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Genre: First- and Third-Person Shooter

Format: CD

Developer: Raven Software

Original Publisher: Lucas Arts

Mac Publisher: Aspyr Media

Minimum System Requirements: 500MHz G3 (733MHz recommended for online multiplayer), Mac OS X v10.2.6, 256MB RAM, 300MB free hard disk space, 32MB RADEON 7500 or GeForce 2 class 3D hardware acceleration, 4X CD ROM, 56Kbps or faster connection internet connection for online play

Review Computer: 800MHz iMac, 256MB RAM, GeForce 2 MX, Mac OS X v10.2.8

Network Feature: No

Price: $49.99

ESRB Rating: Teen (violence, choking people with your freakin' mind)

Availability: Now

Official Website: [url=http://www.lucasarts.com/products/jediacademy/]http://www.lucasarts.com/products/jediacademy/[/url]

The only things I remember about the first time I saw Star Wars are that my family went to a drive in, that I was wearing footy pajamas, and the first dogfight with the TIE fighters. I also remember ruining every yardstick my family would ever own for the next ten years, making them into lightsabers.

The second best thing about Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (JA) is that it creates the experience of being a Jedi Apprentice, letting you build your powers as you slowly figure out what style of fighting you prefer, mixing a variety of firepower and force abilities with beautiful lightsaber techniques. The very best thing about JA is that as part of the Jedi Knight game franchise, it's untainted by the Episode films.

JA starts with character creation. Here, you can pick the race, gender, and appearance of your character--named Jadan for the sake of keeping the voice-overs straight--as well as designing your lightsaber. Jadan is en route to the Jedi Academy to study under Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, whom I hope is getting royalties for this portrayal) in the ways of the Force, and stumbles upon the major story arc while on the way. You'll come under the tutelage of Kyle Katarn, the main character in Star Wars games going allllllll the way back to Dark Forces, now your mentor.

Kyle has kind of a liberal attitude to the Force, however, and has no problem teaching you to use Dark Force powers. "They're just tools," he says, or words to that effect. Uh, Kyle, I thought that a Jedi used his power for knowledge and defense, never for attack; that the Dark Side was quicker, easier, and more seductive; that once I started down that path, forever would it dominate my life. Apparently not, because you can Force Choke people all you want, and nobody seems to care. Sure, shooting lightning out of my hands is cool, but it seems kinda wrong.

The Jedi believe in on-the-job training, because after running through a tutorial obstacle course, the game is structured as a series of missions Jadan is sent on, mostly without any support from Kyle. Often, you're given the option of returning to the academy rather than completing the last mission of a level, but since you can increase one of your Force skills with each assignment, you'd be a fool not to take as many as you can.

Jadan can choose from a variety of blasters and rifles, but the meat of the game is in lightsaber combat. In fact, unless it was otherwise impossible to reach an enemy to dispatch him, I never used my blaster or grenades. And why would you? The lightsaber is an elegant weapon, which can block enemy shots and kill with one blow. If you learn how to pull off combination attacks, you can take on multiple enemies at once, and when you kill a significant foe, the screen goes into slow-motion death scene.

JA isn't just third-person saber combat, however. In one level, you're taken prisoner and stripped of your Jedi weapon, forced to play The Most Dangerous Game and capture stormtrooper weapons as you make your way out. There's also some vehicle combat: in the prison escape you briefly pilot an AT-ST, and another level is almost exclusively fighting pursuers while rocketing through a cavern on a speeder bike.

The last level was frustrating for me for two reasons. Speeder bikes had appeared earlier in the game, and in that section I had simply hopped off the bike, which was hard to control in any direction other than a straight line, and practically impossible to target the enemies with the bike's cannon. It was far simpler to attack with the precious lightsaber until they were all gone. What the new level never explained was that it was about furious, Ben-Hur-esque combat. As soon as I dispatched the first enemy biker, another immediately showed up to replace him. As I stood there, surrounded by enemies and dying every three seconds, I suddenly came to realize that there was no finite amount of foes; they'd keep coming until I completed the mission. After finally making my way back to a speeder bike (and getting clipped dozens of times along the way), I finally "got" the level: being chased at high speeds on a dangerous vehicle, using my lightsaber to destroy the opponents who came up beside me to attack. Then I got to the chasm.

The game tried to be helpful: "Use the turbo to jump the chasm," it said. Okay. How do I do that? No clue. I hadn't seen it in the game, and it's not in the manual. Nor does any online site explain how to turbo. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now explain to you how to use the turbo on the speeder bike in Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy. It's the alternate attack, which is keyed to the option key or the Mouse 2 button. Obvious, you say? Okay, except that the controls menu lists Mouse 2 as the default key for alternate attack, but that's not the same thing as the left mouse button. Jedi Knight did not detect my Logitech Optical Pro as having multiple buttons. When I reset the control, it listed the left mouse button as "command." Did this bit of trivia deserve a whole paragraph? For as frustrating as I found it to be, yes.

The plot of Jedi Knight is that a Sith Cult is draining the Dark Force from certain locations for sinister purposes, and you'll run into that only peripherally as you play errand boy for the academy. The locations are varied enough, from icy Hoth to arid Tatooine, to urban Corsucant, and they do some fun things with the levels. Corsucant is so overdeveloped that if someone destroys a bridge, you can probably get around it by jumping from building to building. Another world has a toxic atmosphere, making healing almost impossible. The game misses the boat in a few respects, though, the most notorious being that its "secret areas" are usually just places you can find if you walk a little further than necessary, and usually yield only extra ammo (which you won't need if you use your lightsaber a lot) or health packs (which you won't need if you take Force Heal, allowing you to regenerate whenever you wish). Seriously, one "secret area" was just a hallway I went down, trying to figure out which one lead to the exit. Another problem is that the game will indicate that you can interact with objects that don't do anything. Shades of Riven. And I'm not talking about some goofy object that's a reference to Star Wars, like turning on a holographic chess board; I'm talking about containers that actually don't do anything.

The game certainly looks good enough, especially in all the lightsaber combat. In the cut scenes, however, I could clearly see gaps in the models joints, and the sound would frequently stutter as the levels were loading, even with the sound quality set to "low" and several graphics options turned down. The locations look like they did in the movies, and all the old sound effects are there. The game's interface is simple, allowing you to assign hotkeys to your force powers and weapons. The only time I ever got confused by the on-screen action was during heated combat with the Sith, when lightsabers were (literally) flying everywhere.

Oh, one other thing: the ignorant, piggish boss on the prison level called the lightsaber a "laser sword." I didn't like that. I don't care if he's a.) the bad guy, and b.) never seen one in his life, "laser sword" is wrong. It's what the knock-off toy companies called their cheap imitations. You're in a Star Wars game. Call it a lightsaber.

The keys to enjoying Jedi Academy are learning the lightsaber combos (so you're not just running up to people and slashing them, but rather looking cool while running up to people and slashing them) and the liberal use of Dark Force powers. I would have liked to have seen more effect on the story of using the Dark Side of the Force, but one you start Force Choking enemies to death, it's hard to stop. It's the crunching noise and the little wiggling movements they make. It just makes me happy.

Hm. "More seductive," indeed.

Bill's been using Macs since the late 80s. When he's not making smartass remarks to amuse Kirk Hiner, he enjoys fighting for the user.