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Don't get it wrong. This was never intended as a tie-in for Attack Of The Clones. It was released in late March, Clones is on 16 May.
JK2 needs some patience. It seems like the game starts out crap, confusing as hell and leading to the "dammit I'm stuck" feeling I'll call Halflife-itis from now on since for me at least, FPS single player fustration started with Half-Life. Once you're off Kejim, which I can safely call a God-forsaken hell hole of a level, it gets steadily better. The red room on Artus is a bit of an obscure puzzle, but aside from that I didn't need much help from walkthroughs that I practically survived on playing in Kejim.
You don't start off with the lightsaber, but once you do get it you'll wonder how you ever survived without it. In fact, Kyle Katarn, whose conciousness you infect and whose soul you own, was a former Jedi who quit over something called "Valley Of The Jedi Incident" which I don't know worth a fu-erm, fudge about (mmmm.... chocolate fudge!), and now doesn't want anything to do with Jedi stuff. He's an idiot.
In the first 2 missions you don't get to do Jedi stuff, like fighting evil, saving the universe, mind-tricking people into giving you all their money, or falling into giant lava pits and becoming Darth Vader. You just have a pathetic blaster rifle which takes 3 chest shots to kill a stormtrooper. At least the stormtroopers take 10 chest shots to kill you and they just have no idea how the aim the damn thing.
The graphics look very much like the movies, and it feels like the Star Wars universe. The lightsabers are also very well done. You can swing, you can thrust, you can parry your opponent, you can block and/or deflect shots from some normal weapons, you can throw it and watch as the gangbangers get cut down with a blade of pure light. The duels with the Dark Jedi and the Reborn are simply... easy, because I'm a Jedi Master, but they are at least decent opponents, unlike the stormtroopers who give new meaning to the words "wooden AI"
On the other hand, there is actually a coherent storyline, unlike most other FPSs. Like in MOHAA, it didn't need a storyline, it was just your patriotic duty to murder Germans and get on the train in time. Renegade had a good story too but the game itself sucked ass (55% rating from me on the review)
*MINOR SPOILER ALERT UNLESS YOU'VE FINISHED "ARTUS TOPSIDE" MISSION*
This time, Kyle Katarn, as I said, a former Jedi, has a close friend killed by Dasan, a Jedi who
turned to the Dark Side for reasons unknown. Kyle goes to the Valley of the Jedi (of which I still
don't know shit about) and gets his Force powers back. He then goes to the Jedi Academy on Yavin,
where Luke Skywalker puts him on an obstacle course for Kyle to get his lightsaber and his full
Force powers back.
*YOU CAN KEEP READING NOW*
Okay, now for the sound effects. My personal favorite is the lightsaber turning on and off... just sounds cool. LucasArts deserves some praise in this department, they are really well done. The Star Wars atmosphere is maintained and works well, but it's nowhere near as absorbing and creepy as the Marine missions of Aliens vs. Predator 2, which just can't be surpassed, especially if you've seen the movies. In the Aliens movies the Marines tend to get killed, and Sigourney Weaver is the heroine. In the Star Wars movies the Jedi always wins. So there's none of that scary, adrenaline-inducing feeling that there hungry non-human things hiding somewhere that want to eat you. You are the hunter and not the hunted.
Bottom line: Great puzzles, challenging opponents, cool weaponry. Jedi Outcast rules.
FINAL SCORE
GOOD: Not intended as a tie-in (always good!) Great atmosphere, great graphics, great lightsaber,
great... errr...
BAD: Stormtrooper AI is, as a Cockney would say, have a bite!! (total shite!!), yeah, I
made that up. Starts bad but improves.
OVERALL: Good! Very Good! BUY BUY BUY NOW NOW NOW!
RATING: 90% (MUST BUY)
Reviewer's Comp Specs
AMD 1.3GHz Thunderbird
256MB RAM
Windows 98 2nd Edition
GeForce 2 MX 64MB
56x CD-ROM drive
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1