Star Wars: Dark Forces

The Good
I had played other FPS games of the time, but "Dark Forces", like many other reviewers here, was the first I played to completion. The storyline was exciting- keeping me guessing about what was happening next, and where I might be going. The enemies, from stormtroopers to bounty hunters, offered variety in attacks and tactics, and the graphical engine for the time was outstanding- easily surpassing the other non-true 3D engines that were being produced. Dark Forces came alive with dynamic lighting and rooms that served purposes. I will never forget the various guard rooms I encountered, the pumping stations, control rooms... and once even the head, where stormtroopers and a few seedy types were making use of the urinals.

The Bad
My only complaint about this game isn't really a complaint- just that it didn't include some of the cool places I was hoping to see, like the interior of a sandcrawler, or moving AT-AT walkers. The lack of multiplayer support did not bother me at all. Today, my grumbles include the lack of SVGA (the Mac version had that), and a poor control interface. But those are to be expected.

The Bottom Line
I would recommend this game to everyone- even modern players, even though this game is now nearly 10 years old as of the writing of this review. It set a new standard for FPS excellence in level design, balance, color and art. Truly the best early first-person shooter to be released.

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.

The Good
First off, let me say that I played Jedi Knight BEFORE I even looked at Dark Forces. But even after playing the sequel, I still enjoy playing the original.

The gameplay is quite simple. You play the role of Kyle Katarn, a mercenary-for-hire agent employed by the Rebel Alliance. Your first mission is the theft of the Death Star schematics (Kyle says in the game "Much too easy", and even of the difficult settings, the first mission is indeed a cakewalk). After this mission you embark on a series of missions revolving around a new breed of weapon that the Empire is developing called the "Dark Trooper". So you play through detailed levels trying to find out what is happening.

The graphics are very good considered the year it was released. The blasters look real, and the game has that Empire "Sterile" look to it, although that doesn't really work in the outdoor levels. The movement on my P233 is ultra-fluid, even with all the music, SFX's, and graphical detail cranked to full, so it is very immersing.

The sound is superb. Come on, it's Star Wars! John Williams infamous music is playing in the background, and sampling the sounds of the blaster shots give the game that "Star Wars" feel to it.

The control is good, especially the keyboard, when it setup for your tastes (more on that later)

The computer AI is okay, but fighting the Dark Troopers themselves can be very discouraging. They are tough on any level of difficulty.

The Bad
The control setup for the keyboard is extremely frustrating, mainly due to the fact that the setup is done OUTSIDE the game environment. For example, if you have the "Fire" key mapped to the "G" key, and you find that that isn't working well for you (let's face it: ANYONE who maps the "Fire" key to "G" has NEVER played a 1st person shooter before grin), you need to exit the game, run the setup program, change the key, save the settings, and restart the game. Come on LucasArts, even id could do on-the-fly keyboard mapping, and that was in Wolfenstein 3D.

The cutscenes were animated (much like the cutscenes in X-Wing). I find they were poorly animated, and the voice-over were sub-par. The voice-overs in-game were much better.


The Bottom Line
Despite all its drawbacks, You have to give LucasArts credit for its accomplishment on its very first 3D shooter. They managed to make a convincing environment to play make-believe in, even though it is rough around the edges. A great game all-around.