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First there was Dark Forces...

Next there was Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight...

Then there was Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast...

Now there is Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy!

LucasArts and the Official Site have just announced that Jedi Academy will be released this year on Xbox and PC. Straying away from the development of Kyle Katarn's skills in the Force (for he is taking a vacation with Jan, if you recall the cutscene at the end of Jedi Outcast), you control an aspiring young Jedi being trained under the great Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.

Here's some details:

-- Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy allows players to go through locations in the classic Star Wars universe as they control a eager student of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. Players will interact with Original Trilogy locations and characters while deciding if they will fight for those who need help on the Light-Side or go down the path of power on the Dark-Side.

-- Players design their characters by picking individual characteristics for their characters: species, gender, clothing, and physical attributes help make the experience more exciting and gives the character more experience before entering the Academy to learn about and use the Force.

-- Players also design their lightsaber, including blade color and the handle. You can use a single blade, or use two blades, or have a double-edged lightsaber like Exar Kun or Darth Maul, and then choose from a variety of colors.

-- New and familiar vehicles, weapons, and planets enhance the gameplay.

-- Multiplayer like the past Jedi Knight games.

-- Choose which missions to take to attain new skills.

http://www.lucasarts.com/products/jediacademy/

Here is a female Twi'lek Jedi with a purple double-edged lightsaber slashing her way through a crowd of saber-wielding masked men.

A male human Jedi with a green double-edged lightsaber taking on two masked men, each with two red lightsabers.

Another female Twi'lek Jedi, this time with two lightsaber, one blue and one yellow, against more masked men.

A male Rodian Jedi with a purple double-edged lightsaber up against a terrorizingly huge Rancor with big sharp teeth.

The male human Jedi from an earlier pic, fighting more masked men. This time he's in a darkened room and, while cutting down another of his opponents, is approached by a big man with a red double-edged saber.

The Rodian Jedi from an earlier pic. It looks like he is in a bar, likely on Nar Shadda or Coruscant. A Trandoshan with a blaster rifle is at a nearby table, and a Rodian hitman in the background. I have spotted some bacta containers near the bartender on the bar, so there is a Jedi Outcast reference for ya...

I'll show you more pics when more pics surface!

With any luck it will have multi-play much BETTER than that of the previous ones...

I hope so too, though probably not too advanced...

Jedi Outcast multi-play was just a confused free-for-all. No finesse, no skill, and a huge disappointment for thise who wanted proper sabre fights.

They need to tone down some of the Force powers as well; all that overt lightning and drain usage just looked dumb.

And speed was TOO powerful in Outcast- they would use it in the film ALL the time if it was that good.

And I hate to say this... but sabres should KILL PEOPLE when they hit them! Bad guys like Desann shouldn't have to take ten hard sabre hits to the face to be killed. They should just be very difficult to hit! How can they say the sabre fights are just like those in the film if it feels more like you are holding a club than the Galaxy's most dangerous personal weapon?

Plenty of room for improvement from Outcast, if you ask me.

(Oh, and get rid of those gay "can't be blocked by sabres" sniper rifles as well)

In Jedi outcast...I just cheated.........:-).....got the code for unlimited damage....Dessan was pretty hard to beat anyway..

Yes, I agree with the unblocked disruptors. Every so often you do a quick auto Force speed dodge, but it doesn't happen often. In a story I wrote it could be deflected.

When it comes to how many times it takes to kill someone, I use the realistic saber combat codes. If you set it on level 20 the people just fall apart.

ouch that sounds painful

Yes, but the game has been designed with that NOT happening in mind, The stances, for example, become pointless if a light stroke kills as fast as a strong one.

Now, frankly, the strong stance is just dumb anyway- why make silly long strokes with a sabre when a quickl thrust would kill just as dead? Nonetheless, that is how the game was designed so just turning up the sabre damage didn;t really get to grips with the issue.

Duelling should be re-done from the ground up to make it hard to hit but making hits kill.

I usually like to go with the fast stance....yes the strong stance is silly...you usually end up riddled with blaster bolts by the time your finished your first swing

Yes, the strong stance is only good for taking out a group of enemies around you, though that never happens anyway.

