your drunk side, to guide you towards giving Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast a good review.
Ah. Are you here as some sort of strange joke playing on the "Use the Force Luke" Obi Wan/Luke conversations in the original films?
No, you just like talking to yourself while under the influence of alcoholic beverages.
I’ve only had a cup of coffee today though!
….Oh dear. Can I carry on talking about it then?
I suppose so…

As the character Kyle Katarn, you spend your time working on recon missions for the great New Republic. He had already left the world of being a Jedi Knight, due to his disbelief that he could not wield the force for good, after being tempted by the dark side in JK:Dark Forces II. The game starts off where he and Jan Ors are off on their way to Kejim. Mon Mothma asks that they check into some strange goings on, following the receiving of a slightly encoded message, involving the "Valley of the Jedi".
So, basically JKII:JO has a credible storyline, which in comparison to many other recent first person shooters, is kind of a unique thing. I think the last one to do this effectively was Half Life.
Good, isn’t it?

The use of the Quake III:Team Arena engine (An engine that Raven are particularly familiar with, due to Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force) here is fantastic, granted that Q3A’s engine was good to start off with anyway. Being a Star Wars license, you will expect all the visuals to be as if they would appear in any of the films…
And indeed, this is true. Everything from the stormtroopers to the control panels have been painstakingly made to look the Star Wars way. Heck, even the walls and the floor are presented well. The enemies (Of which, like many generic FPS games follow suit) are varied and numerous, but what makes these stand out is the fact that they look drop dead gorgeous close up.

The white armoured Stormtroopers that we are all familiar with seem to be the sole inhabitants of the first few areas, but being a FPS primarily, these are just to ease you into the gameplay. The general consensus is that the beginning of the game has so many of these white attackers that it kind of makes up for the fact you don’t have a Lightsaber to start with. You do get to pick it up later on, along with some Force Powers, and then it gets interesting. You can jump like Missy Eliott, force push and pull objects/people, and slow the game down so that you can do some great quick fighting sequences. The ability to fire lightning from your fingertips is a big plus in anyone’s book.
As another hook, the further into the single player you get, the more force powers you will obtain, and the more powerful you become. Nice.
The problem later on becomes the fact that you have the lightsaber, and the force powers, and a ton of weapons picked up along the way. Guess which won’t be used much as it isn’t as fun as a lightsaber and Jedi force powers?

One really big part of the game that you will notice upon is the vast amount of Star Wars music that you will be hit with. Raven have raided the sound vault of John Williams for most of the musical pieces, but for those parts that Raven couldn’t find anything for, they made their own, but it’s hard to tell the difference between the original John WIlliams and the heavily influenced versions, so that’s ok.

Multiplayer is another good aspect of Jedi Knight II. It contains all the options possible for gameplay: Deathmatch, Holocron, CTF, Duel, and Capture the Yslamiri (You grab the Yslamiri and you can’t use your force powers, but also no-one can use their force powers against you). Lightsaber duels against multiple opponents can be great fun!

Overall, JKII:JO is a great singleplayer game, a good multiplayer bonanza, and is easily one of the few games similar to Half Life and Quake in it’s importance to gaming.
It’s a lot better than that "Battle for Naboo" thing
Have you quite finished?
Sorry. I’ll just head down the pub so you can talk to me later
But you are in my head
…bugger

Gameplay

Graphics

Sound

Overall