Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II

The Good
The gameplay, while unrealistic, even beyond the star wars norm, (think quake 2 running speed), is very satisfying and fun, shooting stormtroopers and imperial officers never gets old. The AI is much better than other games of the time as well, although it doesn't really do much, it follows you around corners to attack you, but that's about it. The graphics have aged a lot since the game's release, but the art style is very Star Wars, which helps the game's atmosphere, although it is not good at portraying organic environments. The strongest point of the entire game, however, is the levels. The levels are truly massive in scope. In one level, you infiltrate an enormous imperial tower. In another level you run along the top of that same tower, dodging Tie-Bombers trying to bomb you (seriously), while looking for a way to escape. In yet another level, you have to explore a giant tanker ship, while it is falling to the bottom of a Canyon, with low gravity effects, malfunctioning machinery, and everything, to find your ship, and escape before the tanker hits the valley floor and explodes. In a word; Awesome. The boss fights are also very well done, with imaginative and inspired bosses, with some unexpected abilities. Finding out how to kill these bosses can be a pain though, as the difficulty is pretty high as well.

The Bad
The force powers. This was the first time force powers were introduced into a first-person perspective game, although they weren't introduced as well as I had hoped. I personally was hoping for a hotkey system, similar to Jedi Knight 2. Switching between powers one at a time is too cumbersome. The level design can get confusing, and finding out where to go can take a while, and having several types of items to find doesn't help, three types of keys, and wrenches etc.

The Bottom Line
A great Star Wars shooter with a great story (to game standards), fun Jedi combat, and epic level design.

The Good
It was nice being a jedi, for a bit. The lightsaber weapon is fun. Enemy AI is better than many early 3d shooters. Some of the mission goals were original. Unfortunatly, that's about all.

The Bad
So many things are bad in this game. Let's start with the voice acting-- there are occassional good clips, but the rest is flat and basically 'awful'. The acting in the cutscenes is so miserable, I can't really explain it; you have to see it to believe it.

The automap is a nightmare to use; it attempted to be something like Daggerfall's 3d automap, I think; it's hard to tell because when you can actually tell where you are, you have no idea which way is up or down, and why the rotate buttons make the map turn three-sixty in half a second.

The levels are ridiculously frustrating and their layout often makes no sense at all-- while most maps in plot-based first person shooters have semi-decent excuses for why you can't go anywhere but where you want to go, Jedi Knight dosen't even really try. There are just mysterious walls blocking you off all over.

Oh, I said plot... ouch. The plot is so terribly, painfuly horrible, I almost cried. It all begins because Our Hero is off to avenge his father! Yes, it's the ultimate cliché, but they didn't even bother to give it any original twists in this game. I never finished it, because I knew I would do something horrible to my computer that I'd badly regret if I heard the android-actor who plays Our Hero intone 'You killed my father!' in one of the cutscenes, but I have heard from friends who braved the game how it ended, and it's just as cliché as the rest of the game. I have read some Star Wars novels, and I know how horribly written, typo-plagued, and plot-deprived most of them are, but nothing prepared me for this plot.

The force powers are also terribly unbalanced. Some are utilities, like Force Jump, which are easy and neccessary. The others are useless and you never use them throughout your entire play time. And the others are overpowered and once you get them, you breeze through the next several levels.

Although nothing could really have raised this game's enjoyability to a 5/10 with me, I might have given it a 4 1/2 if only there had been something good to save it. But the one paragraph at the top of this review says it all. Nothing else is good in this game.

The Bottom Line
Jedi Knight is basically a shooter that gets it all wrong. I would not recommend buying this game even if you are a Star Wars fan. Dark Forces remains fun, if unoriginal, with a much better plot and much more replayability. I would recommend it or Jedi Knight II over this title any day.

The Good
This game had some excellent features. The graphics were excellent for their time, the level design was INCREDIBLE. The cutscenes portrayed what you needed them to very nicely and ran relatively stable on my machine.

The Bad
A few things weren't right about this game though, such as sometimes, the cursor would only show up every few seconds, forcing me to guess where I was by the sounds and click when I think I am there. The acting in the cutscenes was pretty good, but I didn't like the mix of live action and cg graphics, it just seems a bit too hokey for me. Those were the only gripes I had with this game.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game is an excellent example of what game developers can do with the first person shooter genre if they put their minds to it. It is incredibly well put together, the levels fit quite well with the game, and multiplayer is excellent, if not a bit laggy. The use of force powers was well done, and added a new level of exploration to the game. Despite its (few) problems, this game is beautiful, and is a must-have for any person who even considers himself a light computer gamer.