Star Wars™: Jedi Knight™ II - Jedi Outcast™

I originally bought this game on Steam and it didn't start. I figured the GOG version would work, but unfortunotly it works just as poorlyl. I'm guessing it's because it's not compatible for Windows 10. Hopfully GOG fixes that, but until then I'm getting a refund.

Apply fixes / mods: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Jedi_Knight_II_-_Jedi_Outcast for widescreen etc. Use vorpx for VR if you have it -- amazing in 3D

This is pretty much the Pinnacle of experiencing being a Jedi in video games. 1997's Jedi Knight laid the ground work with what technology was available, but this game is the best. You live in the Star Wars (pre-Disney) and feel that magnificent world. you have powers, but its not OP, like in Force Unleashed. There are puzzles, and lots of story and a great mix of fighting and adventure. It also has the best Lightsaber combat you'll find.

Now this game was a big break in comparison to Jedi Knight I. Smooth graphics, good resolution and textures and antialiasing, also shaders. Great feeling and gameplay. And well balanced too. You starting with just your trusty blaster and few first levels you play classic shooter. Later, in the game, as story progress, you came to experience the force powers too. You will have to earn your lightsaber in a well designed level. Storyline will take you through many well designed levels and various different environments (cloud city of Bespin, Nar Shada, Carim reactor, Yavin swamp, ...) just a-must-to-try for any star wars loving dude. Fights are great source of fun. Not only there are plenty of different weapons to try, often you can use an alternative attack. Also lightsaber fights are interesting and catchy. Regarding force, you have three possible levels to try, increasing automatically as you progress. Try a force grip lifting a stormtrooper sky high and push him even further above with force push! Or burn a group of enemies with force lightning. Try force speed not giving your foes to take a chance. Needless to say, soundtrack is famous, as is standard for star wars games. Smoothly changing from calm to live action themes. Well, seems that plenty of folks have troubles running this game on Win 10. For me, using Win 10, I had a no choice. Having no working code for Win 10, I had to manually download a Open Jedi Knight code, set it for Jedi Knight (default is for Jedi Academy) and compile it. Success. Now I have a working Jedi Knight II under Win 10. Might be useful for others. If interested, I can provide the binary. I suppose, I had to patch to higher version of the game too, before the compiled code worked compatible. I had not observed any nasty bugs during my playtime. I played with this new binary from first to the last level.

JKII is a fun game, but it's let down a bit by some buggy controls and erratic difficulty. The main issue from the challenge in JKII doesn't come from good enemy AI or level design, it mostly comes from how quickly your character takes damage; the energy meter and shields might seem like a lot to look at, but each hit from an enemy blaster does a lot of damage, and if you get hit, you will most certainly be repeatedly hit by the same enemy over and over. So is it a hard game? No, not really. It's a game that requires a little bit of patience to learn the attack patterns of your enemies and, in the case of squeeze points in the maps, learn how to cheese them from a distance before they become an issue. JKII never rewards going in with guns blazing and that is surely going to get you killed every time. The game design so favors caution that I would almost call it a stealth game, if not for the fact that you will mostly be killing your enemies and not knocking them unconscious. This is exactly why the opening sequence is so difficult, because it's a relatively open area with a lot of gun wielding enemies to fight in one spot, with fairly scant places to hide from them. Once you get inside the first building, you don't really have another place like that in the game until the end of the mines, and that's the toughest spot in the whole game. Once you get a lightsaber and force powers, your main issue will then become snipers and enemies with heavy rockets and guns that can cause instant death from a great distance. Also, the wonky controls will occasionally stick you inside of a wall or flip you out of a window that you didn't intend. Lightsaber battles are fun, but they can often feel a bit random and decided more by luck than your skill. It's not pure button mashing, but it will come down to the choices made by your AI opponent more than anything. Still, JKII is a very fun game on the first playthrough or two, and it will satisfy the Star Wars urge.