On a list of Star Wars games that you HAVE to play, you don't often see this title on the list. It's tough to be a decent Star Wars game and be compared to Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Battlefront (classic), Super Star Wars, Rogue Squadron, and The Force Unleashed.
With titles like those, Star Wars Jedi Outcast: Jedi Knight 2 is frequently forgotten. It released in 2002 to high acclaim on PC and decent ratings on PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Typically, you'll find more people talking about its successor Jedi Academy, which is pretty good as well, but not as good as this one. In case you never played it, I got some reasons to tempt you into finding a copy and giving it a try.
Kyle Katarn
Out of all the characters in the Star Wars video game universe, Kyle Katarn is my favorite. He's like if you took Han Solo, and gave him Jedi abilities. In the game prior to Jedi Outcast, Kyle forsakes his Jedi abilities and goes back to just being a part of the Rebel alliance. We begin the game with Kyle powerless and invading an imperial base armed with only a blaster.
A lot of folks would complain about lacking the ability to go off with a lightsaber right out of the gate, but I liked using a blaster for a change. It's also integral to Kyle's character that we see him shunning his Jedi instinct and then slowly realising he needs to go back to the Jedi order to fight impending evil. Katarn fits seamlessly into the mold of established characters like Mon Motha and Lando Calrissian to be a great leading man in the game.
Light And Dark Side Powers
Yet another thing that makes Katarn cool. He's not married to the whole Light/Dark side thing and is capable of wielding both light and dark side powers. You would imagine being able to Jedi mind trick and force choke an opponent would be powerful, and you'd be right! In single player Kyle gets a mixture of both light and dark side. Sure it's fun when you have a lightsaber, but I personally took joy in force choking a Stormtrooper and then lighting him up with a blaster. I'm not a dark person or anything...ITS JUST A GAME.
No Darth Vader
It's nice to have a Star Wars adventure where he's not involved for a change. Don't get me wrong, I like Vader as much as the next guy, but there were plenty of villains in the Empire. It's nice to give some other people occasional shine.
Multiplayer
By far the best part of this game. The multiplayer was customizable and allowed you to play however you wanted. You could play blasters only with Jedi Knight force mastery, or a mixture of sabers and blasters with Jedi Master abilities. This lead to some epic gameplay moments that would keep you coming back time and time again even if you could only play bots.
Trust me this game is worth your time...especially for the $9.99 going rate on Steam!