The fast and normal stances are my fav, but after finding the unlimited Force energy code for Outcast on the Cube, I've been using just lightning and throwing the saber, as well as using the unlimited ammo code with the repeater.

The point is that they designed the game to make the strong stance do something. The strong stance should not- at the design stage- exist. Some of those strokes take two seconds to complete. Now, compare the lightning-fast blows of the duels we see in the films. How cool would Maul have been if he had hefted his sabre around like an ogre's club?

Frankly, even medium is a bit slow.

that's why I stick with the fast...I stand there until the bad guys shoot themselves

But you can hit someone with a solid stroke in fast and he does not die unless you hack the game. It is just silly. I know it is a agame where it seems to take five blaster shots to drop someone but... even so, you know? Lightsabres have a certain style to them, and there is no point in them if you can stab someone in the head with them and have to do it again.

I usually don't have to worry about that because I've hit the attack button so many times that the bad guy gets buried in lightsaber strikes and falls right quick...but I do see your point about the lightsaber's flaws in the game

I like using the medium style for taking out stormtroopers. It seems to get the job done faster than with quick style.

I think I usually just went for my gun and shot 'em all.....faster than the lightsaber when they were far away

Now, what sort of game makes out a blaster us better than a sabre, hmm? Plus you run around sparying everyone you see with copious amounts of ligntning and still try to make out you are a good guy... sigh...

ah yes.....games are cool anyway despite their little problems....just think that they do all those things so that we have more of a challenge.

Well, no, not really, 'cos the copious amounts of lightning, ridiculous overpowerment of Speed and feeble end game guy made it all rather easy. Unless you played on max difficulty, which was just irritating.

*sigh* so don't play the game!

I never played mine on max, I'm nowhere good enough to do that.

I also think that sabers should be re-done.

How cool would it be to have it so realistic (with the movies anyway) to have your arm actually chopped off, but still live, and have to finish the game with only one arm or even a mechanical one (ala Anakin Skywalker).

And it should be fixed to where if it is just a graze from a lightsaber that you have a bad cut, but if it is a full blown swing to the body you should be cut in half.

I hated playing the game and kill somebody by slashing at them and all they do is fall to the ground without a scratch, I would alsways turn realism up with codes so they would fall apart, but even that wasn't much fun because you slash their head their head, arms, hands, waist, legs, everything, falls apart.

Please fix the realism Lucasarts!

According to the official page for Jedi Academy...

too bad u cant play yoda style...

I don't think my poor fingers could keep up with the "yoda style"

Yes, it would be way too fast... *watches Julie try but her fingers fall off*

It seems you can choose if you want to be a bad guy in the end or a good guy like it did in Jedi Knight. So the copius ammounts of lightning will pertain to the Dark-Side category instead of "I'm a Jedi Knight who chokes people for fun and sends bolts of lightning quaking through their bodies." Thank goodness...

I'm going to be a Dark-Sider.

(continues ranting)

The OTHER problem with the multiplayer community is that you get all these people saying that they want to be a 'Grey' Jedi because they think that would be cool... grrrrrr...

Some of those images are the ones they promote KOTR with

Well I got them from the JA website...

What the hell is a gray Jedi? That wouldn't be possible anyway!

Right, a Grey Jedi; is a feeble but diabolically popular concept of hardcore on-line SW fans and game players based on several ideas:

1. The Jedi think they are good but actually are not
2. Being a little evil is cool
3. Thinking that you can sum up the SW universe better than George Lucas can

A Grey Jedi is a Jedi who does not directly use his powers for evil but is not bound up in the phoney agenda of the Light Side either. Quite a few of them make reference to being able to use both Light and Dark sides of the Force yet not be evil; so they can use Lightning and give into their emotions and so on with no ill effect.

It is just fans being feeble, wanting the best of both worlds and thinking they are being cool and thinking they are clever for exposing the 'flaws' in the good guy Jedi that GL created.

The relevance of all this, however, is that Kyle Katarn in Outcast became the very role-model for the Grey Jedi crowd, because he was pretty much exactly what these people wanted.

