Hard Knocks

Dumb stormtroopers

The only possible grievance is the ease of your adventures, at least on the default difficulty setting. Having access to major Force powers like Push, Pull, and Heal from almost the very beginning of the game gives you the ability to tear through the early challenges without even taxing those midi-chlorians. It's a lot of fun to slaughter crowds of stormtroopers and mercenaries and Reborn Jedi like some sort of Skywalker-approved killing machine, although this means that you can finish the game in 12 hours. Things get more difficult in the later stages of the game, and you can always crank up the difficulty if enemies die a little too easy for your liking, though it still has to be said that this is one of the easiest action games to hit the PC in some time.

Duellists

Light or Dark?

It's not all lightsaber

Even the enemy AI seems to have been dumbed down. Where stormtroopers in Jedi Outcast would backpedal so fast that they seemed to be moonwalking, here they generally stand their ground and blaze away at you until you run up and saber off one of their extremities. Foes do utilize cover pretty well, however, and sometimes know when to run, leading to some Keystone Kops-like moments where you have to chase a baddie around stacks of crates. Still, the opposition seems more lifelike than it did in Jedi Outcast. Getting rid of those slip-sliding-away stormtroopers is most welcome, even if that means they're generally just standing around waiting to be vivisected. Not all enemies are stupid, though. Reborn Jedi are quite cunning and can provide some challenges if you don't take them seriously, and cloaked Imperial soldiers are good for a few surprises. And at least there is a nice variety of bad guys to slice apart, from snowtroopers to various alien mercenaries to one interesting guest villain.

Lights, camera, action

One more potential sore point is the camera angle. Where Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, and Jedi Outcast were all first-person shooters first and foremost, Jedi Academy is really a third-person action-adventure. The camera locks into third-person mode whenever you activate the lightsaber, which proved a considerable annoyance for yours truly early on as I'm one of those weirdoes who stays in first-person even during saber duels. There is an option to click into first-person whenever you have your blade tucked away, but for whatever reason I couldn't get this function to work. The camera did snap into first-person whenever I drew a blaster or explosive, though that was such a rare occurrence that it hardly mattered. In fairness, I've never played a smoother third-person action game. Transitions were seamless for the most part and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I had my view obscured during a battle.

Tauntaun time

Wampa worries

Stormtroopers in the snow

Multiplayer is cause for a bit of concern as well, as the game seems to be having some server issues with lag at the moment. Raven has, however, really gone all out at providing some new game options. Adding to the already outstanding variety of the four classic modes--Free For All, Team Free For All, Duel, and Capture the Flag--is team-based Siege and the two-on-one Power Duel. Siege is already proving really popular online, with its six classes (although everyone wants to be a Jedi), and Power Duel provides an interesting slant on Duel by forcing two average Jedi to work together to defeat a powerful single Jedi enemy.