[J m HofMarN]

Some of you might have read Chefelf's Jedi Academy review, and might have noted that it was only a review in the sense that Mein Kampf was a review of Jews. For a long time after that, JA was at the bottom of my list of games to buy. Then I finished Knights2. Then I beat both Battlefronts. Then I bought Jedi Academy for the Xbox. While it wasnt a great game, it did have some unintentionally hilarious moments. Chefelf had highlighted the poor AI, and I somewhat agree. The AI wasnt as awful as, say, in Warcraft 2. But it could be kinda bad at times. Therefore, here are some of my best enemy deaths. Note that two of these involve lava. This is both because lava is the natural enemy of the dark side, and because the levels in JA are full of lava and ridiculous pitfalls. One level on Coruscant I think was particularly ridiculous for this, but I digress:

1: On some lame lava place, I was fighting a couple of Sith. Combat with dark Jedi, as Chef pointed out, is largely tossing the dice no matter how good you get. So I ran away from them back towards a pool of lava. One of them forgot about me entirely and went back to patroling a corridor, and the other came right after me. I used force jump to hop to an island in the lava. I had the high ground, but the Sith had obviously seen how this went for one of his predecessors and refrained from any lava surfing. So I hopped off and went to fight him. I stood right infront of him brandishing my blue and green sabers. At which point he looked at me and then walked right off to the side, into the lava. He didnt STOP either. He kept walking deeper into it at a slow pace. A word about the damage system: enemies verbalize their discomfort. So I sat on the shore watching this guy stand waist deep in lava, and all I heard was "UH."... "UH." UH. UH. UH. UH. UH. UH. URGH. URGH. URGH. EEEYAAAGH. And then he was dead. Does it make me dark side that I enjoyed that?

2: The next one follows much the same pattern, except with a single difference: I was dead at the time. I had been dueling a Sith on the edge of a lava waterfall in one of their silly lava factories, when the guy sabered me through the stomach. I glared as he stood over me and the continue screen came up. Just as I was about to hit load when I heard a happy little sound. "UH." Oh yes. It seemed our duel had taken us too close to the lava's heat radius, and the Sith was taking damage, all be it slowly. The guy had done for me with almost full health, so I got to watch for almost five minutes in morbid fascination as this sith patrolled my corpse, letting out an increasingly desparate stream of "UH".

3: This happened on Bespin or some gas planet. There was a Sith down one level from me in a big tower. And I didnt feel like saving, so I drew my frag weapon and set it to a grenade launcher. The Sith deflected the things, but the frag effect still put down enough explosives around him to make him wish he'd never heard the word "Force". Score one for the republic! It's interesting to note the things Sith can deflect though. I fired a gawdamn missile at one once and he deflected it back at me. How that works I have no idea.

4: Dodge this: Platforms above an insane drop are a favorite feature in this game. I couldnt force push the Sith as much as I wanted to though, but I found a different solution. I would use force lightening when crossing a bridge, and the Sith would hop about trying to dodge. Then they invaritably hopped too far and I'd walk along.

I just thought I'd share!

[Vesuvius]

Heh, I was wondering when I would get the chance to talk about the fun things that happen in this game.

I love messing with the jedi/dark jedi when it comes to natural obstacles. I've found that push works best when someone is jumping toward you. Case in point: The one planet that looks like the "Twilight" levels in StarCraft: Broodwar. It's the planet where you have to secure the tomb of a Jedi and it's right after you have the ability to select a different saber type or style. Anyway, I push Sith around on that level and they fall, screaming to their death. For Force users that don't respond to push, use choke but quickly so as to move your opponent around. It's funny to "snag" someone by the throat before they can push you and you've already dropped them into something, be it lava, a pit, or some obstruction that causes them pain and death.

Also, I must say that saber combat is different in this game, but not impossible. I actually spent some free time getting good at the combat style and a lot depends on what style you're using and how you maneuver the thumbstick. Lightsaber combat is a lot of fun when you know how to do it, but the physics of the lightsaber are not realistic as in Jedi Outcast. The fighting isn't based on random swinging here, you have to think about your initial style and moves depending upon your opponents style and what type of saber he/she's wielding. It's only tricky here because Outcast's physics are far different.