Звездные Войны: Jedi Outcast – Обзор игрового процесса и особенностей

2002 video game

Jedi Outcast allows the player to wield a variety of firearms from the Star Wars franchise, as well as lightsabers and Force powers. The player can choose whether to use first or third person perspective for each weapon, including the lightsaber. Combat is standard for the shooter genre, offering players an array of energy and projectile weapons, plus a variety of explosives. Players have health and shield meters, each of which is replenished separately. Jedi Outcast places a strong emphasis on lightsaber combat. As in the films, lightsabers can be used to deflect shots from blasters. The game offers three lightsaber styles; fast, medium and strong, with each style differing from the others in terms of the speed of attacks and damage dealt. There are also a number of combos, many of which are unique to the selected saber style. Force powers (such as Push, Jump, and Lightning) are available in both single player and multiplayer modes, but more powers can be used in the latter. The use of powers is restricted by a "Force Meter", which depletes with each use and gradually refills over time. The "level" of a Force power determines the strength of that power and the amount depleted from the Force meter during its use. The multiplayer mode divides players into Light Siders and Dark Siders, pitting each side against the other in team battles. Each side has access to both shared "Neutral" Force powers, which are mostly focused on increasing speed and athletic ability. There are also numerous powers unique to both Light and Dark sides. As in the previous games, Light Side powers are mainly focused around protection and healing, while Dark Side powers are openly aggressive. Unlike previous games, however, Kyle does not exclusively select Light or Dark powers in the single player, instead receiving a selection of both.

The single player campaign follows Kyle Katarn as he moves through the levels in a linear manner, meeting friendly and hostile non player characters (NPCs). Friendly NPCs will occasionally assist the player in combat. In addition to combat, the campaign features a variety of puzzles. When the game starts, Kyle has forsaken The Force after the events of the previous game, and as such, the player has no access to a lightsaber or any Force powers. However, after the first two missions, Kyle regains his Force abilities. As the game progresses the number of powers available, and their strength, increase. Progression of Force abilities is fixed, and cannot be customized. Having previously fallen to the Dark Side, Kyle has access to both Light Side powers (such as Force Heal and Jedi Mind Trick) and Dark Side powers (such as Force Lightning and Force Grip), along with neutral ones (such as Force Speed, Force Jump, Force Pull and Force Push).

Jedi Outcast features a set of multiplayer modes. In the PC and Macintosh versions, these can be played over a LAN or the Internet, but combat is limited to two players on the console versions. Multiplayer works by allowing members of the community to run their own dedicated servers that players can join via the in game Multiplayer Server List, with server owners being able to dictate custom mods, maps and player models for their server. There are a variety of standardized game modes in Multiplayer (such as "Free for All", "Team Deathmatch" and "Capture the flag") which can be played with other players, bots, or both. Server owners can also build their own game modes for their server if they wish to do so. Players have limited customization control over their avatars, however there is the ability for players to import custom models on participating servers. They can choose the player model (with access to nearly every character in the game, as well as some characters from the films not seen in the single player mode) and lightsaber color. Before a match, the server specifies the game rules, including "Force ranking", which controls how many points the players have available to allocate into Force powers. Players then customize their powers for the match. The server can also choose to disable normal weapons so as to create lightsaber only matches.

