Gameplay

Ride my Tauntaun

Mission structure is similarly open. While there is an overarching plot about the Sith-like Cult of Ragnos' efforts to gather the Force from famous locales, Raven doesn't drive the player towards the inevitable showdown. Instead, the primary focus is on life as a newbie Jedi. There are core missions that must be completed in order to push forward the story, but there are also plenty of assignments that either aren't related to the mysterious sect, or have only a tenuous connection to it. Your adventures typically don't have to be completed in any specific order, either, so you generally have at least a few from which to choose.

Back to Tatooine

Marvelous night for a moondance

Choose your poison

Objectives are nicely varied. You try to rescue freighter passengers from a hostile planet filled with sandworms, spring hostages from a Hutt crimelord's Rancor-equipped prison, recover a droid from a Jawa sandcrawler on Tatooine, track smugglers in Mos Eisley alongside Chewbacca, look into what the Imperial Remnant is doing on Hoth, defuse bombs at a power station on Bakura, and so on. There isn't much of the tiresome find-key nonsense on display in Jedi Outcast, and level design is a lot cleaner even though there are too many locked doors with which to contend. Actions are also diverse. There's a saber battle atop a hijacked tram, a speeder bike race where you can use your lightsaber to take out the competition, a moment where you ride a Tauntaun with the jerky "1980 special effects" movements seen in The Empire Strikes Back, assault an Imperial base with the aid of Wedge Antilles, and so on.

The Let's Go guide to Coruscant

Missions also form sort of a travelogue that takes you to well-known spots from the Star Wars movies and novels. Fans of the franchise who haven't been turned off all things Lucas by the last two movies will take note of lots of hot spots, including the medical chamber in Echo Base where Luke recovered from the wampa attack, the Emperor's stronghold planet of Byss, and even Darth Vader's sanctuary. Overall, the entire game feels very true to the original Star Wars trilogy. In many, many ways, it's a better experience for a diehard Star Wars fan than either The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. (The Joy Luck Club is more Star Wars Episode 1 or 2…-ed.)

This is the droid I'm looking for

So they're clones, huh?

Cold night on Hoth

Graphics bring these locations to life in acceptable fashion, though the age of the Quake III engine is beginning to become an issue. Raven has also overhauled the engine so that it's capable of greater things than ever before. But while this is generally a good move, the boosted technology has increased the system requirements by a considerable amount. So while the game may look quite a bit better than Jedi Outcast, it demands a lot more horsepower. You need much more than the minimum system requirements to see this one in its full glory. Audio doesn't present any system difficulties, of course, although the voice-acting quality is merely average. Mark Hamill continues to be a no-show, a real oddity considering that Hamill seems to have plenty of time to voice Batman cartoons, and the last game allowed Billy Dee Williams to reprise his role as Lando Calrissian.