Jedi Knight 2-First impressions

K

Kevin Anderson

New member
Now, I live in Australia, and the game was released here in some areas on the 26th. I got my copy on the morning of the 27th, the shiny 'Collectors tin' edition too, which looks pretty cool.
My first impressions of the game, however, are a bit...I dunno, it's hard to describe. Everything about it seems a bit, flat. Even the menu screens seem a bit rushed (remember Force Commander?). Character models in the game look fantastic, but everything else just reminds me of Red Faction. Boring and flat. I'm still early in the game, so I should reserve judgement until I'm a bit further in. I'm running an Athlon XP 1700+ on an A7M266, with a Radeon 8500 OEM, and everything seems to run well enough, even with 4x smoothvision or 16x ansio. A previous post talked about long load times and problems with volumetric shadows. Well, the load times ARE ridiculous (1 minute + for first load). Check the official site forums and see what they have to say about it. Raven blame it on systems with not enough physical ram. I have 512 DDR, and it's still bloody slow! The shadows do look weird too, but I have a strage effect on the floor and other surfaces when I move in the game, like, as another poster described, someone is shining a flashlight on certain textures. I get this with shadows off, even, so I'd like to know if anyone else has this problem. This is with the 6043 drivers (XP). And finally, the manual mentions an option to turn on or off compressed textures in the Video setup menu. I don't have this option. Not blanked out or anything, just not there!
I'd love to hear of other peoples experiences with the game.
 
I think the game is great. There are a lot of puzzles to figure out and some of them are very frustrating. Once you get the saber and force powers it gets way cool. The speed force which is basically like the bullet time in max payne is awesome. My big complaint was the lack of surround sound but I found this posted elsewhere and it works great. Now I am enjoying the game in fantastic surround sound heaven:

open up the the config files (for SP or MP mode) in notepad
(located C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData)

adjust the following setting so that it is enabled

seta s_UseOpenAL "0"

to

seta s_UseOpenAL "1"
 
I wish I could get ahold of the game :\

Geuss I will have to wait till it's released or a demo comes out
 
jjjayb said:
I think the game is great. There are a lot of puzzles to figure out and some of them are very frustrating. Once you get the saber and force powers it gets way cool. The speed force which is basically like the bullet time in max payne is awesome. My big complaint was the lack of surround sound but I found this posted elsewhere and it works great. Now I am enjoying the game in fantastic surround sound heaven:

open up the the config files (for SP or MP mode) in notepad
(located C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData)

adjust the following setting so that it is enabled

seta s_UseOpenAL "0"

to

seta s_UseOpenAL "1"
Click to expand...

That's odd. I could have sworn surround sound was already on for me. I have a Phillips Acoustic Edge.
 
just bought it and havent really played it. Im counting on Raven and the quake3 engine, the introduction was mediocre.
 
Crash7, on the AE we have Qsound and QMSS, the QMSS will convert any stereo sound source into 4 (or 6) distinct sound channels, that goes for mp3, cd, and games that do not support 3d sound. Pretty cool eh? ;)
 
I'd say I'm slightly disapointed. It just isn't as cool as I thought it would be. Maybe I am more disapointed with hardware or current game engine technology, but I was expecting the graphics to be lot better.

I haven't gotten all that far in the game, and it is surprisingly hard, both the puzzles and the gunplay (on default skill level). It is keeping me interested though, except when I get stumped on a puzzle, then I let the anger flow through me :)

Overall, a good game(so far), but definitely less than I was expecting.
 
changed mind...

changed mind...

It really grew on me, things get a hell of a lot better once you get get some force powers and when you start having light saber duels. Somehow the graphics grew on me too, although I like the Unreal engine better. Also I was having a problem with Aniso at the beginning so fixing that definetly upped the IQ a lot. And I personally like the volumeteric shadows... they look bad up close because they are all jumping all over the place, tring to decide which ploygon should be shadowed and what not but from a normal distance they look good.

I guess this is a second impression... sorry.
 
hehe, my own review...

I have to admit the textures were really bad near the beginning but it gets better. Although not as good as say Serious Sam 2. Textures are a bit bland - much like Avp or the first Jedi Knight.

Concerning load time - they are bad, just slightly longer than Serious Sam 2. I have no idea what they are loading when there are no detail textures, bland textures etc...

The character models are excellent! Light Sabre fights are equally impressive and the slow motion death really adds to the feeling I guess.

Too many puzzles? Not so but they are not very intuitive. I havent played a game this fustrating for a very long time. Deus Ex/Half Life and even The Longest Journey didnt have this effect on me, the puzzles in those were rewarding and non-fustrating. I virtually have no idea most of the time in Jedi Knight.

Good game but probably too much like the original and too many difficult puzzles. The lightsabre and the fights is probably the only thing that makes me want to play. I want to put in the final words that the character models are very impressive and fluid.
 
I'm back yet again for a third impression!

This one is better than ever. I really like it a lot now...

Something that has made it a lot more fun is turning up the dismemberment.

to enable it, go into the console ( shift + ~)

and type the following

helpusobi 1
g_saberRealisticCombat 1
g_dismemberment N

replace N with any number you want. 1 I think is slightly more arm cutting and stuff than normal. 10 seems to be about the best although maybe a little bit lower so limbs aren't flying off all the time... I tried it at some ridculous settings like 1000 and if you just touch an enemy with the saber then they bust into all their pieces... it is funny the first couple times but is no fun to play.
 
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