Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (Mac) review:
3 stars (Good/Bad, I can't classify it, it goes all over the board) - I'm going to warn everyone looking at buying this game to make sure that their computer's specs are much more than the requirements of this game. My Computer has twice the requirements and I get really choppy performance (twice the RAM, twice the processor speed, a better than recommended graphics card, et cetera).
The reason anyone's going to be looking at this game is for the lightsaber combat, which is awesome!. The problem is that when you're fighting someone else with a lightsaber, there's so much that the computer has to do, that your framerate drops to unacceptable levels.
One thing to look at is this game's predecessor, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. My computer runs that game flawlessly, even with multiple jedi duking it out with all their powers. So I don't get why my coputer can't run this as well. One area where this game is much better than it's predecessor is the maps. In Jedi Knight 2, I'm always looking at the maps and thinking about, "why is there this bottomless pit here?" Or, "How did all those guys up there shooting at me get there, there's no way up or down from there." At least in the two levels of this game that I've played (I have the demo, not the full game) everything seems to have a purpose where it is, even if it does seem a little odd (like a tomb in ruins, that's built straddling a bottomless rift)
As for the story, I can't tell you whether or not it's compelling like the one in Jedi Knight 2 or not because I haven't played the full game, but from what I've read, it's a lot more contrived than it's predecessor.
So beware of this game, don't play it unless your computer is at LEAST 1.25ghz and you have about 512mb RAM, otherwise you'll get stutters where you don't know what's happening. As for me, I'm not going to buy it solely because of the poor performance I've gotten on the demo, I might buy it for my xbox though, just so I can play it through.
2 stars (Could have been better) - If this was a $15 dollar game it would be worth every penny.
Not a complete waste of money but not worth 40 bucks. The graphics could be better and a lot of bugs for a Lucas product. The story line isn't that great. The 500 processor requirement is a little low, at 600 if you have other things going on in the game (acid rain) then the computer gets freaked out what happens first. I really don't see a problem with that happening on a G5 but for the G4 people, I wouldn't get this.
5 stars (Best in the series of Jedi Knight) - This game is simply great. It runs perfectly smooth at 60+ FPS. The multiplayer is fantastic, with siege modes that include classes and vehicles. The storyline is definately Star Wars worthy. The game is NOT jerky and runs fine. I own this for my PC and MAC, and both run great, though i do get a much higher FPS on my PC which is around 90+. |
