Movie Battles II

In short, about the Modification for Jedi Knight Jedi Academy for people who visit my blog without basic knowledge about it. (You can see the gameplay on the fragvideos below!)

Link : http://www.moviebattles.com/

You’ve probably played a famous few years ago game ‘Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Academy’ which was quite fun to play on a single player, mostly for Star Wars fans who liked JK2, yet people seeking competition and a flexible Jedi-focused game surely found it, therefore the thing people liked the most was actually the Multiplayer. It was completely different style of gameplay, focused on duels rather than battles, and even if – It was completely different, because of different camera, only lightsaber and no forces on pretty much all servers. Of course, it wasn’t just about dueling, active community was creating maps, skins and finally – MODs. (Heck, they still do!). If you asked someone ‘Did you play JK3′ and he answered ‘Yes, single player’ then you pretty much felt motivated to convince him that he hasn’t played it at all, as SP and MP are as close as Earth is to the Sun.(When did I get all crapoetic?) Now you may think ‘Heh, I played JK3 for X years, screw it, I’m not touching this game anymore’ – that’s reasonable, but, the truth is – If you enjoyed JK3 multiplayer, then you will most likely enjoy Movie Battles, which is ANOTHER jump from the begininng which was SP. Here, I made a little pic to show how most of people started.

Click HERE to see whole image!

Now as you can see, people started playing it a few good years after JK3:MP, therefore becoming skilled and awfully bored. That’s when they heard about Modification which changes game TOTALLY, improving everything and making it more movieish, soon to realise that their achieved skill means nothing in MBII. How exactly has it been changed?

MBII’s Skeleton : Gameplay based on Siege mode in JK3:MP, which isn’t too famous, as there aren’t many maps and it’s quite boring. Therefore MBII team used the same kind of gameplay – two teams – red and blue, both having an objective – For example blue defends some item and red tries to destroy it, while playing one of already-customized character. Then they gathered skins, maps which are known from the movies – added custom classes like Super Battle Droid, Droideka, Elite Trooper, Soldier, ARC, Clone etc. and invented very own system of leveling up to make it more RPGish and a game of choices. How did it work out? Great! You’re interested in Mandalorian looking like Jango Fett with dual pistols and Jetpack? Here you go! Or maybe Jetpack + Rocket + Dual Pistols? Sure! OR maybe more fuel and screw rocket? As you wish! – Choices were the first thing which made people interested apart from being sucked-in just because of Movieish content, as it was something new for this serie, usually you just picked Saber, now you pick class + weapons for it, Yay!

Leveling, customizing your class : At first, you started with lets say 4 points, which were basically enough for a pistol / lightsaber but no forces, defence or styles and then with every kill / passing round you gained more and more, and finally maxed to get all the stuff you wanted. But they gave up on it, as it meant imbalance, someone who joined late is pretty much screwed up being surrounded by maxed-points players. So atm. it’s just instant max points, which of course won’t let you have EVERYTHING, for instance it’s impossible to be a Hero with 3 frag grenades AND level 3 dodge, therefore you still have choices.

Teamplaying : Apart from other MODs or Base JKA, here you weren’t supposed to rush alone and kill what you can then come back, heal and continue. In MBII there indeed is healing for Hero and Jedi (For the second one, removed already) but that really won’t help if you run into more than two enemies. Therefore you have to complete objective with help of your Teammates, otherwise you can support them by going alone and carefuly taking down some of enemies.

New Sabering System : No more jump – slash – jump – slash – dodge – slash – do everything to avoid enemy’s saber touching your sensitive, lovely lightstick – slash. Now you got a block, which usage together with counter-attacks decides about the victory in Sith vs Jedi fights. (Or Jedi vs Jedi, happens with all these Anakin wannabes, hopefully soon-to-be-castrated). Even though MBII team seems to be destroying it with every next beta/version of MB2, it’s still an enjoyable system in Jedi vs Gunner (Picking when to defend and when to attack instead of just rushing), yet atm it’s totally hopeless in Jedi vs Sith combat. New people may consider it good, but they wouldn’t if they saw how better it was before. Should that stop you from trying MB2 out? Hell no, just avoid lawlhonor duels and you will be alright.

Different Modes : Apart from Open mode which I mentioned until now, there are two others : Full-authentic – alike Siege mode in JK3, you have pre-customized classes to pick, depending on map. For example, on the map Duel of the Fates, you can’t play as a Revan or Mace Windu because they weren’t there , instead you can play either Obi-wan Kenobi (young version) or Qui-Gon Jinn and obviously Darth Maul. That mode is unbalanced though, Darth Maul has for example 150hp and attack 3 , def 3 while Obi Wan has only 100 hp, attack 2 and def 3. That’s why I don’t like this mode and never play it, it’s a shame that some skins are only in FA and aren’t avaible in open mode, because of that I can’t jump around in Revan’s skin. Next mode is Semi-Authentic, it’s both open and authentic, you can pick your own build, but you have choice of classes and skins limited to these from Authentic.

So that’s it about basics, MBII has many ways to play, balanced gameplay in Open mode, many classes and builds so you can pick what you like the most (Either ARC Clone with Rocket Launcher, or Jedi with Lightning and Force Push, which actually knocks down people than simply pushing like in JK3 Basejka). It’s practically new game, with completely different weapons, forces and even if they’re the same, they work in its own way, pull force can for example pull weapons. Improvised gameplay with many new skins, maps, mechanics, classes and community also make it a new experience for every Star Wars / JK3 fan.

I encourage you all to try it out, even though I whine about it a lot – I still play it, because it still brings lots of fun even after these years of playing JK3 and also few years of MBII alone. That’s kind of game you’d like to see changing all the time, so you can keep playing it. If you need more info – check the MBII site (Link above), if you want some honest truth about it, read my posts in MBII category.

And here are FragVideos, with turned out interface so it looks cleaner, these videos were recorded with it though, which includes; Crosshair, HP bar, Force Points, Block Points(for Jedi), Ammo bar etc.

Angrenost&Raato’s Fragvideo – Haunt. – Awesome kills and no, you don’t usually pull off things like that. Requieres both experience and skill.

Supa’s FragVideo – Lolfrags. – Like above, this time there’s some luck dependency which makes it both funny and awesome.