Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II

The Good
The Star Wars setting with full 3D FPS gameplay. Very fun, and it makes good use of the lightsaber as a melee weapon, which makes it more favorable than melee weapons in 'other' games, like a shovel and wrench in System Shock 2 and Quake. The storyline is excellent, and made me think of how much potential more games like this have but unfortunately, the latest SW games have been horrible, with the exception of Pod Racer. All other weapons, locations, enemies, etc can be compared to the movies, too. Anyway, if you see it cheap buy it; you can't call yourself a PC Gamer without it.

The Bad
Nothing, I love this game.

The Bottom Line
Star Wars third person/FPS action goodness.

The Good
I was immediately impressed with Jedi Knight when the opening cut-scene led directly into the first level. Each level flowed into the next one and while the surrounding story was a little weak, I really enjoyed the intermeshing personal story set against the larger Doomsday scenario.

This game inspired a sense of wonder. Have you ever played a game and just stopped to look around? The levels are immense, complicated, and utilize John Williams' triumphant score. One of the best levels involves attempting to get to an escape pod as the ship you're in plummets downward.

Most of the same enemies are back from the original game- Stormtroopers, Gamorrean Guards, etc. There is also a cadre of evil Jedi which leads to impressive lightsaber duels. Fighting of foes with the lightsaber is incredibly satisfying and one of the best touches comes from deflecting laser blasts. At first you can only deflect a few shots, but eventually you can kill enemies with their own weapons.

Finally, this game was very challenging. Taking on a pack of Stormtroopers is easy, but an AT-ST? Two evil Jedi at once? Dodging a Tie Bomber? Thank you for including in-game saves!

The Bad
Graphics: Graphically this game was far ahead of its predecessor, textures and settings were great. I didn't really care for the character models though. The polygon structures used made the characters seem too distorted. This is mostly a quibble though, Blood which came out the same year had far worse graphics.

Force Powers: Okay, Force Powers work well in the game and look really cool, but I felt that the power-up system linked to finding secret areas diminished the Force. I mean Yoda never said, "Powerful Jedi Vader is. Found, he has, many secrets."

The Story: The awesome looking cut-scenes make up for the bad acting, but the story is pretty weak. I think a more dynamic implementation of the choice between Dark and Light would have improved the game. The branching storyline (more of a fork in the road) has little significance as far as gameplay.

The Bottom Line
Has a great personality and is fun at parties.

The Good
A seriously done FPS with a lot of things both SW and FPS fans would have expected to see after the renowned Dark Forces. The music included is in audio cd quality and feels like a classical Star Wars stuff all the way, from wandering planets and imperial bases to bar themes. Furthermore, since it actually is recorded as audio cd, you can listen to the soundtrack on your hi-fi. Sort of to be expected after Outlaws. The game spans across two discs, and features real actors and quite a nice sum of FMVs. Acting is really good (well, nothing more or less than you would expect from a Star Wars universe) and the whole bunch of cinematics serve great purpose to lead on the story... which, this time branches and is able to get you two different endings. As known from the prequel, Kyle was a mercenary who sided with the Rebels after finding out the truth behind his father's death. In this game, his character takes a whole new step forward and as much as you start with a regular blast 'em all tactic, you reach a point of getting a lightsaber and eventually becoming a Jedi Knight (hence the title, duh). Aforementioned story branch refers to whether you'll follow the path of light or darkness. Hint in being able to make the dark side prevail is not to upgrade your powers as you get them, but to leave some updates for when the dark powers will become available. This game is a decent sequel and propels a fine story that would probably beat all those movies if this game was ever made into one.

The Bad
Being the first SW title to have lightsaber battles is commendable, but they are all too crappy to enjoy them. They are sometimes too hard and don't feel like anything worth the title of a "Jedi".

It takes about five or six long levels until you get to see your first Stormtrooper. I must say I was looking forward seeing one ever since the game's start, and started to believe LucasArts forgot to add them at all. Of course, afterwards you can't get enough of them, but it was annoying to leave you without a hint of them appearing. And since there was Darth Vader in a prequel, would be cool to see him in this game as well, especially since neither prequel nor sequel features live actors anymore. This game has a historical value and could be considered even greater classic than Dark Forces, but it can become annoying at the moments.

The Bottom Line
With lots of levels and a fine replayability rate, this game guarantees you the first truest experience as a Jedi that no other Star Wars title to date offered. Furthermore, it's more than just fine asset to the trilogy of this First-Person Shooter and will fall no behind the feeling of going through a Star Wars movie. A FPS games are not to be dealt with the story via ingame cutscenes, they are to be what th name implies, shooters, and the story is best followed via long array of cutscenes in between the missions.