Jedi Power Battles is the second PlayStation only game from LucasArts, you play as one of five members of the Jedi Council on a jaunt through the Episode 1 story-line.

You and a friend can play as any of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Plo Koon, and Adi Gallia. Who you choose changes the moves that you have available to you and what combo's you can produce. However it doesn't affect the story-line which progresses as if you were playing as Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan.

As you play through the game you get awarded points at the end of each level which can be traded in for more combo power, force powers or more health. This is a nice touch as you can see your character becoming more powerful and able as the game progresses.

Most of the game consists of fighting or running about and jumping over gaps. The fighting works fairly well but the controls take a long time to get used to, but once you have mastered them you'll be hacking and slashing your way through the battles droids without too many problems. At the end of each of the ten levels you'll face a boss character, including Darth Maul, these are generally not too hard but the lack of mid-level save points (there are only check-points) can make the amount of back-tracking excessive.

The main problem with Jedi Power Battles is the collision detection combined with inappropriate camera angle choices. In many parts of the game just must make a precise jump from one location to another, but often your destination cannot be seen because the camera is in the wrong location. Also sometimes when you think you've made the jump you suddenly find out that you haven't as the collision detection get's it wrong and you find yourself falling through the floor.

The graphics in the game are passable, the playable characters look nice but the enemies are rendered with too few polygons making them look a bit shabby. Also the background graphics, whilst usually okay, sometimes have problems lining up the textures properly, creating an unpolished look to the game.

The sound in the game, as you would expect, is as good as any other recent Star Wars game. The musical score has been taken directly from the movie and sounds as good as it ever did. All the sound effects are also from the movie, but the constant noise from the Lightsabre can get annoying after a while.

Overall I found this game to be a bit disappointing, only because a couple of things, like the collision detection, let down what was otherwise would have been an enjoyable game. If you can find this game in a bargain bin somewhere then give it a punt, just don't fork out full price for it.