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Graduate Summa Cum Lightsaber with Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Before you take out your lightsaber, take out your notebook and study arduously our Jedi history, multi-player rundown, and cheat codes.

A History of the Jedi

When we first heard about the Jedi Knights way back during the first trilogy of Star Wars films, we didn’t know a whole lot about them. Every Jedi we saw in those movies was either old and on his way to becoming an ethereal spirit or young and just learning to master the Force. Lucas promised that the prequels, however, would show us the Jedi in their prime as well as finally explain what the mysterious Clone Wars were all about.

Now that we have the first two Star Wars prequels — as well as a wealth of comic books, novels, and even a series of “micro-cartoons” on The Cartoon Network — to draw from, we know much more about their history.

While the birth of the Jedi is a moment lost in time, we do know that the earliest Knights, who lived 25,000 years before the events in the first Star Wars film, assembled their order on the ancient world Ossus, where they created a Code that all members must live by. While the Code has changed over the millennia, its basic ideals — There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force — remain constant.

Over time, however, some Jedi began exploring the Dark Side of the Force, using their powers to commit evil acts. Soon, a rogue Jedi named Xendor completely fell to the Dark Side, sparking a schism that lasted a century and left behind many devastated worlds. The Dark Jedi were exiled from the Order and took refuge on one of the moons orbiting the gas giant Yavin, where they enslaved a race known as the Sith and converted many of them into ferocious Massassi warriors.

Meanwhile, the Light Side Jedi became the protectors of the Old Republic, traveling to troubled planets to solve problems and training new members, or Padawans, in their ways. The Code originally allowed Jedi Knights to take as many Padawans as they wished, but this was changed to one Padawan per teacher after The Great Sith War, during which many apprentices were corrupted by the Dark Side and turned on their masters.

The Jedi thought the Sith were defeated during that conflict, but many years later a Dark Jedi named Darth Maul appeared under the wing of Darth Sidious. Later, Obi-Wan Kenobi took Anakin Skywalker as his Padawan after Obi-Wan’s master, Qui-Gon Jinn, died at Maul’s hands and Obi-Wan killed the Dark apprentice.

During the Separatist crisis that spawned The Clone Wars, a Jedi named Count Dooku, who had left the Order many years previous, fell into league with Darth Sidious. Anakin Skywalker turned on Obi-Wan Kenobi, completing his transformation into Darth Vader, and the Sith destroyed the remaining Jedi Knights. Only a few, such as Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, were able to escape and go into hiding.

After the events in the original trilogy of Star Wars movies, Luke started a new Jedi Academy on the same Yavin moon where the Dark Jedi had once enslaved the Sith. (And where the Rebellion kept its base during the first film.) One of his students, Kyle Katarn, became a Jedi Master during the events of the Jedi Outcast game and now helps Luke train new recruits.

Remnants of the Empire and new Dark Jedi, known as the Reborn, still cause trouble for the New Republic, however, giving the fledgling Academy plenty to do.

A Jedi’s Strength Flows From the Force. And they’ll need a lot of it to survive this multiplayer battle royale.

The Energy of the Force Surrounds and Binds. Use your Force Sense power to detect nearby enemies.

scope

Almost There. Use the scope on the Tenloss DXR-6 Disruptor Rifle to take out enemies from afar.

Multi-player Mayhem

As in Jedi Outcast, you can head online and go saber-to-saber with other players in one of 6 gameplay modes and 23 arenas. Jedi Academy, however, introduces new options, such as Siege, which pits team against team. “There’s nothing more exciting for me than to play cooperatively with a group of friends against another group of friends,” says Tosti. “For some strange reason, I really enjoy being on the Imperial side and whipping the tag out of the Rebels.”

If you don’t have Internet access while playing, or if you’d prefer to get some practice before tackling human opponents, you can also play any of the available modes against computer-controlled characters.

Free For All: The Star Wars equivalent of the old-fashioned deathmatch. Everyone for themselves, one point per kill, lose a point if you do yourself in.

Team Free For All: Team deathmatch.

Duel: Players take turns battling each other, one-on-one, in a small arena. The winner gets a point and takes on the next opponent. Everyone else gets to watch (and make comments) until their turns arrive.

Power Duel: Remember Darth Maul’s epic battle against Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi? That’s what this is: two Jedi against one. The outnumbered player gets extra health and Force points, though.

Capture the Flag: Another staple of multi-player games. Grab the other team’s flag and get it back to your base to score a point. Communicate with your teammates and coordinate your moves or you’ll be in for a long match.

Siege: This is objective-based team play in the Star Wars galaxy. The players divide into two teams, each tasked with certain goals, such as infiltrating a base while the other group tries to keep the invaders out. The first team to complete its goals wins the match.

Cheat if you Must

Stumped? Then you may need some help, thanks to the cheat codes that are commonly placed in most videogames. They allow you to, well, cheat and change the rules. This sometimes includes activating bonuses, unlocking secrets and new levels of gameplay.

To enable the cheats in Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, hold the left Shift key and press the tilde (~) key at the same time. This brings up a console. At the prompt, type “helpusobi 1” (without the quotes) and press Return. This activates cheat mode and allows you to enter as many of the codes below as you wish. Just remember to type them in exactly as you see them below.

If you want to enter codes faster, or enter the same code repeatedly (as you might with the npc spawn codes), simply press the up or down arrow at the prompt to bring up the last code you entered. Then you can backspace to change the code or press Return to activate it again.

