Instead I'm going to try and focus on some more comforting issues, like gaming, and older games.  Anyone that really knows me knows that I love Star Wars.  I love it, more than some aspects of life.  I love it more than I hate the woodland critters that worship Satan, and that's saying something.  I love Episodes 4 through 6 and I tolerate Episodes 1 and 2 (damn you George Lucas for taking the religious aspect out of the Force *shakes fist*) and Episode 3 was a decent return to form.  I like The Force Unleashed because story wise its a great way to bridge the gap between the two it comes between, even if the game is kind of lacking.  I love the stormtroopers and the Jedi are just incredible to me, so much so that I nearly joined the new age religion of Jediism (no, I'm just kidding).  Yes, my love for Star Wars is scary, and

 as such my love for Star Wars games is strong too.  I don't like all of them but those I do like I usually display a heavy obsession for, such as this game here.  Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is one of the finer games out of Lucasarts, one of the few George had a hand in and didn't mess up, and it follows the story of Jaden Korr, a male or female human/Twi'lek/Rodian/Kel Dor Jedi recruit who was lucky enough to find himself a lightsaber before going to the academy.  He becomes friends with Rosh, who is obviously the guy you know is gonna turn to the dark side, and you, as Jaden, go on missions... that Jedi do.  He's this future prodigy (as far as Star Wars canon goes) that you follow the story of everything.  You can customize him to a degree (preset things) but ulti

mately he's just that guy with the lightsaber with some sweet force powers and possibly a saber staff.

The story is almost stereotypically Star Wars.  You're a Jedi recruit, you go on missions, you fight the dark side.  I don't like how your alignment is strictly determined by one action in the final parts of the game but what isn't nowadays?  Each mission is pretty decent, aside from one involved with thresher maws and level 1 force abilities.  That mission is still pretty shit to me, easily the one I hate the most.  A level 3 mission takes a close second.   You have to continually evade a mutated rancor, nasty business.  

Let's give some props to John Williams too.  The man isn't composing any new songs for the game but he's using the very songs from the film

 saga that made it great.  I would have loved to have heard Duel of the Fates at some crucial battle scene, but that would have been just a little much.  The sound effects (blaster sounds, lightsaber swings, speeder bikes) all sound 100% authentic and true to the movie, just like they should.  

Controls are good but they take a minute to get used to.  The game likes to switch to 1st person when a gun is in hand but you can change that with the press of a button.  Third person gunplay is fun, but you don't really use this to its truest advantage until a later level in the second stages.  You'll see what I'm talking about if you play it.  The lightsaber controls, the staple of the Jedi Knight franchise now, is ridiculously easy and unnecessarily fun.  Click the mouse and he or she swings the lightsaber.  Move with the lightsaber and swing it and you have even more fun.  Hit both mouse buttons and you do a Kata.  Of course I'm talking about the PC version (p

layed the Xbox version too; loved it).  Its a blast.  In fact, most of the simple things in this game are the most fun.  Lightsabers, speeder bikes, oh, the speeder bikes.  Take a blaster or a lightsaber and try to stay alive as you flee the enemy.  You will fail this mission, often, and when you finally get it you will be so overjoyed.  

Now, the multiplayer of this game is easily more fun than the main story, and the story is fun.  You can use Jedi or bounty hunters (my favorite non-Jedi Bobba Fett and clones as such) and you try to kill each other.  Hooray violence!  This multiplayer gives the game a re-playability that isn't really achievable in the single player.  The game is memorable but kind of cliche, and its fun but predictable too.  Game play wise the boundaries are pushed a little bit, the game is pretty cutting edge for the time, but its nothing big time, nothing that can't be replicated now.  The lightsaber combat, despite being fun, is still pretty 

reckless, and you can die a little too easily against some of t

he higher level Jedi and non-lightsaber wielding Jedi.  That works against the game but my biggest problem is the sand wyrms.  

I hate sand wyrms, thresher maws in every other game.  They pop up in the most inopportune times and they're terribly annoying.  Not just that, but the

y can just pop up and eat you.  If the level where you need to repair your ship and had to deal with sand wyrms was in a later stage, maybe if the Jedi was at level 2, I probably wouldn't mind so much, but as it is the game is a total buzzkill when it comes to its time (you can skip it but you miss out on a force power) you wet yourself.  Yes, I said it: you wet yourself.  

I have a lot more praises for the game than I do com

plaints, and while this is far from the best Star Wars game to ever come out (my bid is on Knights of the Old Republic 2 if the game was completed)  it serves as a shining example of what Lucasarts is capable of.  I'm the Nostalgic Gamer; I remember it so you don't have to.

DiZ Score: 4 out of 5