Everyone wishes that they were a Jedi right? Imagine all the handy uses we could find for all the force powers such as mind control, push and pull. Being able to shoot lightning from your fingertips would certainly earn you heaps of weird stares, but would definitely be pretty cool and handy when your car needs a jump start.

This latest Star Wars game, Jedi Knight : Jedi Academy (from now on JK:JA) puts you in the boots of a young Jedi hopeful named Jaden on his way to Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy. On the way your transport is shot down and your adventure begins, well the obligatory training level anyway. The first level sees you survive the crash and you’ve got to make your way on foot to the Academy. Where JK:JA differs from previous Jedi Knight games is that from the very first level you have access to a Light Sabre and some Force powers. It’s definitely a much better start to the game than JKII was as we buy these games for one thing only, to kick butt with a Light Sabre.

The story in JK:JA isn’t really that inspired and probably goes against what we’ve been told about the Force in the newer movies. At the start of the game a secret cult is using an unknown device to leech ‘Force power’ from sacred Jedi sites. I wont give away anything else about the story though as while there aren’t many surprises in it it’s not too bad, but not up to the standard of any of the Star Wars novels. Your missions take you through a large number of varied locations but a few of the missions contain similar objectives which does give the game a repetitive feel. The levels are pretty big though and feature loads of variety from ancient ruins, floating bases and you even get to return to Hoth.

Where the story didn’t quite ‘gel’ for me was that how is it possible to steal Force power and contain it in an object? In the Episode 1 movie the force is explained as a chemical/symbiotic life form (midichlorians) in all living things rather than the mystical energy that we all thought it was. It’s interesting to see the games writers persist with the mystical angle to Force powers rather than the scientific explanation. Who do we believe now? George Lucas or the games writers?

To keep the game from being yet another linear shooter the levels are broken up into missions that you can choose to complete in any order. You still have to complete all of them to progress through the game but at least you’re given the option of completing them how you want to and it’s definitely a better way than normal to handle it. Some of the levels are fairly short and may take you only 10-20 minutes to complete while some feature multiple parts and took me up to an hour and sometimes more to finish. Luckily thanks to the Xbox hard drive being utilized properly you can save whenever you like. And later on in the game when you have to face off against large numbers of Dark Jedi this great feature will be your best friend.

JK:JA uses the trusty (or is that crusty) Quake 3 engine and while it does the job and pushes everything around pretty well it’s looking pretty old now and I hope that LucasArts pick something newer for their next installment. As mentioned the levels feature heaps of variety and apart from being put together with such an old game engine, all manage to look pretty decent. Just don’t expect to see anything mind blowing or advanced physics. The characters in the game look ok and feature some high detailed texture art but appear a bit blocky and wouldn’t have suffered from a higher polygon count. At the start of the game and for multiplayer matches you can pick a pre-made character or build one from a set number of races and skins. There isn’t really a large selection, for example there is a female Twi’lek model but not a male one and it would have been nice to see a more powerful character creation system with more personalization options, especially for online play. Overall the characters look pretty good, unfortunately they suffer from terrible lip syncing in the cut scenes but in game look good and are exceptionally well animated.

The majority of animations in JK:JA are nothing short of excellent, especially the fighting. Jaden can be a tad awkward to control over some of the fiddlier thin ledges but for the most part it’s hard to find fault. The Light saber battles can quickly turn into a button masher but if you take the time to learn the moves you will find the fights way more rewarding. Your character can do some nifty moves such as a wall run, kicks, back and side flips and you can even jump backwards into a wall and use it to then lunge forward. There’s plenty more and the animations in each instance are smoothly done and look top notch. There are multiple stances available, each with different moves and in one level where you lose your Light saber, you then get to build one from scratch. The options available are normal single Light saber, dual Light sabers and even the Staff saber that Darth Maul fans will be happy to see. What’s great is that there are different moves for each style saber, you can even deactivate half of the Staff saber and use it as a single Light saber! Some moves require Force powers to be at a certain level so read the manual and choose carefully.

The Force powers available in the game are the same as we’ve seen in past games and therefore most gamers will be pretty familiar with them. A range of light and dark side powers are available such as Force push, pull, grip, jump, speed, mind trick and lightning (as well as a few others) are available but with JK:JA not being a RPG you can happily build up dark side powers such as Force grip, use it at your leisure and never really be penalised for it. Your powers are also upgradeable and in the case of Force grip, you learn to not only choke baddies but move them around with the right analog stick and can even throw them off ledges. Force push is good for this as well, especially throughout the levels that feature large cliffs with massive drops and pushing someone from a cliff to their death is damn cool and rewards you with a nice scream and even a crunch when they hit the bottom. Only certain parts of the level can be destroyed though and it’s pretty disappointing to be in front of a large metal grate or table and see your Light saber pass right through without damaging it. One day a game with a realistically breakable environment will arrive but it’s not here yet.

The weapons, again are the same as we’ve seen in past Jedi Knight games and switching to a pistol or other weapon shifts the view to a first person mode which is helpful for sniping with the Disruptor rifle or throwing grenades. To be honest though throughout probably 99% of the game I stuck to the third person mode and used the Light saber and most people probably will as well. The controls in first person mode handle pretty well but the Light saber action was what made this game fun to play through to the end. Shooting rockets at Force users just sees a lot of them use Force push to deflect them anyway. Generally the A.I isn’t outstanding and there were numerous instances where I was able to happily walk up behind a Storm Trooper and kill them from behind with no response. The baddies towards the end, especially the Dark Jedi put up a much harder fight and you’ll need to carefully pick which force powers of your own to use and have ready. It was cool to see the Dark Jedi using their Dark side powers and even perform finishing moves on me when knocked to the ground.

The audio in JK:JA we have all heard before. There’s the Star Wars theme and background mood setting music that’s been used before plenty of times. It all sounds good but the Star Wars theme just doesn’t have the same WOW factor that it used to. There are plenty of good ambient sound effects and the weapons all sound good, the highlight is the Light saber battles which sound awesome.

Multiplayer features split screen action for 2 players but best of all JK:JA supports Xbox Live action for up to 8 people! You can customise your character, jump online and duke it out via a Light saber duel, normal deathmatch, capture the flag or the Siege mode that features multiple character classes and maps with multiple objectives. Gameplay was lag free but my Light saber skills are definitely lacking as I was never able to last long in a one on one Saber fight. If you don’t have Xbox Live don’t let that put you off as ‘Bot’ matches are also supported and are generally pretty smart. If you find them too easy you can increase the number or the difficulty settings for a harder challenge. The Xbox Live support is great fun and bring on more XBL enabled Star Wars games I say!