A demo for the PC game “Jedi Academy” is out, do a Google search and you’ll find lots of places to download it.
(here’s one, in case you’re lazy)
http://www.pcgameworld.com/details.php/id/4459/
I like it so far, but I have to admit I’m already stuck. I’m on the second mission in the demo, in the Jedi tomb, and I just killed 3 evil jedi guys. Anybody know where do I go from here?
I figured it out; be sure to check some of the new force powers that you didn’t have in Jedi Knight 2…
This is a great game, I’ll have to pick it up.
sigh And unfortunately I’m stuck with a POS 15 inch monitor which can’t do above 800x600 res. I refuse to play games on it.
Bah. The demo isn’t that great. I’m sure that the completed game will be swell, but the demo’s graphics are… blah. And the characters look terrible, move terrible, act terrible… the voice acting is sub-par…
Let’s all just hope that this is a demo that they had the janitor of the building put together, or else I’m gonna be VERY disappointed…
The demos graphics looked very good to me, especially the tomb level. It was at least as good as Jedi Knight 2.
That’s what’s “blah”, Revtim. Jedi Knight 2 is two years old. 
But that’s not what I was referring to. Allow me to clarify. In JK2, the animations of characters during cutscenes was pretty damn good. In the JA demo, the cutscenes look TERRIBLE, character movement is pathetic… we’ve had far more realistic character motion for years. It puzzles me that they didn’t get it in, which is what leads me to think that the demo might suffer from a bit of half-assery.
I played the demo, and here’s my experience of it (SOME SPOILERS AHEAD):
Pros: You can make your jedi Male, Female, different races, different faces. You can pick your clothes, the color on some of it. You can choose your lightsaber, the color. All really cool. I also liked the guys you fight who used the force but not a lightsaber. I didn’t know what the twits were all about, not being armed at all and I got Force Pushed off a bridge to my death.
It’s also good to see Kyle Katarn in the game, since he was the main character of Jedi outcast.
Also I enjoy seeing that you MUST use your jedi powers to accomplish some goals, like the end of the tomb. It took me a few minutes to realize how to accomplish my goals.
Cons:
Weapons. Is there really a point to them? Unless common sense dictates that I MUST use a blaster to even have a chance of succeeding…well…blasters are for Han Solo wannabe sissies! I prefer the light sabers and watching the limbs fly off.
Killing people with the light saber. They could do this MUCH better. You chalk one down and they look like they have skin made of molten lava. If that’s the way it’s suppose to look, fine, otherwise, do something different with it.
I also agree with Spoofe on cutscenes. They could be done much better, but it seems that nowadays the movies and cutscenes are the bits getting sacrificed. I have no idea why, they’re intregal part of the game. Blizzard for example makes AWESOME movies to go with their games. And Black Isle’s been skimping too. They went from awesome movies in Baldur’s Gate to these ultra crappy Narrator Speaking While Flipping a Picture Book movies in Icewind Dale. Blah. As for everything else, maybe they’re keeping it ‘dumbed down’ so they can have an available version for gaming consoles.
If Lucasarts had any brains in their collective horde?
Wait to see the new Graphics Engine of Doom3, see how it goes, and ramp up their graphics and gameplay based on that. IMHO, when Doom3 comes out, it will not only revolutionize gameplay graphics, but they were also be a major increase in FPS game desire. And there’s only 2 kinds of game companies after that: The companies that successfully hopped on the bandwagon, and those who wish they had.
Me, I’d like to see a sequel to Clive Barker’s Undying with a Doom3 engine.
Anyway, I’m gonna shut up and go beat the Jedi Demo again with a female dual light saber Jedi on a harder mode.
Sanscour
I think Undying has to be one of the most beautiful games ever made. I’m thinking HL2 is looking better than Doom3 though or have I just not been looking close enough?
SPOOFE, do you expect them to animate a zillion different jedi combinations better than they will animate one jedi model? Jeesh.
SPOOFE, I agree that the cut scenes were nothing to write home about. But I felt the use of the force powers was animated in a superior manner than JK2.
And Chewbacca looked a little mangy… 
I’d love to see an Undying sequel too. I loved that game.
Am I the only one who thought the lightsaber fighting was terribly awkward?
Maybe I’m just doing something wrong…
Anyone have any preferences on Light Sabers? I get smoked like a cheap cigar with one or dual, but with the Darth Maul BoomStick of Justice ™ I almost always win my fights. I’m not sure in the DMBsoJ is a truly badass weapon or if it just happens to be my preference.
I’ll definitely get this game when it’s released, if for no other reason than I LOVE to run around with a light saber, slicing people up, and maneuvering myself around the enemy so I can force push them to their doom…BWAHAHAHA!!
And btw Jedi Master is no picnic, even with the DMBsoJ. You have max 50hp and shields instead of 100
I looked at the Screenshots of HL2. It doesn’t look too bad, but I definitely am looking forward to Doom3 more.
Sanscour
Kicking People’s Asses Darth Maul Style so You Don’t Have To
I expect them to be able to animate a humanoid-ish character doing something as basic as, oh, taking a step, accurately. They failed to model and animate facets of a character that have been common in games for two or three years. Why is that not a valid complaint, again?
What’s odd is that sometimes it seems to be okay, then all of a sudden the walking animation will slow down slightly and it’ll look bad again.
As for saber fighting – I wound up kicking more arse with a single saber on medium style than the others. Actually, I found the double saber the most fun 'cause of the ability to turn it into a single.
You do have to sign up, but the servers are much faster.
Another thing that would make Jedi Academy better, IMHO, would be if the non human races spoke in their dialect and then there were subtitles a la Star Wars at the bottom of the screen. A normal, human sounding voice on the same race as Greedo just rubs me the wrong way.
Sanscour
I loved that game too, till the end…
Anyway the game was (undeservedly) a huge bomb.
There will never se a sequel.
What I found a little silly is how the enemies virtually all use dual sabers or a lightstaff. In the time period between JK2 and JK:JA, we’ve gone from 100% of force-users using a plain, one-bladed saber to, what, .02%? I thought lightstaves were impossibly hard to master, and I’d imagine dual sabers would be even harder. Would have been nice if they limited those to boss characters and, of course, your avatar.