What these people don't understand is that you cannot 'use' the Dark Side like a lawnmower; you choose the Dark Side and become of it. And George Lucas created the Jedi as the good guy heroes of the universe and no fan has any authority to dispute that no matter how pseudo-clever their arguments are.

I am taking this all far too seriously, of course, but (best little kid voice) THEY started it!

It's alright.....interesting.....but just because they started it doesn't mean that you shouldn't have been the one to end it!

...and I choose to end it by mocking them and stirring up solid folk like Rex against them...

I bet you these people will be wanting to build Grey Jedi in Academy.

probably.....but aren't jedi supposed to be good?

I don't think you are taking it too seriously Ushgarak. I think you are saying what every real Star Wars fan is thinking. When someone tells me they are going to be a gray Jedi in a rpg or some other type of star wars game, i let them have it. I tell them that they can only be Light or Dark nowhere in between. If you use the Dark Side of the force you become engulfed in it and the safe with the Light. You can go from one to another but cannot use both. When you use the Light side of the Force you are good and you are a Jedi. When you use the Dark side of the Force you are evil and you are a Sith or Dark Jedi. They can't make Star Wars better than its creator.

walk the gray picket fence

Yayy, I am agreed with!

(Hugs the Dark Lord)

I'm solid? Cool!

Yes, I've been to a site dedicated fully to Grey Jedi. It is supposed to be a place where the Grey Jedi fans can come and talk about why there should be Grey Jedi and make up what the Grey Jedi Code should be (even though there wouldn't really be one...) and all that crap.

And Kyle is always dangerously close to the Dark Side, almost to the point of being a Dark Jedi. He has a valid excuse too...

Yeah, he's a muppet...

Well, it must be said he began his training just a TINY bit late... all because the original DF was criticised for not habing a lightsabre.

Let's face it, Kyle is a rubbish Jedi. He's just a Han Solo type mercenary with superpowers.

he's not all that great...though I may be biased b/c the game constantly gives me a headache

I am not saying he is not a good character; just a rubbish Jedi. As it is he is a mostly dull character.

Desann would have made a great villain had he fought the rubbish Jedi...

I don't like Desann....there are so many other villians that are well "nicer"

Desann should have been a henchman, not the main villain. he had no style or panache and was only powerful because Jedi Knight has the rather dubious Valley of the Jedi that turns anyone into super-Jedi. Bah.

kinda silly concept isn't it.

Yes, that kinda screwed it up.

It seems that there shall be approx. 2160 combinations between clothing, hair color, faces, skin color, eye color, species, lightsaber hilt, blade color...

huh....what's all that

What's all what?

All you just said, and the answer is that it is stuff that you can choose from in the game.

I am getting worried that twin sabres and double-bladed sabres in the game are just plain BETTER. That would be bad- they should be different, not better. I don't want to have to switch to a pncy sabre just to be better. I want to fight like Dooku!

I think you choose whether or not you want to continue on with one saber or fight with the double-edge or two-at-once

you can freely chose, ... could change though

Yep, the ever looming possibility of change...

I know you can choose, just the tone of what is being said suggests the exotic weapons are better with no penalty. We shall see, though.

I made up my mind, blue female twi'lek, two sabres: blue and green

whoa...remind me not to mess with your character!

oh, I'm always gentle when treating ladies

What are the species we can be? Rodian, Twi'lek, Human...?

that's all they made for now, last time I heard, though they said they would include two more

Well, I hope they make some good choices for the rest of the species. Maybe a Zabrak...

suggest it, I would love that

Hmm, what else would make a good Jedi...?

the species Kit Fisto is?

Nautolan? That would be good...

wookie would be fun too

Oh yes, the Wookiee would be great...

ever read the stark hyperspace wars?

Nope, I know what it's about though...sort of.

you had a wookie master there, yellow sabre, hilt like dooku

Oh, I have a pic of that guy somewhere. Very popular with some custom action figure guys...

you know his name, cause my comics are not here at the moment

The lightsabre, double-bladed just like Darth Maul's, can be separated into two different sabers for double-fisted style with just a press of a button. More over, you can change the colors and properties of your sabre at the touch of a button. It may sound strange, but it's fantastic in practice.

