"I'm no Jedi. I'm just a guy with a lightsaber and a few questions."

I owe a lot to this game.

When I was a bear cub, Mama Bear got Brother Bear and I a gaming pc for Christmas. She got us two games with it. One was Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. I played and beaten this game more times than I can remember. This game being closely tied to the original trilogy was why I always preferred the original Star Wars trilogy even though I'm part of the generation that grew up with the prequels. So many aspects of this game shaped my gaming preferences for the next 20+ years of my life. The narrative driven linear FPS experience which led me to games like Half-Life, Metro, and Wolfenstein. The power trip/challenge of using the force in combat and to this day some of the best lightsaber combat led me to my love for melee combat games like God of War, Ninja Gaiden, and Sekiro. The HOURS I'd spent in multiplayer playing against bots on all the different maps using the satisfying arsenal of weapons led to my love of anything and everything that's an arena/boomer shooter like DOOM, Quake, or any modern indie boomer shooter. For the most part this game holds up. The first 5 levels where you're without any force powers are fun but they're nowhere near as excellent as everything after you get force powers and your lightsaber. There's no native widescreen resolutions and there's weird audio issues (switch to low sound quality to help mitigate that). I'd love Nightdive to give this game (as well as Dark Forces II and Jedi Academy) the remaster treatment they gave Dark Forces. Even after all these years and playing hundreds of games this is still one of my personal favorites.

Really fun star wars game, the light saber combat is fun and the guns are all pretty cool. When your jumping around blasting stormtroopers and using force powers its a blast but then there's some real dumb level design that drags the game down as you look for some random nook or vent to progress(Looking at you Yavin swamp)