Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy

[Toonimator]

Hoo boy! The single-player demo's out, street date's less than a week away! Go get it!

I played thru the demo last night. Force powers have changed a bit in their animation, but like Jedi Outcast you can choose light AND dark powers. The demo even automatically gives you some of each.

Many more moves & acrobatics. You get to customize your character, choosing species, gender (in humans only, other species seem gender-specific), clothing, coloring, and... lightsabers. You can choose your handle, and the color of the blade. You can choose to wield one saber, two, or a double-bladed model. With two sabers, each can have a different color & handle.

One note: seems double-bladed users cannot throw their saber, unlike in KOTOR (if you've played that). So that's a disadvantage. But you can kick a lot.

Dual-saber users can do one neat move I saw which is using the Force to spin your blades around you in a circle, with you at the center, taking out enemies on all sides.

Lightsaber combat itself is rather tough. Sometimes you get lucky, and a couple slashes or stabs & you're done. Other times it's a long battle, and one lucky hit by the enemy can do you in. They have access to similar moves, and Force powers. There are even Dark Jedi that fight you EXCLUSIVELY with the Force!!! (which means, you can switch to guns and blast 'em... if you can hit 'em!)

Fighting multiple opponents is tough, too. Often they're armed with different saber configurations. But it's fun. I like being able to jump around, push enemies off ledges, or pull them towards me & stab 'em or yank the weapons out of their hands.

For Kyle Katarn fans, worry not, he does appear now & then as a mentor. So does Luke. In the Tatooine stage of the demo, you even get to fight side-by-side with Chewie!

It's a big download, 180mb or somesuch. But fun. Try it out!

[AgentHelix]

Everything's spot on, Toon, save one fact (which you've probably discovered by now). Double bladed saber users CAN throw their sabers. Hit the "switch saber style" button (whichever you have that configured as), and the back saber retracts, and you fight as if you have one normal saber, complete with GI Joe Kung Fu Throwing Action.

Game's a hoot. It's a bit ridiculous when they throw you in the middle of three evil Jedi and don't even give you a convenient ledge to boot them all off of, though. The bastards.

-Brad