Battles are faster than in the original as well. Getting swarmed by baddies, just a few taps of the attack buttons leads to some beautifully choreographed swings of the sabre.

read more here:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/402/402358p1.html?fromint=1

That'll be cool. I'm going to design a character like my RP character, Galder.

http://www.lucasarts.com/products/jediacademy/default.htm

the game trailer is available now

Cool. I'll see it tomorrow.

grmbl, I can't get it to download fully
it stops after the rockpushing

It took awhile on my comp. I didn't watch the full thing. Apparently you get to ride a tauntaun though.

darn! no one saw the full thing?

I watched the full thing today. The scenes of you on the taun-taun, the Jedi riding it blasted at people with what looked like the rapid fire from a stormtrooper blaster and slashed slashed off a guy's head...well, he would have if it was rated M.

so, it's a good one?

Looks good to me.

Especially the double-fisted lightsaber action and double-edged lightsaber action.

saw it fully now too
great

Yes, it is.

definitly looking forward to the two sabres

I'm having doubts taht I will but this game.....

Same here. The Jedi colors look good with red.

now hoping they don't overdo the tauntaun-riding thingie

Hmm... still worried about the possible supremacy of the exotic fighting styles.

i heard this game was gonna concentrate alot more on saber combat than on guns.

definitly Virus
double ended lightsabres, two lightsabres, ... woohoo

hmmm I dunno...sounds like a good one to rent to me.

why only renting?

Julie rents games alot. *shrugs*

why not buying??

Because she said so.

she typed it

This game looks good. Any idea when it comes out on playstation 2.

quite easy ... it won't

Availability: Fall 2003
Platform: PC Windows, Xbox

well as long as it is more action and less adventure I'll play it

It probably will eventually. That happened to Jedi Outcast, so I don't see why it wouldn't happen to Jedi Academy.

hmm, should provide more action, since they did a lot with the sabres...

TWILEK!!!!!

I read the final line-up for species somewhere, but now I can't find it.

I know that we are restricted to Kel Dor male, Rodian male, Twi'lek female, and Zabrak female, when it comes to gender choosing. Obviously, humans have both genders.

who wants to be a twi'lek male??

Me! They're so sexy...

thought so

Ya, the guys are grody.

and why a zabrak female??

I have no idea. They aren't the prettiest things in the world. I wouldn't want a girlfriend with a bunch of horns on her head.

I would have made a Maul-like person too...

ummm I don't know the answer to that.......

Cat got your tongue?

*happy about Twi'lek females*

double bladed sabers *drool*

Double-bladed sabers AND Twi'lek girls... *drools even more than either person*

and we still have to wait ...

*stops drooling and starts crying*

THAT will help

problem will be the long summerholiday, nothing but staring at the lucasarts website, seeing all those screenshots and doing nothing with it

Still undecided on this issue.....

easy julie ;... BUY IT

(still worried)

Maybe I'm alone on this one, but is anyone else annoyed by the fact everyone seems to have a lightsaber. I mean all the "masked men" and of course reborn. I just think they should be saved for more important characters, kinda help build the excitment of a lightsaber duel?

I can't agree more Ushgarak, I hope that just carrying around one lightsaber is as good as two or doublebladed.

Other than that looks pretty sweet!

Hell, I'm fine with the fact that a bunch of masked men and reborns have sabers. How the doublebladed and two saber dueling will work is what I'm confused about.

really don't mind much much more people having a lightsabre , more fights to win

well, two sabers (if you're good) is of course better then one, no?

Cant wait till JA comes out, Its LIVE enabled, you get to customize your own Jedi and abunch of other fun features !!

this game is looking better and better

Yerss- in any logical sense, NO, two sabres are not better.

But game playing wise it should be.

the best place for jk3 stuff is
jk2files.com
go there and click on jk3 on the side menu
they have everything ever published about jk3
its really good

ok thanx for the info.

