Today, I will wish to try something new. I am calling it GZone Nostalgia Shots. Where I will be doing a thorough review of retro-games, movies, series, the ‘90s – 2000s gadgets and technologies, games, music, celebrities, pets, and anything relevant to the period. It is a focused review on things that incite a pang of nostalgia if you think of them.
It is new to me too, so I may suck at it! I will appreciate your feedback to improve my future posts. Also, you can request a review. Anything that you would want me to review here. I will try as much as possible to do a comprehensive review of the items proposed.
I will start with Start Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003), next on the queue is the RollerCoaster Tycoon Game for Nintendo Switch. And by the way, I have realized the two are available on Amazon and are very affordable.
Introduction
Released in 2003, the Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy franchise was by then owned by LucasArts. That is the reason why they released this game. It was created by Raven Software.
Since the game was again released this year (March 26th) on PS4, I tried it out and compared it with the 2003 release. Honestly, there are some significant improvements. The good thing is, it still brings back the nostalgia of the 2000s.
I played both Force Unleased and Jedi: Fallen Order, and they are just awesome. In this GeezeZone review, we will take ourselves back in time – the time of Wind Waker, Prince of Persia, Call of Duty, and even the Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic. All these were released around the same year.
Now, open a can of Bacta and dive into the GeezeZone Time machine for a trip to 2003.
Ride Back in time.
The game was developed for windows and OS X. Later on, Vicarious Visions developed a version for Xbox that was received very well back in the days.
The first thing that amazed me with the 2003 version is that it was set in the Star Wars world. A concept that I really dig from the Star Wars sequel. How is the game structure?
In this game, you are Jaden Korr, a powerful force who created his lightsaber and was recruited by Luke Skywalker 6 years after the Jedi’s return. With Yavin 4 as the base of operations, Luke wants to train the next generation of Jedi. Still, when a mysterious new Dark Side cult appears, the whole Academy starts an investigation.
This storyline was just amazing back in the 2000s. You could easily relate to it since it was lifted from the Star Wars movie. If you had watched the sequel, you would see some familiar faces in the game; nearly all the popular Star Wars characters either get mentioned or interact directly with you. Yeah, that was just awesome!
It’s very refreshing to go back in time to see LucasArts unapologetic about what makes the series so amazing.
Heroes from other games like Kyle Katarn would make an appearance too. Jedi Academy had a way of bridging the old and new, borrowing notes from either and creating a fantastic mythological future. I prefer the early game to the new one. It had a better feel, and we could connect to the character better than the latest consoles.
The Jedi Game Play
The game offered a great deal of flexibility when tackling the game scenario. All the game powers were available with bonuses that translated into gameplay. Unfortunately, it’s the only thing the player can do to spice up the game.
I later discovered that you could just run past the enemies that took a lightsaber swing to kill. Some enemies were lightsaber, while others were interesting, but lack of urgency in the battles eliminated the need to conquer them.
The save points were not that generous. You would play through a segment and die, then you find yourself running past raining laser fire. Although, you can still save anytime you want, I preferred this to avoid repeating the long segments.
It was fund days when we would later go to the pack and swing around sticks and enact the entire game. The outdoor fun back in the days combined with the vintage video games made us what we are today. The current generation will never understand why we have the nostalgia of the ‘90s to 2000s. It is best felt by someone who was there in his or her childhood.
While playing in the park, with sticks, we had the Old Republic, Obsidian flavor, and Bioware. Some played Republic Commandos, X-Wing, Dark forces, Fedi starfighter, Jedi Power Battles, Battlefront 1 and 2. Oh, I miss the good old days, these were only the good stuff.
Since the reboot of the Star Wars in 2010, it did not have a multiplayer experience like its 2003 predecessor. Even the Force Unleased II does not come near the user experience of the old Jedi Academy.
What the players today will miss is the actual feeling of being a Jedi. The last game to tug the mood and emotions of the player was the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy's initial release.
In the later version, you had to perform various roles while you grow your abilities and eventually battle a dark Jedi that wants to take over the world.
Not the best story if you compare to LucasArts games like Jedi Outcast and the Old Republic Series of Knights. But all the same, the lightsaber combat was the greatest thing in the single-player mode. No other game released later has matched the Academy.
Although for me, the multiplayer mode was the one aspect that captured my emotions and made me feel like a real Jedi.
A world of its own
You could enter a server that made the game look more of an RPG than a battle with a lightsaber or shooter. Many classes were introduced and made even more user friendly, though this just made it look more of an RPG.
And then there were maps and images of the characters. You could be a Star Wars Icon and go everywhere while you played in multiplayer mode. I used to spend hours on the map of the tattoo canteen (Tatooine Cantina), and the various embodiments of the Jedi’s Home Map.
The whole Star Wars world was on your palm in a cool and exciting manner.
Memories of group games!
Thinking back, I was one of the most irritating kid to play with. I used to mess up people on RPG servers by interrupting the storylines. I was often kicked out and banned! However, it was still a great deal of fun, and since then, there has never been a group game that had the thrill of the Jedi Academy.
There is this one time I tried to create maps (I have never been good at this) and a Forcemod 3 server of my own. I would search in forums like Jk3files or pcgamemods for the latest updates.
We used to play a lot with my friend after school. Back then, we were using the snail-paced dial-up-internet. We also made out own discovery. One day, we found that you could take the disc from the computer once the game has started. That way, we had LAN groups all running off a single copy of the game! Naughty, right? We would then join a server with other players that are online or fight each other in the multiplayer mode.The last time I checked the old servers on steam, I noticed they still exist, but instead, they are full of bots trying to fool gamers into thinking that they are human players in the server. Currently, it is like a ghost town, a sad and tragic end for what was once a vibrant city.
The return of the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy in late 2019 resulted in increased hype for the game. This is because they took the greatest features of the previous versions of the game and used it to create the latest game. But none of these will ever have the feeling of Jedi unless EA does something.
What is your experience? Have you tried the game on PS4?
Your take?
