Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy (PC)

Developer:

Raven

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Release Date:

2003

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Systems:

Windows, Xbox, Mac

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This week on Super Adventures I'm talking about Star Wars! I saw everyone else doing it and I felt left out. If you're reading this in five years time, then I'm talking about everyone going crazy over the release of 'The Force Awakens' last week. I know it's weird to think back to 2015, when people were enthusiastic about Star Wars movies again and the series hadn't been utterly driven into the ground by a succession of annual sequels, but that's where I'm at right now.

But I'm not talking about a film, I'd need some kind of Super Adventures in Sci-Fi website for that... no I'm talking about Star Wars™: Jedi Knight™ - Jedi Academy™! I'd make a joke about it being Star Wars: Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2 - Jedi Academy, but for once they've resisted sticking a number in there and making things more confusing than they have to be.

Jedi Academy is the last game in this prestigious sci-fi shooter series, but to be honest it's always felt more like a stand alone expansion pack to me, like Mysteries of the Sith was to Jedi Knight. Honestly I doubt I'll be able to say much about I didn't already say in my Jedi Outcast article a few months back, but it's Christmas so I thought I'd treat myself!

WARNING: CONTAINS NO SPOILERS FOR THE FORCE AWAKENS.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II (PC)

Today's 'J' game is Star Wars: Dark Forces II - Jedi Knight, or whatever order those names go in. Either way there's definitely a title beginning with 'J' in there somewhere and that's what's important. As usual I'm going to play it for an hour or so, take some screenshots, talk about how it plays and so on. It'll be cool

Jedi Knight is the second game in the Jedi Knight series (not to be confused with the Gabriel Knight series), coming two years after 1995's Dark Forces. I'm not sure why they dropped the original title for the rest of the games, but I have a theory that it's got something to do with the fact that Star Wars fans are obsessed with lightsabers. In fact I believe it's universally acknowledged that the only objective flaw in the near-perfect TIE Fighter (the greatest of all Star Wars games) is the fact that you can't roll down a window and lean out of the cockpit with a sword, slicing up passing capital ships and space jousting with X-Wings.

Sure people liked being able to run around as more of a Han Solo type as he went across the galaxy blasting things with his blasters, but Han Solo with a lightsaber is what they really wanted. So from this point on LucasArts made certain to put the word 'Jedi' on the covers in big letters, making it absolutely clear to potential customers that yes, you will get to swing one of those glowy swords around in this one.

(Some of the following screenshots will expand if you click them, some won't. It's an exciting mystery!)