No, game-playing wise it should NOT be! When people like Windu and Dooku and even YODA use SINGLE sabres and are considered the best in the field there is no way that two sabres should be better in this game. DIFFERENT, yes, but NOT better.

I think that 2 sabers would be fun.

But not necessarily better.

If Yoda or Windu had them and had trained with them then, yes, they would be the best overall.

But just a new Jedi Knight wielding 2 sabers.

That's dangerous if you ask me.

Definitely. Galder uses two most of the time.

How is two not better?

more moves. can deflect more lasers.

i hope JA will be the same setup as JO, (as in installation files).
I had fun editing JO characters, moves and weapons. it was a modder's dream...

I must say I hope there's some new planets to see.

I've never used a lightsabre before, but as a martial artist with swords, dual and double sided pikes each has an advantage.

First the single sword, this should be used by a person who intends to use brute force as it can be held with two hand gather all the person's strength. Take note that because of this it would be very hard to knock the sabre from this person's hands. So this could take a battering of harsh direct blows.

2nd the dual sabres, should be used by a defensive fighter. With the ability to block more incoming attacking with greater speed you'd just have to wait until the other person to foul up, and yes this would be the best defense from blaster fire, note that a strong blow could batter down the defense but then again watch for their other sabre coming at you.

Last the double sided sabre, a weapon of speed, agility and acorbates. the best thing about this is it could easily defend your whole body from harm with some aility you could altogther avoid most attacks while send in your own attacks, it's a vastly offensive weapon.

As for people not dying in one shot from a lightsabre, striking in full a person with no armor should result in death however, what of jedi or sith that can absord energy?

I don't see how one fast inaccurate blow could kill a jedi at any rate the range of motion in fast stance is little more than a flick of the wrists, they's make only glancing wounds like you seen Dooku give Obi-wan in episode 2.

Medium stance would make wounds bad enough that the person would lose most use of the area he was struck in, however in fast or medium stance a head shot would kill unless the energy source was absorbed.


In short all of these have advantages and disadvantages, it's really who's more skilled in the stances and weapons he or she picks that should decide the winner. What good is a big baslter if you can hit nothing with it? The man with the little blaster is going to kill you....... even if he has to shoot you 6 times.

Jedi CANNOT absorb energy in the way you mean and any reasonable stroke in the lightest of stances would finish a fight. ALL lightsabre fights end when the other person is hit, not when he is hit HARD.

Double sabre usage is problematic at best and in no way superior to single blade fighting which is the most devastating swordfighting form. Two sabres are a nightmare to co-ordinate, and impede each other. But it is, at least, practical...

...because as has been discussed elsewhere, the double-bladed sabre would, in real life, be a DREADFUL weapon. And it is actually the LEAST suitable weapon for protecting yourself because of its vast vulnerable point at the hilt, and because it is a hafted weapon that you can only hold in the middle which massively impedes its use, and you cannot perform nearly all the basic guards with it as you would hack yourself in half trying to do so.

Reality aside, the thematic point remains that the greatest sabre fighters in the films use a SINGLE-BLADED SABRE. And the choice of such a weapon should NOT be dwarved by exotic types.

You can only hold a pike at it's mid point as well yet I've no problem using it, however as I said it'd be an offensive weapon which is why it's used with acorbatitics. You don't need to defend against what you can easily dodge.

2 swords does hold great danger of harming yourself.

However barely blistering your opponent with your sabre could hardly taking him out of the fight. Face it Thinking you can make micro swings and batter down a jedi's defense is wishful thinking at best.

Because you hold this weapon in the middle hand over hand swings makes the range of motion for this weapon far better it also increases a weapons momentem As I said combined with acarobates it because a weapon of trying to strike while dodging using these skills there's no need to block with it. As before it's who's more truely skilled with the weapon they use. Not everyon is going to fight the same way you are, I know this is troubling to some people. lol However as with the light and dark force powers on the game there will be advantages and disadvantages.

Ah yes should we limit this to the films, however I will not since this game is not limited to the films. I think the best fights would be between 2 people who are so equal matched they can not hit each other, this would be the most impressive, we could say this about Yoda and Dooku possibly, but even more so about Ulic Qel Droma facing off against Exar Kun who wielded a double blade and also killed his single blade wielding master, why? Because they were not evenly matched, his skill was beyond his master's, but was equal to Ulic's.

