Wishful Thinking And Suggestions, Part The First

[Guest Shadowen]

I will be the first to admit that I am absolutely in love with Jedi Outcast. Graphics, sound, gameplay, story, Force, lightsaber combat...all pulled off beautifully.

 

But... (ya knew that was comin', didn't ya?)

 

There are some things I would have liked to see in the game. Things I'm not sure, had I known how could the game would have been without them, I could have waited another six months or a year for. I could, however, wait another six months or a year for these features to be implemented in an expansion pack...hint hint.

 

The first would have resulted in much more open-ended and complicated levels. This is not necessarily a good thing. If, in the vein of Deus Ex (I know, comparing apples to oranges and QIII to UT), the single player could have picked his Force powers as he pleased, it may have contributed to a feeling of "this is my personal vision of what Kyle Katarn would focus on".

 

I know I didn't use Grip or Lightning all that much in single player. Unlike Speed and Jump (which were required for some puzzles), or Push and Pull (which eventually gain mass area affects and are hella universal), the two of them simply...weren't all that useful to me. I would have preferred to put those ranks into Speed/Jump/Push/Pull to max them out earlier. Or, if I had chosen Grip and Lightning, I might have gone out of my way to use them more--to get my money's worth, so to speak.

 

The second adjustment I would have made involves lightsaber combat. Don't get me wrong--I love it. I could smack down Reborn all day and all night long and have a time of it. Eventually, however, I would look at my saber and say, "Is this it?"

 

Creating more types of sabers (and not the crappy "double" saber cheat code) would be tricky to implement, and harder to balance, I'll bet. And it probably would have taken at least another six months just to create a workable lightstaff system and balance it. But I still would have loved to see this option in multiplayer: "saber type".

 

There are at least three other types of lightsabers I can think of, two of which would give a noticeable change to gameplay. There is the dual-phase saber (press a button, and the blade length and color changes as one gem rotates out and another rotates in--how well this would actually work in game, I don't know). There is the lightstaff (made famous by Darth Maul, and the marketing department of Lucasfilm GIVING IT AWAY in the trailers...morons). And there are the dual sabers, one in each hand (I believe Exar Kun used these). I know that it would be next to impossible to implement and balance all these, in addition to the standard saber, but I think it would be possible to add one of them in an expansion.

 

The last is possibly born of my own ignorance and lightsaber ineptitude. I had read in a respectable publication (PC Gamer, if you must know) that "body parts" could be hacked off. "Good," I thought. "Now I can cut the other arm off, and legs, and heads, and..." But whether it's because I suck or because the geometry just didn't work, you can cut off both arms (an improvement, but still) and both hands. That's it. I've seen my blade literally go straight through a stormtrooper's neck. He died, of course, but his head was still firmly attached to his torso. I don't profess to know anything about coding this, but still...it would have been so cool. Is it actually possible, though, with the proper skill, to decaptitate and dismember beyond arms? I would appreciate any information on this subject...

 

So that's my post. Responses more than welcome and anticipated. *ducks and covers*

[Cartman-SRK]

You have some good points, I would also like to see the sabers go through a few changes. If they had alowed you to chose the force powers as you progressed through the game, they would have had to change some of the puzzles for the people that like to use the grip in sp(me). I used the grip every time I had more then one Reborn to fight. Usualy killed the Reborn before the other one could get close to me. The thing the kills me is the fact that they put no extra thought in to the MP games. Capture the flag was good for a while..Free for all was good...Capture the Yavin..Ok as well. But I want more indepth story lines for the online play...How easy would it be for them to code the game to 5 minute intervals, and had set tasks (besides loping the other team to bits). Like I suggested in another post...have the Movie story lines for the online play...Like have two teams Rebles and Empire, Have the rebles turn off the tractor beam and make it back to the ship, or have the empire attack Hoth and try to capture the rebles...The Games they could come up with are endless...I can't be the only one tired of hacking and slashing people just for the sake of hacking and slashing people??

[bedwine]

The only flaw with the SP game was not having the abitlity to select force power ups. Going through a second time with cheats I found lightning making me almost invicible. I could even take out robots and turrets let alone a 10 troopers at once. When I got to facing the reborns I desprately needed grip. The choice of making the decision of where your going to specialize your force powers would have given the game a true role playing experience. I rarely used push or pull except for the required puzzles.

 

On another note I just watched "The Empire Strikes Back" on FOX tonight. It was really fun to recognize environments that they did in the game that are the backgrounds in the movie. Such as Bespin near the end were Luke escaped from Darth Vadar appeared to be the same place where you were first introduced to the rocket launchers taking this weird tram that circled this big tube that extended the entire length of the station. In the movie Luke lost his hand and fell to the bottom to be rescued by Liea. Much of the games background was modeled directly from the movies ie: tubes vents etc....Bespin appeared to be Bespin in the game. The orange space craft parked on the streets of Bespin were modeled after the movie. They could have put more bystanders in the game to give it a more realistic feel in the game though.