Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Unleash the Power of the Force

NA release: 19th November 2002
EU release: 22nd November 2002
JP release: N/A
Developer: Raven Software, Vicarious Visions
Publisher: LucasArts (NA), Activision (EU)
NGC Magazine Score: 67%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

The third in the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series of game – one that doesn’t like keeping the same name for more than a couple of games. Jedi Outcast was given to a new developer after the first two internally-developed Dark Forces games, continuing the story of Kyle Katarn. Raven Software take the helm this time, who had recently made the wonderful Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.

While Elite Force was clearly inspired by Half-Life, Jedi Outcast instead looks backwards at the previous Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games and settled on keeping its more Doom/Quake style level design. This is something I personally don’t like, as it often means lots of looking around for the way forward, sometimes going round in circles, or backtracking for switches to open doors. The level design is Jedi Outcast’s biggest issue as it’s very easy to miss small things that you need to progress – like in some instances you may need to shoot a vent to get through, but most vents in the game can’t be shot. It doesn’t help that so much of each level looks the same, either.

The core gunplay is pretty good, but the weapons themselves aren’t that exciting, not providing that much variety, especially in the first half of the game. There is also not much enemy variety, as you’ll mainly be shooting Stormtroopers or other people that may as well be Stormtroopers. At the start of the game, Katarn has cut himself from the force, so you don’t have Jedi powers or your lightsaber. The game goes on for a bit too long before you finally get to retrieve your key weapon and powers.

The game then opens up your abilities far more, starting off with a push, pull and slow motion before introducing stuff like mind control and force lightning. It’s a ton of fun using your lightsaber and powers (although selecting powers with just one D-pad direction is a pain) and it’s a shame it takes so long to reach that point, as the level design gets even more convoluted as you get on. You’ll also need to make heavy use of saving as the platforming sections are extremely unreliable, with the jump feeling very delayed. You can start a running jump a metre away from a ledge, but still fall to your doom as the game has yet to process it.

I personally would have had far more fun with Jedi Outcast if it were more straightforward and focused more on the fighting than exploring mazes. The puzzles aren’t even the problem, as they’re stuff you can work out based on what you can see, it’s just that you often come to a dead end and the way forward is something easily missed, or sometimes an earlier door has been triggered just by you being elsewhere. This was my third time trying Jedi Outcast (first was when it originally game out on GameCube, then on PC) and my experience has been the same each time: combat is enjoyable, but getting through each level is frustrating.

Fine

The main problem with Jedi Outcast is that it’s so mind-bendingly dull in places. Not only that, but it’s huge, too. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, but combined with the maddening tedium of the tasks you need to perform to progress it’s enough to suck the life out of you. Over and over again, you’re forced to trudge across a level, flip a switch, trudge all the way back to go through a door to flip another switch to open a door that… well, you get the picture.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #75

Remake or remaster?

Continuing on the remasters after Dark Forces would be good, but Kyle Katarn could be the basis of a new “reimagining” of his story – using a lightsabre and blasters at the same time could be great.

Official Ways to get the game

The PC version is available on Steam and GOG, and has been ported to Switch and PS4. The original Xbox version is available as a backward compatible game on Xbox One.