The Codes

g_spskill X — Change the difficulty of the game. When you enter this code, substitute X for a number between 0 (Padawan) and 3 (Jedi Master).

d_npcfreeze 1 — Freeze all the NPCs in the level. Enter this code again with a 0 instead of the 1 and they’ll start moving again. (If you want to spawn a bunch of NPCs and have them fight each other, this code is a good way to freeze everyone until you’re ready to set them loose.)

give weapons — Get all the weapons available in the game. (You may need to save and reload before this takes effect.)

give health — Full health.

give armor — Fully charge your shields.

give ammo — Fully stock your weapons with ammo.

give force — Fully recharge your Force points.

setforceall X — Set all your Force powers to a level between 1 and 3. Just substitute the X for the number you want.

noclip — Whee! Fly through walls and ceilings and fully explore the level. Your character will remain static, however, until you enter this code to turn the cheat off. (Just make sure you don’t turn it off over a pit that will kill you.)

undying — Get 999 health.

god — Simply become invincible. (Steep drops or falls into lethal substances will still kill you, however.)

g_saberrealisticcombat X — Make your lightsaber attacks more lethal and increase the likelihood your opponent will lose a limb (or two or three). Substitute X with a number between 1 and 20; the higher you go, the more opportunities for slice-and-dice. (Remember, this affects your enemies’ lightsabers too, so you probably don’t want to activate this when you go up against a group of Reborn.)

map mapname — Substitute “mapname” for the name of a map in the game to instantly warp there. npc kill all Instantly kill all the other characters in the level. (Warning: This may have unintended effects. For example, if one of your goals in a level is to keep certain characters alive, this code will kill them too. It may also automatically end the level, if your ultimate objective was to defeat someone.)

npc spawn name — Substitute “name” for one of the words below and liven up the action, complete with massive Light Jedi versus Dark Jedi battles. If you overdo it and get frustrated, use “npc kill all” to wipe them out. (Just make sure you have enough room when you start summoning NPCs, especially the Rancors.)

alora — The first version of Alora that you meet in the game.

atst — Also known as the “chicken walker,” this is the two-legged version of the AT-AT. This one simply walks around and stomps on nearby characters, as opposed to the vehicle version, which you can drive.

chewie — Short for Chewbacca, in case you don’t know.

cultist_saber — A Cultist who wields a lightsaber.

cultist_destroyer — A Cultist who self-destructs instantly. Fun to watch once or twice.

desann — The lizard-like bad guy from the end of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.

galak — Another bad guy from the last game.

hazardtrooper — A “super trooper” stormtrooper variant.

jedi — A generic Jedi Knight.

jedi_random — A random Jedi Knight.

monmothma — The leader of the rebellion and of the New Republic. (She was the one who gave the Death Star briefing in Return of the Jedi.)

mutant_rancor — This mutated Rancor is pretty vicious. It’s also invincible, unless you use the “npc kill all” code. (Spawn more than one and stage your own monster battles.)

ragnos — The ghost of one of the bad guys.

rax — One of the bad guys from the game.

reborn generic — One of the basic Reborn Dark Jedi with the orange hoods.

reborn_dual — A Reborn with two lightsabers.

reborn_staff — A Reborn who wields one of those double-ended lightsabers, like Darth Maul used in The Phantom Menace.

reborn_new — One of the newer, more powerful Reborn.

rosh_penin — One of your fellow Jedi Academy recruits.

saber_droid — A practice droid that wields a lightsaber.

saboteur — One of the Imperial officers who can cloak themselves.

snowtrooper — The snowsuit-wearing stormtrooper, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back.

tavion — The Jedi Outcast version of this saber-wielding Dark Jedi.

tavion_new — She also makes an appearance in Jedi Academy, and suffice it to say she’s more powerful now.

npc spawn vehicle name — As above, substitute one of the vehicles below for the word “name” and have fun. You can drive or fly all of these vehicles, but most of them don’t fire.

atst_vehicle — You can drive this AT-ST and stomp on stuff.

lambdashuttle — The Imperial shuttle with wings that fold up in flight, as seen extensively in Return of the Jedi.

rancor_vehicle — A Rancor you can ride. (You must jump on to ride it, as opposed to pressing the R key.)

swoop_mp — A red swoop bike.

swoop_mp2 — A blue swoop.

tauntaun — Get close, press R, and hop on for a ride.

wampa_vehicle — As with the Rancor, you have to jump on to ride this creature.

wildtauntaun — Same as the regular Tauntaun, just without a harness.

z-95 — The X-Wing that Jaden flies in the game.

System Requirements

	Mac OS X version 10.5
	1.8GHz Intel processor
	512MB of RAM
	Video Card: NVIDIA: GeForce 7300, 7600, 7800, 8600, 8800, 9400, 9600, GT 120, Quadro FX 4500; ATI Radeon: X1600, X1900, HD 2400, HD 2600, HD 3870, HD 4670, HD 4850
	665MB hard disk space
	DVD-ROM drive
	Broadband Internet connection for Internet play; LAN (TCP/IP) connection for LAN play

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I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This. Head to Hoth as part of your investigation.

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duel

You Are Not a Jedi, Yet. Reborn prove to be tough opponents early in the game.

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Prepare Your Troops for a Surface Attack. One of the many available multiplayer maps, this one set on the frigid planet Hoth.

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Didn’t We Just Leave This Party? Take on the Remnant’s high-tech “super troopers.”

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