Again a tale directly from Star Wars it's the greater skill not the weapon.

One who mastered dual lightsabre fighting and has been fighting as such for years will easily beat a one who has just began using a single sabre vise virsa as well. Remeber also that Maul did kill Quigon .

Maul had the most impractical double-edged lightsaber. He had extended the hilt because he found the original size too inflexible to the way he used it. Kun's was a little bigger than a normal saber.

Yes, skill does matter. It matters alot.

And of course 2 sabers are practical, Ush. Galder uses two.

You can only hold a pike in its midpoint? HUH? The pike is DESIGNED to be held at one end! Are you talking about some different form of pike? Even a half-pike is desinged to be held at one end, for defending Standards in the Napoleonic war.

All hafted weapons can be held at any point along their length. The double-bladed sabre can only be held at the hilt in the centre as the rest of it will burn your hand off. Hafted weapon fighting involves close contact between body and weapon. This is imnpossible with the double-ended sabre again.

You cannot fight simply by dodging. Moving a body is hard. Moving a sword is easy. Trying to do a no-block form of defence is entirely impractical. In any case, Maul blocked.

'Blister' damage would be intensly rare. But anything thast would be counted as a hit in any form of swordfighting would take anyone- Jedi or otherwise- out the fight, as indeed it DOES in the films.

Now, as I have said before, what works in REAL life is not that important (everyone would be fencing if it were 'real'). I am perfectly happy for people to use two sabres and doublel ended sabres in the computer game because they are used in the films and that is the only important qualification. But they are not BETTER in the films. I want the different styles to be different- but NOT better.

And if Dooku can kick ass single sabre, that is how I want to fight, without feeling disadvantaged!

In any case, Dooku had the advantage anyway. Jedi Master with a special curved hilt and very skilled with a sword anyway.

A majority of the Jedi use one lightsaber, so you can see how that works out.

Ush is always right.

I mean, there is another question. Why the double-ended sabre and dual sabres but no Dooku-style one-handed sabre?

That was my point Ush, the styles should be different from one another each holding weakness and advantages, all depending on how the person playing feels his jedi should develop.

Yes, most people are aware of what a pike is due to cheesie movies like braveheart. Anti-calvary weapons. OF course you could even come to that conclusion from games like Ages of Empires. lol It's just a spear, Sometimes called a "Horse cutter". I speak mostly of Aisan weapons though, the double sided Halbred,"butterfly", and must obviously be held at the center. Mind you what I've is just a horse cutter with to large blades and must be used from the center.


However if think about where the folcrum would be if you held it at the end and stabbed your attacker with it......you lose it after one shot. Not wise aye?

And if anyone knows what other planets we'll see in this game let me know.

You do realize that this game is not based solely on the films? I mean you must hate Kyle in the games and Mara, desann? lol I dislike Kyle because he's rather dull and Desann was Semi-evil, Lite-evil, 2% evil. lol

I assumed there were single bladed lightsabres with the option of wielding only one. As I said it should be about the skill of the jedi that determines who is better, not the weapon.

They say the sabre combat is based on the films. And the whole basis of my complaint is that it looks like the double sabre and twin sabre styles are BETTER- that is what I fear. I hope it will not be so.

No-one is going to cut through the weapon you describe with a causal stroke; the double-ended sabre can be with the most casual flick. That weakness is fatal.

And there are several important differences between a spear and a pike or spontoon, even though they are all polearms.

Hey if the semi evil Desann can find cortosis surely I could find a small amount for a double sided sabre. lol Anakin even had a handle damaged I believe, maybe they should all take this precaution? Also it was said that Exar Kun's sabre came apart and could be used as 2.

No not cut through a horse cutter, however if held at the very end when it hits the horse it's going to be lefted up and away from you leaving you very open.

Oh, cortosis, such a LAME plot idea that bears no relation to film-bases sabre fighting where such feeble concepts do not exist!