Bobothemighty: If you liked Jedi knight 2, you won't be dissapointed. Jedi Academy basicly just expands and fine-tunes the gameplay in several ways. For example adding plenty of new animations for single saber style, and two whole new fighting styles (dual wield & staff). The gameplay has the same familiar feel, but only much more refinied.
Compared to JK2, the game is somewhat more non-linear as you can decide in which order you finish certain missions. Its a bit similar to Kotor where you decide in which order to visit the planets. And ofcourse there are some mandatory story missions that must be completed after you've cleared the required ammount of jedi mission. Also just as Moriendor mentioned above, as a whole, the levels are well designed and intresting.
One big difference is that in the begining of the game, you have to create your own character. It is mostly a cosmetic thing though, but still quite cool. You can choose your race, gender, saber color and so forth. And like in every decent Star wars game, during the course of the game, one can choose to follow the path of light or turn to the darkside.
The game continues Kyle katarn's story even if you're not playing as Kyle Katarn. The player character is one of the new jedi students who are about to start their padawan training in the Luke's brand new Jedi Academy. Kyle Katarn happens to be one of the jedi masters there.
Compared to JK2, the main storyline is somewhat less memorable. Imo the main character is nowhere near as charismatic as Kyle Katarn, but the upside is that you can creat your own version of the main character.
Also some of the jedi missions have very little relevance to the actual main plot. So in this sense JK2 was definitely a more story focused experience.