The game begins with Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors investigating a supposedly abandoned Imperial outpost on Kejim, finding it to be crawling with Imperial forces. They fight their way through the base, discovering a research center studying crystals similar to those used to power lightsabers. Tracing the crystals' origin, Kyle and Jan travel to Artus Prime, a mining colony turned into an Imperial stronghold, where the miners have been enslaved and experimented upon. Katarn thwarts the Imperial operation, but Jan is captured by the Dark Jedi Desann and his apprentice Tavion. Kyle tries to rescue her, but, having forsaken the ways of the Jedi, he is easily defeated by Desann, who orders Tavion to kill Jan before they leave. An enraged Kyle travels to the Valley of the Jedi (a major plot element in Dark Forces II) to regain his Force powers, and then to the Jedi Academy to reclaim his lightsaber, which he had left with Luke Skywalker. Luke reveals Desann's origins to Kyle, and senses his anger through the Force, so he requests that Kyle complete a series of trials to prove he will not succumb to the Dark Side again. Kyle passes the tests and obtains his lightsaber, before travelling to Nar Shaddaa, where Luke told him to seek out Reelo Baruk, a Rodian gangster. While searching for him, Kyle runs into Lando Calrissian, who has been imprisoned in Reelo's dungeons. Lando reveals that Reelo is part of a cortosis smuggling operation in Cloud City, which has been taken over by the Empire and Reelo's men. After Kyle frees Lando, the pair make their escape in the latter's ship, the Lady Luck; killing Reelo when he tries to stop them. On Bespin, Lando drops Kyle off at the bottom of Cloud City, and while making his way up the city structure, the latter has his first encounters with the Reborn, Desann's Force wielding soldiers. After helping Lando's men reclaim control of the city, Kyle finds and defeats Tavion, who, fearing for her life, reveals that Jan is alive and onboard Galak Fyyar's Star Destroyer, the Doomgiver. Jan's faked death was just a ploy to trick Kyle into going to the Valley of the Jedi, which allowed Desann to follow him there and tap its power. Kyle spares Tavion and takes her ship to infiltrate the Doomgiver, which is docked at the Cairn Installation, an Imperial base hidden on an asteroid in the Lenico Belt. At the base, Kyle runs into Luke, who informs him that Desann has used the Valley's energy to empower an army of Reborn which could number in the thousands. After fighting several Reborn together, Kyle and Luke split up to find the Doomgiver. Along the way, the former has his first encounter with the Shadowtroopers, and discovers that the base is actually an assault ship construction facility, which is preparing for a full scale planetary assault. As Kyle boards the Doomgiver, he sees Luke fighting Desann outside the ship, but can't intervene because the Star Destroyer jumps into hyperspace. Kyle uses the ship's communications array to contact Rogue Squadron, and finds Jan in the detention block, who reveals that Desann was not specifically interested in the Valley of the Jedi, but rather the Jedi Academy, which he is invading just now to harvest its Force power. After killing Fyyar and destroying the Doomgivers shield reactor, which leaves the ship open for attack, Kyle escapes with Jan in a safe pod, moments before Rogue Squadron destroy the Doomgiver. Kyle and Jan arrive on Yavin IV, in the middle of the Imperial invasion, and split up: the latter goes to assist the New Republic starfighters, while the former makes his way to the Jedi Academy on foot. After helping the Jedi students and Republic soldiers fend off the assault, Kyle ventures into the Academy's underground maze, and confronts Desann as he tries to absorb the power from the Force nexus at the centre. Kyle informs Desann of the Doomgivers destruction and the Imperial army's defeat, and offers him the chance to rejoin the Jedi, but an enraged Desann refuses and attacks him. Kyle kills Desann and returns to the surface, where he reunites with Jan, as the New Republic arrests the surviving Imperial forces. Later, Luke thanks Kyle and Jan for their assistance, and offers to safeguard the former's lightsaber once more, but Kyle politely refuses, saying he is not ready to forsake the Force again.

On May 17, 2001, at E3 2001, LucasArts announced that Raven Software were developing a third game in the Jedi Knight series. Some plot details were given, such as the locations visited in the game; Cloud City, Yavin IV, Smuggler's Moon and some planets original to the game. The following day at E3, LucasArts gave a demonstration of the game, showing the lightsaber and Force combat as well as the "buddy" system: in which certain NPCs would fight alongside the player. Technical details were also revealed: the game would use id Software's Quake III Arena engine, and the GHOUL 2 animation system, seen in Raven's Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix. The polygon capacity of the engine had also been doubled. The game was also on display at id's QuakeCon 2001, where enemy AI and combat were demonstrated. LucasArts announced that the game would feature multiplayer, although due to being early in development little information was revealed. On July 17, 2001, multiplayer developer Pat Lipo made a post on his plan file, revealing that Rich Whitehouse had been brought onto the development team to handle development of the game's multiplayer bots. Whitehouse moved on to tackle the entirety of the game's multiplayer codebase, and was subsequently credited as the game's sole multiplayer programmer. Designer Chris Foster has stated that most members of the team had many responsibilities due to its small size. One of the main tools used to design levels was Radiant. On January 16, 2002, LucasArts launched a new website for Jedi Outcast featuring an overview of the game and information regarding characters, weapons and Force powers. An FAQ, screenshots, concept art, images of player models and downloadable wallpapers were also available. A teaser trailer was released on February 8, showing the game's combat, weapons, characters and environments. On March 13, 2002, LucasArts announced that the game was on track for release later in the month. Two days later, they announced Jedi Outcast was ready for release, set to go on sale by March 29. A new trailer was also released. After the release, game programmer Mike Gummelt revealed that a request from the management led the team to disable the ability to sever the heads of non droid enemies. He has also cited Bushido Blade as the inspiration for a lightsaber combat system which requires players to wait and strike at the right moment. Since its release, hundreds of mods have been submitted to sites such as FileFront. A 66 MB demo of the game was released on May 10, 2002, featuring the same level shown in an incomplete form at E3 2001, which did not feature in the final version. Two patches were subsequently released: version 1.03 and 1.04. At E3 2002, LucasArts announced that Jedi Outcast would be released on the GameCube and Xbox. On May 31, 2002, LucasArts and Aspyr announced that a Macintosh version of the game would be released. Developed by Westlake Interactive, a version for Mac OS X was released on October 28, 2002. A Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 port was announced on September 4, 2019; with a release date of September 24, 2019.

