Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II

The Good
The game in itself deserved all the awards granted to it when it was released.

The Graphics - although 3 years old - are impressive and give you the sense of being on Nar Shaddaa or any other Star Wars Locale. Nicely rendered backgrounds and explosions help the game along.

John Williams. The name alone means that LucasArts was smart enough to put REAL soundtracks from the movies into the game, and not just MIDI recreations of them. The weapons fire, the whine of Tie Bombers and Crunching sound of AT-ST's walking around give the game that much more "authentic" atmosphere than most 3D-shooters.

The gameplay is excellent compared to Doom, Quake and other "Pre Half-life" shooters out there. Consequences were suffered if you shot innocents, mostly in the fact you would grow toward the Dark Side of the Force.

The Bad
The Control is weird. Even though the game is completely customizable, I like a game that is easy to get into, and doesn't take a day of learning where each button is that controls something. Jedi Knight has TOO many options and clunky INITIAL keyboard layout.

The AI at times is either really stupid, or so good you can't beat it. The Stupid is mostly against cannon fodder like Stormtroopers and Tusken raiders, while when you are in the variuos lightsaber duels, it is very difficult to play the game. First of all the AI is hard, but most importantly, you automatically switch to a 3rd person Tomb-Raider like view for Lightsaber duels. And for me that is very hard to play in.

The Bottom Line
An excellent 3D shooter for SW fans, and for non Fans alike. Just be prepared for some long Lightsaber duels.

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.

The Good
Where are all the FPS gamers, giving credit where credit is due? Jedi Knight was THE First Person Shooter to own at the time, Star Wars fan or not. It excels, like Dark Forces, in level design, though the 3D engine here allowed for a definite increase in geometrical detail. Vast environments also helped achieve that epic Star Wars quality. The battles were exciting, in no small part thanks to most weapons being beam based (we're talking Slow beams, as in cinematic ones), so you could dodge and leap to avoid fire, and had to lead your targets, as opposed to just laying the cursor over them and squeezing. Great music, as always.

The Bad
They took the wrong path by deciding to film the story, instead of portraying it with animation or story book style. It doesn't sit well with the graphical style of the game, and also suffers from mediocre acting and not good enough integration of video and computer graphics. The script was also quite boring. So, don't play it for the story.

its also a pity they allowed for saving everywhere, and designed the levels in light of that decision. As a result, instead of the concentrated, tense challenges that were the Dark Forces levels, which were designed to be playable without saving, we got levels designed on the quicksave/quickload principle.

The Bottom Line
I don't know how it stands up today, but it was a blast to play in 1997, even for a jaded FPS player