STAR WARS™ Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast™

Jedi Outcast allows the player to wield a variety of firearms from the Star Wars franchise, as well as lightsabers and Force powers. The player can choose whether to use first or third-person perspective for each weapon, including the lightsaber. Combat is standard for the shooter genre, offering players an array of energy and projectile weapons, plus a variety of explosives. Players have health and shield meters, each of which is replenished separately.

Jedi Outcast places a strong emphasis on lightsaber combat. As in the films, lightsabers can be used to deflect shots from blasters. The game offers three lightsaber styles; fast, medium and strong, with each style differing from the others in terms of the speed of attacks and damage dealt. There are also a number of combos, many of which are unique to the selected saber style.

Force powers (such as Push, Jump, and Lightning) are available in both single-player and multiplayer modes, but more powers can be used in the latter. The use of powers is restricted by a "Force Meter", which depletes with each use and gradually refills over time. The "level" of a Force power determines the strength of that power and the amount depleted from the Force meter during its use. The multiplayer mode divides players into Light Siders and Dark Siders, pitting each side against the other in team battles. Each side has access to both shared "Neutral" Force powers, which are mostly focused on increasing speed and athletic ability. There are also numerous powers unique to both Light and Dark sides. As in the previous games, Light Side powers are mainly focused around protection and healing, while Dark Side powers are openly aggressive. Unlike previous games, however, Kyle does not exclusively select Light or Dark powers in the single-player, instead receiving a selection of both.

Single-player
The single-player campaign follows Kyle Katarn as he moves through the levels in a linear manner, meeting friendly and hostile non-player characters (NPCs). Friendly NPCs will occasionally assist the player in combat. In addition to combat, the campaign features a variety of puzzles.
When the game starts, Kyle has forsaken The Force after the events of the previous game, and as such, the player has no access to a lightsaber or any Force powers. However, after the first two missions, Kyle regains his Force abilities. As the game progresses the number of powers available, and their strength, increase. Progression of Force abilities is fixed, and cannot be customized. Having previously fallen to the Dark Side, Kyle has access to both Light Side powers (such as Force Heal and Jedi Mind Trick) and Dark Side powers (such as Force Lightning and Force Grip), along with neutral ones (such as Force Speed, Force Jump, Force Pull and Force Push).

Multiplayer
Jedi Outcast features a set of multiplayer modes. In the PC and Macintosh versions, these can be played over a LAN or the Internet, but combat is limited to two players on the console versions. There are a variety of game modes (such as "Free-for-All", "Team Deathmatch" and "Capture the flag") which can be played with other players, bots, or both. Each player has limited customization control over his or her avatar. He or she can choose the player model (with access to nearly every character in the game, as well as some characters from the films not seen in the single-player mode) and lightsaber color. Before a match, the server specifies the game rules, including "Force ranking", which controls how many points the players have available to allocate into Force powers. Players then customize their powers for the match. The server can also choose to disable normal weapons so as to create lightsaber-only matches.



This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Jedi_Knight_II:_Jedi_Outcast, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.