Following Disney's decision to close LucasArts on April 3, 2013, the developers at Raven Software released the source code for the game on SourceForge under GNU GPL 2.0 only. A few days after release, the source code disappeared from SourceForge without explanation. SourceForge later explained to media outlet Kotaku that Raven Software had requested its removal. Kotaku speculated this was due to the presence of licensed code, such as for the Bink Video format from Rad Game Tools, that was not intended to be made public. However, prior to the removal a fork called "OpenJK" was created on GitHub with the problematic code parts already excised. This includes the unification of the Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy engines, maintaining the compatibility of previous releases, and providing source ports for Mac and Linux. Daily builds for Windows and early Linux builds are also available.

The Xbox version holds an aggregate score of 81 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on twenty four reviews. The GameCube version holds scores of 75 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on seventeen reviews. The Xbox version was described as "truly fantastic" by the Official Xbox Magazine, who scored it 9 out of 10. IGN were also impressed, scoring it 8.8 out of 10 and calling it "the best Star Wars experience on the Xbox". Reviewer Aaron Boudling praised how the controls had been mapped onto the Xbox Controller, but was highly critical of the game's lack of support for Xbox Live, and the absence of an online multiplayer mode. He also felt the graphics in the cutscenes were significantly weaker than the PC version. GameSpot scored it 8.3 out of 10, with reviewer Amer Ajami saying the port "retains the essence of what it must feel like to be an all powerful Jedi, which was so well conveyed in the original PC game, without sacrificing much in the way of graphics, playability, or overall value. In fact, the game's complicated control scheme is better served on an Xbox controller than it is in the PC's typical mouse and keyboard setup." However, he too criticized the lack of Xbox Live support and the poor graphical quality of the cutscenes. IGN scored it 7.2 out of 10, with reviewer Aaron Boudling arguing that the graphics and controls were significantly poorer than in either the PC or Xbox versions. Of the controls, Boulding wrote "While the Xbox version allows you to map your favorite moves to the black and white buttons for quick access, GameCube owners are out of luck and will have to fumble around with the D Pad in the heat of battle." He concluded "It's obvious that no work at all went into trying to get this game to properly run on GameCube. The framerate is erratic and constantly alternates between smooth and choppy, further complicating the already clunky control system [ ] If you're a multi console owner, get the superior Xbox version to see a better realized port." It was a runner up for GameSpots annual "Best Shooter on GameCube" award, which went to TimeSplitters 2.

In the United States, Jedi Outcasts computer version sold 390,000 copies and earned $17 million (~$ in ) by August 2006. At the time, this led Edge to declare it the country's 39th best selling computer game, and best selling Jedi Knight computer title, released since January 2000. Combined sales of all Jedi Knight computer games released during the 2000s, including Jedi Outcast, reached 920,000 units in the United States by August 2006. Jedi Outcasts computer version also received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom. In the German market, Jedi Knight II debuted as the best selling full price computer game of April 2002. It dropped to fifth place in May, In August, the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD) presented Jedi Knight II with a "Gold" certification, for sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Despite the early success of Jedi Knight IIs computer version in the German market, it lost momentum at retail, reaching around 150,000 units sold by May 2003. The game's distributor attributed this to widespread illegal copying.