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Star Wars Jedi Knight

Star Wars: Jedi Knight, is a first-person shooter video game series based on the fictional Star Wars universe. The series primarily focuses on Kyle Katarn, a character from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The series is published by LucasArts. The Jedi Knight series began in 1995 with the release of Star Wars: Dark Forces for DOS, Apple Macintosh, and the Sony PlayStation. This was followed in 1997 by Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II in which Katarn learns the ways of a Jedi. LucasArts developed Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith as an expansion pack for Dark Forces II, this time giving the player control of Mara Jade as well as Katarn. In 2002, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast was added to the series. Jedi Outcast was developed by Raven Software and is powered by the Quake III: Team Arena game engine. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy followed in 2003, powered by the same game engine. Jedi Academy was the first game in the series where the player does not control Kyle Katarn at any point in the game, though he is featured prominently in the storyline. The games in the Jedi Knight series have received generally favorable reviews. Multiple publications have commented on the quality of the series as a whole, with GameNOW describing it as "consistently great." The use of the lightsaber in the game, a prominent gameplay element, has received specific praise for its implementation in the series.

Story[]

The Dark Forces video games are set in the Star Wars universe. The player takes control of Kyle Katarn who begins the series as a rebel spy and learns the way of The Force to become a Jedi Master.

The Jedi Knight storyline revolves around the character Kyle Katarn.

Before the events in Dark Forces, Katarn is a student learning the skills required to follow in his father's career of agricultural mechanics. While he is studying at an academy, he is told by officials that rebels have killed his parents. The pain from this causes him to enlist in the Imperial army. Katarn meets Jan Ors, who is undercover as a double agent and they become more closely acquainted. Ors uncovers the real information about Katarn's parents, from which Katarn learns that the Empire is actually to blame for his parents' deaths. Ors' cover is eventually blown, and she is taken prisoner. Katarn helps her escape, thus ending his career with the Empire. Katarn soon becomes a mercenary, and due to his hatred for the Empire for killing his parents, he takes on jobs from the Rebel Alliance.

Katarn recovers the plans to the Death Star, a heavily armed space station capable of destroying planets. The Rebel Alliance uses the plans to find a weakness in and then destroy the Death Star. Katarn then aids the Rebels in stopping the threat of the Imperial dark trooper project. Despite the successful missions on behalf of the Rebel Alliance, Katarn still does not join their cause.After the destruction of the second Death Star in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Katarn is informed of the exact details of his father's death. His father, Morgan Katarn, had discovered the location of "The Valley of the Jedi", a source of great Force power. A Dark Jedi named Jerec who desires the power had murdered Katarn's father. Katarn travels to the Valley of the Jedi while learning to be a Jedi himself to confront Jerec and avenge his murdered father.

Katarn still does not join the Jedi Order, though and uses his new powers for the New Republic and takes on an apprentice with similar smuggler history. During this time, Katarn learns of a Sith temple on the planet Dromund Kaas. There, Katarn is corrupted by the dark side of the Force for a brief period. Fortunately, his apprentice convinces him to return to the light. This incident causes him to distance himself from the Force and to return to mercenary missions with Jan Ors. In Jedi Outcast, Ors is captured by Desann, a former pupil of Luke Skywalker who turned to evil. Katarn believes Desann to have killed Ors, and so he returns to the Valley of the Jedi and attempts to relearn the Force to be able to stop Desann.Ors' death is actually a ruse employed by Desann for the purpose of learning the location of the Valley. Desann, in league with the Imperial Remnant, uses the power of the Valley to endow his troops with the power of the Force, which he then uses to attack the Jedi Academy. Katarn, upon learning the truth about Ors' "death," defeats Desann and discovers his true force-led path, becoming a tutor at the Academy. There, Katarn takes on two students: Jaden Korr and Rosh Penin.

In the next installment, Jedi Academy, the player takes the role of Jaden Korr, who is dispatched on various peace-keeping missions across the galaxy. He (or she; the player has the option to select Jaden's gender at the beginning of the game) eventually encounters a Sith cult led by Tavion (a former apprentice of Kyle's nemesis Desann) who plans to restore the Sith to power by using the stolen Force energy to resurrect an ancient Sith Lord, Marka Ragnos.After learning that Rosh has betrayed the Jedi and joined Tavion, Jaden may either kill him and turn to the dark side or let him live and stay on the light side.

Gameplay[]

The Jedi Knight series is primarily a first-person shooter with several recurring gameplay elements. Each game uses level based system which contains a series of objectives that must be completed before the player can continue.From Dark Forces II, the series included lightsaber combat and use of Force powers,which were tweaked and developed as the series progressed.

In the first game, Dark Forces, the focus is on combat against various creatures and characters from the Star Wars universe, including environmental puzzles and hazards also, following a central storyline outlined in mission briefings and cut scenes.For combat, the player may use fists, explosive land mines and thermal detonators, as well as blasters and other ranged weapons, leaning more towards ranged combat. In Dark Forces II an option was added to give the player a third person view, with an option to automatically switch to third-person when the lightsaber is the selected weapon.Three types of Force powers are introduced in this game: Light powers provide non violent advantages, Dark powers provides violent ones, while Neutral ones enhance athletic abilities.The two endings focus on either the Light Side or the Dark Side.Unlike the predecessor, Mysteries of the Sith, has a single, morally positive course.The player progresses through the game in a linear fashion, and includes enemies featured in Dark Forces II as well as new monsters.The player has access to Force powers and to projectile weapons such as a blaster or railgun, and the lightsaber. Jedi Outcast's gameplay is similar to that of its predecessors, with a couple of small additions such as access to gun turrets, or use of combos unique to each of the three lightsaber styles in the game. The use of the Force powers is restricted by a "Force Meter", which depletes with use of powers.In Jedi Academy, the player may customize the lightsaber,and later in the game has the option of choosing dual sabers, or a "saber staff" similar to Darth Maul's double ended lightsaber in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.Instead of moving linearly from one level to the next, the player chooses from a selection of different missions.The game also introduces player-controllable vehicles and vehicle-based levels.

Starting with the second installment of Jedi Knight, a multiplayer mode is included, in which up to eight people to compete with each other on a local area network and up to four people online.The player creates an avatar within Jedi Knight and selects a ranking, where the higher ones have more Force powers available to use by the avatar. There are two types of game that can be played in Jedi Knight's multiplayer mode, capture the flag and Jedi Training mode, similar to deathmatch. Mysteries of the Sith includes fifteen multiplayer maps,four of which only allow players to battle with lightsabers,and a ranking system that tracks the player's experience. The multiplayer mode allows the use of pre-set characters featured in both Mysteries of the Sith and Dark Forces II,including characters from the Star Wars films, such as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Boba Fett.The capture the flag multiplayer mode has been altered, by reducing the force powers of the player who is carrying the flag.Jedi Outcast features a set of multiplayer modes: in the PC and Macintosh versions, these can be played over LAN or the Internet, but is limited to two players on the console versions.There are a variety of game modes (examples are free-for-all, team deathmatch and capture the flag, Power Duel, Siege) which can be played with other players, bots, or both.Jedi Academy introduces several multiplayer modifications, such as Movie Battles II which allows players to take part in lightsaber duels that featured in the Star Wars films.Movie Battles lets players choose different classes of character, ranging from Jedi Knight to Wookiee.