At some point in your life I’m sure you’ve played a Star Wars game or watched a movie or show. There are a ton of them and I’m pretty sure it’s scientifically impossible to not have been exposed to it in some way. One of my earliest experiences is my dad excitingly asking me to watch this movie plainly titled “Star Wars”. This was before they added the episode and subtitles and before there were any special editions and other nonsense. I hated it. I thought it was so boring and old and dumb. I was dumb and wrong and this is a prime example of why kids shouldn’t be in charge of anything. Luckily my dad isn’t the type of guy who lets kids be in charge and we moved on to the next movie. Empire Strikes Back is by far one of the best movies to ever grace my peepers and to this day it is my favorite of the franchise. I could literally go on for far too long on why that is and what it means to me and all that but that’s not the main focus of this particular post.
The Beginning
In my 35(at the time of writing) years there have been *googles* over 100 Star Wars games made since the franchise inception. That’s a lot of games. I think I’ve played most of them because that seems feasible. Don’t worry I won’t get into all of them and probably couldn’t remember half of them but there is one particular series of games that is near and dear to my heart and the impact it had on my life is something you probably wouldn’t expect from just playing a game. The first Star Wars game I can really remember playing and it just clicking with my child brain is Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 and boy howdy was that game epic for its time. In this game, which if you can’t figure out is a sequel to the original Star Wars Dark Forces, you continue to play as the brawny Chuck Norris-esque smuggler turned Rebel operative named Kyle Katarn. Without giving too much away he basically gets a lightsaber, learns to use the force and defeats the evil blind man who looks like Red Foreman of That 70’s Show and depending on certain choices in the game becomes a good dude or takes the dark side path. Oh did I mention the live action cutscenes that play between levels? Yeah, they’re awesome and I love them and wish that it was more common in games. Anyways that game really put a hold on me and at that point I was a PC gamer, albeit a very novice and dumb one. LucasArts quickly became my favorite game developer because they were the ones cranking out Star Wars games that were now sustaining my life force. The Jedi Knight series continued on with two other titles that dropped the live action cutscenes for in-engine voice acted scenes. I will never forgive this sin. The first game was Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and continued the story of Kyle Katarn as he now works alongside Luke Skywalker, he’s not important, as a teacher in the new Jedi Academy post The Return of the Jedi. Now that I think about it I’m pretty sure the original Jedi Knight took place during the original trilogy and it never occurred to me until now if that was important. It’s not, whatever, moving on. Jedi Outcast was fine but I played these games out of order. The next game was everything I wanted and I might finally explain why.
The Empire Stinks
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is probably one of my top 3 games of all time. It’s not the best in graphics, story or gameplay but it did one thing right and that was the lightsaber fighting. Let me tell you why this game had me in a Force Chokehold for a damn decade at least and then I’ll let you decide if I should be committed or not. The year is 2004 or 5 and my mom had finally let me have my own PC and to pick out a couple games at the local Frys Electronics(RIP). I picked this game, Black and White(which is definitely going to be talked about in the future after a replay) and Far Cry(Which I probably will not talk about). At the time we had terrible dial-up internet, probably Earthlink or something like that, and a crippling social anxiety that made me afraid to hit that Multiplayer option on the main menu. So singleplayer was my bread and butter. I replayed this game probably a hundred times with gusto and did not find myself bored at any point. In it you played as your own created jedi padawan picking from a few different species and some minor cosmetic choices. It was enough and Rodian is the best fight me on that. Eventually we were graced by the broadband gods and I was able to experience what playing an online multiplayer game would be like and it was not at all like what I was told it would be. No voice chat or talking about peoples moms or racist remarks about anyone or any negativity whatsoever. Haha I lied. There was that and more. Teenage Gibbs was not dissuaded. I played CoD2 shortly before this and was well prepared. Eventually I’d figure out that picking the servers with the larger populations was a pretty good way of getting in the game and making friends and connections. I was amazed at the sights of duels and random Free For All’s and disturbed by the creativity people had when it came to doing things with the emotes included in the multiplayer. Eventually I’d find myself as a regular on a server called JFC(I think?) and making good friends with a couple of their higher up clan members. Oh I forgot to mention every server was pretty much hosted by a clan. A clan is a group of people who basically created a small nation online and would just hang out and be dramatic. JFC was my first experience with a clan, and they were in an alliance with another clan called JoH. I do not remember at all what the acronyms stood for. Anyways some people from each clan decided to break away and start their own clan and boy howdy I was all about it. I had just applied and was accepted into JFC and followed my friends into their new clan called Jedi Phoenix. I was one of their first recruits, if not the first, and I was home. Honestly it’s hard to really explain the way it felt being a part of this group. We became close and just like any large group we had our drama. I won’t get into it because I only have vague memories of most of it and don’t want to misrepresent anything. I ended up working my way all the way to the top of the ranks in a leadership role and honestly I grew as a person while doing that throughout the years. This clan became an important part of my life and I cared about the health and stability of it. The best part of it was I was able to make some lifelong friendships with people and I still keep in touch with them and we’ve all grown and have our own lives as adults. I mean I was a kid when I came into this and was an adult when the server traffic died down and the game became less of a phenomenon and more of an afterthought. It still has a small following and gets a little bit of attention but the glory days are over and I wouldn’t change anything about it.
Getting A Little Sappy Here…
I often wonder if there will ever be a game that reaches the same social impact that Jedi Academy had and sometimes pop in just to see what is going on but never will we get anything like it, just something else. Jedi Phoenix was a family for me for a long time and there was a reason it was as successful and huge as it got. It was the people and I guess my point is that people can make as much of an impact in a game as the game itself. Jedi Academy wasn’t aging well but it had such a long life because of the community and if you weren’t there it might be hard to understand but I do hope you may have been able to have some insight as to what I experienced. *queue Star Wars credits music*
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