Ran out of space in the subject line.
Star Wars: Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy announced for PC and Xbox.
They forgot to put “: THE REVENGE” at the end.
Maybe followed by “This time it’s personal.”
In the sequel, you don’t get a lightsaber until the boss fight with 1,000 rabid Ewoks at the end.
Sequel-o-rama
Yeah, go ahead and make jokes…You’ll all buy it. :)
I will, too.
I hear the expansion pack will be called Jedi Academy: Dark Forces
Heh…Wouldn’t that start some kind of endless title-circle thing?
“Jedi Academy” in the title seems to say they did not listen to the “Where’s my Goddamn Lightsaber?” complaints last time. I don’t want to start out as a powerless Jedi again, I want “Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Master.”
You start with the saber, at least. But you have to rebuild your force powers from scratch. There’s some cool new powers and abilities too. You can even use vehicles and the missions are supposed to be much, much, bigger. They’re also introducing non-linearity to the mission structure and you’ll even get different missions by the ending if you follow the Dark or Light side. Lots of new saber combat moves (you can kick if you choose to use a saber-staff, a la Darth Maul).
I was at a press demo for CGM on March 21st.
As long as I can push, choke, bang against the walls, and throw storm troopers up in the air watching them scream as they fall to their deaths I’ll be there.
I won’t buy it unless it allows me to import my Star Wars Galaxies character into it. THE STEWPID LAZY ASS PROGRAMMERS SHOULD AT LEAST BE ABLE TO DO THAT MUCH.
I also want a light saber… IN THE GAME BOX.
I never got the bile that was directed towards Jedi Knight 2. It was just an awesome game that, in its worst bits (the forceless levels), was no worse than most good FPS games, and at its best (the vast majority of the game) was more fun and involving than Jedi Knight ever was. The saber battles were fun, cinematic and had a very fluid control system that allowed you to just mash buttons randomly or actually bother to learn the moves. I peeled through it in about a week, which is pretty good for me.
Anyway, this is great news. I think Raven made their first great game with Jedi Knight 2.
I think Heretic 2, though short, was also great.
Well with JK2 sucking and all that, they had to come up with a new name.
I am proud to say I did NOT buy JK2. I voted with my dollars. And so, LucasArts tells me to screw myself and that console gamers will buy any crap game with “Star Wars” in title.
JK2 is the Yoda Stories of FPS.
I couldn’t appreciate JK2 reputation. The pathetic storyline and annoying characters were the worst of it for me. The first two games were much darker and at least in the second much more involved. These days I also expect a shooter to give you tactical freedom if not a non linear mission structure. The force powers were well implemented, sure, and so was light saber combat but thats fairly simple when your being dragged down the level designers path. The levels often got logically absurd, the worst of which were on the “secret imperial station.”
It was like playing any other Raven title they’ve made only with a different weapon set.
JK2 r00led (and so did Heretics 1 and 2, if you want to dig up more old-schoolish Raven titles). Raven is kind of hit-or-miss with me, but when they hit, they hit HARD.
I just wish their level design wasn’t so… convoluted? I can’t quite put my finger on why it sometimes drives me crazy. SoF2 was a case where it eventually made me quit… why do I have to navigate a bizarre Daedalus’ labyrinth of doors and crates to get to the briefing room in my office building? Let alone when trying to make my way through an enemy warehouse? It even happened in the Raven games that I love - I remember this inexplicably overrun-with-crates castle in Heretic 2 where you have to do a ridiculously contrived series of jumps/climbing on crates in order to get to a platform to find a switch to cause this mechanical device to shift position and drop a crate right onto a spot on the floor that used a different colored wood than the rest of the floor, causing that part of the floor to shatter so you could reach the sewers or something similar… jesus. Just fucking let me open a door next time and get back to the great combat.
Raven games sometimes feel like an FPS version of the babel-fish puzzle.
I saw this fitting image used for the game in the GA forums…
–Dave
It was fun, but yes, there was too many levels without the saber. Kyle looking like a trucker and speaking as if he rides the short bus didn’t help, either.
I didn’t mind the saberless levels, and the second half was so good that it made it my GOTY for 2002.
As for milking it – well heck, if they make a good game, more power to them.