A new addiction has surfaced on the video game front for ol' Sedai.
Jedi Academy (PC)
I played the single player for a couple of minutes, and it seemed decent, but then it was onto the game servers for some sabre dueling action. I had started to learn the diffeent sabre fighting styles in Jedi Knight II:Jedi Outcast, so I had an idea of how the different sabre fighting styles worked, and how most of the force powers worked, minus a few new ones. So I pop into a low-ping server and create a slick Jedi to begin battling with. I was immediately handed my ass. Big time. Sith would grip my throat and toss me into a chasm, sabre-staff (ala Darth Maul) wielding Bobs Fetts would hack me down, and jawas would bounce all over the place using force pwers while zaping me with lightning.
Much training, did I require. Ok, Ok, I'll read the manual. I decide to go for the most defensive fighting style and create a new Jedi who specialized in dual sabre fighting, and I tweaked the force powers to work better in the online environment (read: force absorb, like our little green friend used vs Dooku in Ep. II). This time around, I happened to drop into a server full of really nice folks, which is sort of a rarity in other games I have played online, and got a fair amount of help. After a couple of hours I started to rack up a few wins while dueling, and also started to notice that I was playing one of the funnest games I have ever played.
Light sabre battles with combo moves, counters, different stances and force powers, all vs live opponents. I can't describe how much fun this is, and how exciting. The online component is set up well, too. Six different modes for multiplayer, most with safeguards against those who wish to act up, and try to ruin the game for others. The mode I was playing the most (FFA), had 32 people in the area, which was a desert rebel base sort of place. In this place, there were a fair number of people just going all out attacking everything in sight in this main wide open area, while in the side rooms and areas, one could challenge another player to a formal duel. This would put shields around your character and the chosen opponent, making actions by others against you impossible. There were many, many cool people who were down with this method, and I had a blast battling against them. Once this mode is engaged, force powers are shut off and it's all sabre technique. Intense stuff. After the duel, the score is tallied, the winner goes back into FA mode and the loser respawned to come back for more if they wished.
I spent about 25% of the time in the FFA mode going nuts with force powers (mostly light side) and the other time chatting with people and dueling. What a blast.
Here is the kicker. The game came out in 2003, and is available for about 18 bucks. It uses a slightly older engine (Quake III), but still looks amazing, and the sabre effects are stellar. Because of th lower resurce draw and graphics engine that isn't bleeding edge, the game runs flawlessly online, with 32 Jedi battling, on my system, which is getting a bit long in the tooth these days (clocking in at a mere 1.5 Ghz). I believe it's also available for the X-box, but why play at that poor screen resolution? I am not sure if the two systems use the same servers either...
Highly recommended, and I would love to play with some MoFo jedis...
Some Screens: