After nearly turning to the dark side, Kyle Katarn has decided to return to life as a smuggler and mercenary for the Alliance. The game begins with Katarn and pilot Jan Ors on a mission from Mon Mothma. They are to investigate a distress call from a planet that was believed to be uninhabited. There, Katarn and Ors run into Imperial forces known as The Remnant and uncover their plot to create an army who are artificially infused with the force; referred to as The Reborn. During the events, Katarn returns to his Jedi ways, but his anger allows him to flirt with the dark-side of the Force.
Since Katarn starts off as a mercenary, it will be a few levels before you receive your lightsaber and force powers. There are plenty of weapons; various blasters (such as the Bryar Pistol, Stormtroopers Blaster Rifle, sniper-style Disruptor Rifle and Wookie Bowcaster) and explosives such as thermal detonators and trip mines. The lightsaber is your primary weapon since it can attack mid-range via saber-throw, is strong at close range, and can deflect some lasers automatically; giving you better defence. When enemies are out of range, you will need long distance blasters to take them down.
All the force powers you gain will unlock and improve over the course of the game via story progression. This makes a change from previous games where you unlocked them with skill points. Eventually you will have force jump, speed, push, pull, lightning, heal, mind trick, and choke. There are instances where these moves are used to progress through the environment, but mostly you will use them to take down enemies.
You can switch between first and third person views. I found third person is best with the lightsaber whereas first person is best for gun fights.
There are 24 single-player levels that span eight different environments including familiar locales such as Yavin or Bespin, in addition to other places like the mining facility Artus. There's a few familiar faces too such as Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian (even voiced by Billy Dee Williams).
At the start of the game, you will be taking down hordes of Stormtroopers and some Imperial officers. Soon after, you will be taking down familiar enemies in the franchise such as thermal detonator-throwing Grans, Rodian snipers and strong Noghri. These are extremely annoying to fight, but after a few levels, you will be back to fighting Stormtroopers.
The music and sound direction is pulled straight from the films. The iconic John William's score plays during the game and dynamically changes volume during the more intense action sequences. The sound of blaster fire is great, and Stormtoopers even give a Wilhelm scream as they tumble. The enemies themselves have a much higher standard of animation, which gives them better movement and satisfying death sequences.
Health is initially restored using Bacta Canisters, but eventually you gain the Force Heal ability. Force regenerates fairly quickly, giving you access to constantly heal. Shields provide extra protection and can be regenerated at certain green-coloured stations.
The game's design hasn't really changed which is a bad thing. You will often get stuck and walk around aimlessly, just because you didn't see a fairly inconspicuous passageway, or have to do something that isn't so obvious like shooting out a window. It's a problem that has plagued the franchise, yet the development team keep on doing it.
I also feel the game is a bit muddled in it's game-play direction. The laser fire seems to have a random aspect to it which creates some funny battles with the Stormtoopers early on; you both send high quantity of laser fire at each other but fail to register a hit. It does recreate moments that you see in films, but as a first-person shooter; it takes away part of the skill element to it. The use of the lightsaber takes it further away from being a FPS but I often found the combat a bit “hack-and-slash and hope for the best” which reduces the fun factor. The game tries to add variety with the 'puzzles' but often it comes down to finding a switch which you can often miss, then aimlessly wander around, becoming frustrated.
There's also plenty of moments where you feel like the game is being unfair. Being thrown into situations where there's several snipers and several grenade throwing Grans is just stupid, especially when the snipers seem to have rapid aim. I played on the lowest difficulty (out of 4 options: Padawan, Jedi, Jedi Knight, and Jedi Master) as I expected the game to be similar to the other games in the series; and I was right. It's ridiculously tough at times.
The good news is that you can save anywhere, and you can press F12 to Quick Save and F9 to Quick Load. The helps to alleviate frustration somewhat, but the fact you need to save so often illustrates how insane the game can be.
It's a relatively long game compared with other first-person-shooters, taking around 15 hours, although the game time is inflated by the parts where you get lost. The positive aspect about the game is that you do feel like a powerful Jedi, and it's great to have the full spectrum of Force powers. Being able to do the basics of push and pull in addition to the darker powers of choke and lightning gives you variety and allows you to dispatch your foes in satisfying ways. Jedi Outcast is definitely the best in the series, although I'm not a fan of the series.
Here's one example of the annoying game design. You follow linear paths up until you reach a dead end. I expected some kind of hidden passageway but still couldn't find it.
After reading a description in a walkthrough I begun walking into the walls until I found it. It's there where the red arrow is.
In my opinion, secrets should be hidden like that. You should never be expected to see that to continue the game.