Summary
Cheap Spaceballs Knock-off!
The Good
Dark Forces was the first fps that made sense to me. I wondered why demons would just hang around in dark corners and why Nazi’s let their castles get so run down, but Dark Forces had a pretty strong internal logic. Dark Forces fit pretty well into the Star Wars universe. Touches of back story, such as finding the Death Star plans (and cool hologram) were fun, and the game’s story seemed plausible. Some major characters from Star Wars were here and only Boba Fett seemed forced into the story.
There was also a nice selection of weapons ranging from the trusty Bryar Pistol, to the fast but wildly inaccurate Stormtrooper rifle, to the Trandoshan ion cannon (I recognize that some of the names are wrong- sheesh!). Levels were mostly good. I hated the look of the sewage level but really liked the Ice planet. AI was non-existent (just like in the movies) but enemies covered a wide variety of Aliens and Imperials.
Sound and music were great. I recognize the music was midi, but it was good midi and fit the tone of the levels. Sound effects were great! I loved shooting the weapons and listening to their unique “zaps” and it rocked hearing Imps shout “Stop Rebel scum!”
The Bad
No in-game save and poor graphics. Now a note about the graphics, they were decent when I originally played the game, but upon replaying the game recently, I had great trouble suspending my disbelief. It was hard to identify a small cluster of gray pixels as being a turret, except when said turret lit me up.
Other than that (I'm yadda yadda yaddaing my usual rant about cliches in first person shooters), Dark Forces was and is a great game.
The Bottom Line
Duh, it's the classic Star Wars first person shooter. No big surprises here.
