STEVE MILES·TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2019
In space, no one can hear you scream.. (wrong film but it applies here!)
A long time ago, in a Galaxy far far away…
Kyle Katarn, a former jedi who has cut himself away from the force, is now working as a mercenary for the New Republic (where the pay is better and you get Sundays off!!)..Approaching the planet Kejim, an abandoned Imperial outpost and accompanied by fellow associate Jan Ors (apparently her sister,Crack can only work night missions) Kyle soon encounters Imperial forces and met with increasing levels of dumb resistance in a quest that will push Kyle to light and dark sides of the force, in order to take down the evil dark apprentice Desann and his associate Tevlon.
Can Kyle save the galaxy?
Star Wars:Jedi Knight II Jedi outcast was originally released 17 years ago on Xbox and Gamecube. Now, on Nintendo Switch we get to play this classic in all its former glory, untouched, unmastered and mostly for a large part.. unplayable! Things don’t start out too badly at first. Kyle and Jan land on the planet base and very soon encounter the first couple of Stormtroopers. Only standing a few yards away at the back of the ship, its strange they were totally oblivious to the ship landing there in the first place, yet first visual encounter makes me aware that these soldiers look painfully thin! So thin that my first choice was to maybe run back to the ship and call the Red Cross! To start, and on spotting your advances, the enemies will suicidally run towards you and have also mastered the art of running directly backwards without turning their heads around. Forwards and backwards, left and right, these stormtroopers will not hide behind cover or make any intelligent move whatsoever!This would be and can be quite amusing to let bypass, if it wasn’t for your player controls..
Left stick and buttons can be used for moving the crosshairs but the default setting on the off, is wayyyy too sensitive. You can go to the settings and reduce this,but even on the lowest, there is no change whatsoever! Luckily the best way to aim is with the motion controls, but with such erratic enemy movement, you are stretching your arms out an inch from the floor and at angles in the air, just to target them! (Tell your partner to get the popcorn. It must be hilarious to watch! )
Sound is decent with the Star Wars theme,and in game with blaster sounds aplenty, yet the screams of yourself and enemies getting hit and killed is ridiculously over the top and downright hilarious!!
Beside all this, the actual story levels are massive and whilst inside the enemy base, you are met with loads of rooms and corridors and various mission objectives, including covering vast areas of the base just to find codes for a generator.You will soon find though, that from the lack of health boxes scattered around, the default difficulty setting and the poor clunky design issues, that you will die a lot! Mix this with a save option, that means you pausing the game and selecting it because it only saves at checkpoints and the gap between checkpoints so huge, and you wonder where your enjoyment suddenly disappeared to..?
Missions in theory, should prove challenging and exciting, but the game movement, ridiculous enemy AI, and clunky and poorly designed areas mean that frustration and irritation set in quickly. Progression over 5 hours eventually leads you to meeting Luke Skywalker where you will be given a lightsaber and granted Jedi powers where the gameplay and combat improve significantly, but how many of you get there without throwing your switch against a wall or just uninstalling the game altogether, remains to be seen.
In summary, Star Wars Jedi Outcast was initially designed for PC users, and from the super sensitive controls from the outset, that evidence is clear here.
Graphically everything holds up pretty well for a game this age, and whether you are a fan of retro or not, the controls and level/game design will test the most hardened of players and sadly, this game,bad and good, light side or dark side, just does not play well at all!
Avoid.. What should be a hot title is barely LUKEwarm!
Thanks to Vicarious Visions for the code.
