First released in 2009, the very large Jedi Academy mod "Movie Duels" (opens in new tab) received its sixth major update in early January. The project aims to recreate the iconic lightsaber duels of Star Wars history with the Jedi Academy's unparalleled lightsaber combat system.

The Jedi Knight game has a strange DNA that leads to its superior saber combat. The series, first from LucasArts and then from the FPS developers at Raven, has a starting point for saber combat that is similar to classic FPS melee weapons such as Gordon Freeman's crowbar and Doom Guy's chainsaw, and differs from most brawler-style approach.

Instead of heavy swords and sticky lock-on feel, the Jedi Knight games emphasize pure positioning, ruining anything the saber comes in contact with. Add to that the game's intuitive and automatic parry, and you have a lightsaber fighting system that feels like no other.

I didn't even know anyone was making a single player Jedi Academy mod like this, and at first glance I thought Movie Duels was a simple map and model pack; I dusted off the Steam version of Jedi Academy and downloaded a whopping 3 files, 8 gigabytes of mods, downloaded them all and dropped them all into the Game Data folder of the Jedi Academy installation folder (the mods are handily run from the .exe in it).

And frankly, it rocks. The first map I loaded was a recreation of the Star Forge Observatory, the final boss arena in Knights of the Old Republic. There is nothing to do here at the moment, but it will likely appear in the Kotor-themed duel packs that are hinted at in the mod's UI.

My first proper duel was a recreation of the rematch between Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul on Tatooine as depicted in the comic "Old Wounds" (opens in new tab). The Jedi Academy combat is as fun as ever, and the modelers added some spice here by scripting a sequence where Maul's arm is severed in the middle, reflecting the events of the comic. But don't worry, I still got that dodgy hall monitor Obi-Wan in the end.

As a final test run, I loaded Mace Windu vs. Palpatine from Revenge of the Sith as the purple team. Unskippable cutscenes preceded the cutscenes, and it looks like old Shiv P has a massive health bar. Let's try again another day.

I've definitely only scratched the surface here. There is the entire content of the film, plus several battles from "The Force Unleashed" and the newly added remastered Duels from 1997's "Dark Forces": Jedi Knight. We also forgot to mention the most exciting inclusion: the movie Duels," which is three months ahead of EA and allows you to play as the buffed and "punished" Kal Kestis in the upcoming "Jedi Survivor." That's right, Kal Kestis' head is everyone's favorite Star Wars hero!

My man is not one step behind Jaden Cole (open in new tab) in the charisma department, and the two legends can finally cut each other's heads off in the same game. check out Movie Duels on ModDB (open in new tab) for upcoming content additions and Keep an eye out for future content additions and bug fixes.