Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II

The Good
The original 'Dark Forces' was a superior 'Doom' clone, and although 'Jedi Knight' was too late to jump on the 'Quake' bandwagon it's still a superior first-person shooter (this time, with a multiplayer mode as well). At the time, people were ecstatic that you finally got to use a light sabre, and although it's not the most effective weapon in the game, it's great fun stalking around darkened corridors, slashing the attractively-rendered Stormtroopers and cutting the legs off scout walkers. It has lots of Lucasarts 'nice touches' - power droids that go 'gonk', a static AT-AT, and a clever force system that encourages you to hunt for secret areas, and although the graphics are now quite dated, the levels have a great sense of scale, and some seriously huge drops.

There's a decent selection of useful weapons, the various force abilities are great fun to use ('force grip', for example, allows you to choke your opponents), and you can choose to be a villain, too.

Almost best of all, the music is taken directly from the film score, and you can listen to it on its own.

The Bad
Nowadays the graphics are a bit blocky, but they run extremely quickly and at a high resolution. Levels one and two are extremely attractive, but the effect is spoiled by the organic level three, which has lots of blocky trees and doesn't work at all. The gameplay balance is generally good, but some of the boss creatures are unfairly hard. And without advanced warning, it's not at all obvious how to defeat the villain. That said, the only serious deficiency is a lack of character - our hero has a beard but is otherwise bland, whilst the villains are a dull bunch.

The Bottom Line
A superior first-person shooter that has aged gracefully, and has plenty of 'Star Wars' atmosphere.

The Good
Jedi Knight was more than eagerly anticipated by "Dark Forces" fans- I took the day off when it was released and ended up beating it in around 34 hours. The lightsaber action was new and very fun, and the levels were large and challenging. The true 3D engine was stable, and the introduction of FMV (done better than it was in "Rebel Assault II") was very cool.

The Bad
Unfortunately, Jedi Knight's art was sorely lacking I thought. Some of the levels are painfully bland, with repeating rock and concrete textures. The designers put in too much lighting as well, defeating the gritty, commando-style of the early levels and of "Dark Forces". Finally, though lightsaber combat was very cool, it was generally too rushed and frenzied to get any kind of cinematic experience out of it.

The Bottom Line
I actually didn't like this game as much as "Dark Forces". The bland levels really were the killer for me. I was hoping the sequel in the Dark Forces line would be "Stormtrooper" (kind of like "TIE Fighter" following "X-Wing"). But it's still a great action game with a good story, better than average full-motion video, and plenty of replay value online.

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.