Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

For as ambitious as the original Star Wars: Dark Forces was, its sequel Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight went even further in pushing Star Wars as a franchise and the FPS genre as a whole by splicing elements of RPGs and exploring the possibilities that a true 3D space brings to the FPS.

Though it lacked the speed and elegance of id Software’s Quake, Jedi Knight came closer to realizing the original RPG-influenced vision of id’s masterpiece while remaining faithful to the first Dark Forces. The inclusion of RPG elements, force abilities, level-altering physics, expansive exteriors in 3D, NPCs, and advanced melee combat, made Jedi Knight stand out from other FPS games of the time. The variety of levels and combat choices still makes it an exciting, fun game to play. The speed and flexibility of combat is something missing from games today. Switching between lightsaber and blaster, while force pulling enemies’ weapons away remains incredibly satisfying.

The level and scenario design had a lot of influence on the genre. One level finds the player exploring a dim house with scripted events occurring around the corner, while another tasks the player with escaping a space shuttle falling out of orbit with large crates sliding across rooms and physics rendering walls climbable. LucasArts pushed its SITH engine to its limits, sometimes to a fault.

It’s a shame then that the cryptic level design — a flaw shared among all entries in the series to varying extents — sours the experience. Even with diligent and thorough exploration, it can often be a frustrating task to navigate through these levels. It often made me want to put the game down and never come back. This feeling was felt tenfold in the opening sections that don’t supply the player with enough ammo to make it through, especially on hard. This is made worse due to the blaster rifle’s random spread that doesn’t allow for skill shots (a mouselook option is included but clearly the game was made with auto-aim in mind).
The lightsaber combat is fun when you are mowing down stormtroopers, but it becomes a joke against bosses where there is little strategy to apply: you just circle around, swing and repeat. The force powers, which vary depending if you choose a light or dark path, are fun but eventually become game-breaking. In later sections, I’d use Force Protection, which made me invincible for the majority of a level. Given how excruciatingly difficult the game is on hard, I felt I deserved it and would apply every cheap trick available.

Jedi Knight put story at the forefront featuring impressive CG for the time and campy FMV scenes. Due to fan complaints of the original, Katarn is retconned as a force-sensitive jedi in the making. The player can steer toward the light or dark path by killing NPCs (merchants and robots that populate levels). It’s not the most robust skill tree or player choices, but Deus Ex and games of its ilk were years away at the time. The flaws of Jedi Knight‘s level design keep it from reaching the timelessness of the original, but it’s a great deal of fun when it isn’t deterring the player with cheap deaths or confusing layouts.

In the first Dark Forces, mercenary and former Imperial Officer, Kyle Katarn was tasked with several infiltration missions to uncover intelligence on a new type of Stormtrooper; the 'Dark Trooper'. Dark Forces 2 follows on and progresses Kyle Katarn's story. Katarn's father has been murdered by a Dark Jedi over the location of 'The Valley of the Jedi' and so Katarn sets off to locate the Valley and find his father's killers.

In the game's 21 missions, Kyle Katarn takes on numerous types of enemies including Stormtroopers, Imperial Commandos, Imperial Officers, Probe Droids, Trandoshans, Gamorreans, Grans. The main levels are similar to that in Dark Forces where you travel around the environment, flicking switches and gunning down your foes. There are also dedicated light-sabre duels which will only last a few minutes but act as boss battles.

You move around using WASD on the keyboard, hold shift to sprint, Z and X to jump and crouch, and space-bar to interact with switches. Number-keys switch weapons and equip items. Force powers have been introduced as Kyle Katarn discovers his Jedi abilities. Q/E scrolls through these and F uses them.

The original game suffered from many problems in its design. The improvements here are drastic, although it's still not perfect. The main advantages are driven by the vastly improved graphics. Textures are much better and sharper, meaning switches are much easier to distinguish from walls, although some are still easily missed. This is the case for doors too, especially when it's a completely different style door to what you are used to (e.g. looks more like a sloped wall). The amount of backtracking has been cut down which means you won't get lost as much, and the game's objectives are more linear, rather than making you trek all the way back to your ship.

New problems have arisen due to the new features. You are given the option to assign attribute points to available force powers that are unlocked as you progress through the levels. However, the level design demands use of force powers, like using speed to travel over a bridge before it retracts, or using jump to reach new heights. It seems silly to give you the option of making the level impossible for you, but if you spend your points straight away, it shouldn't be a problem. There's also light-sabre battles and I still have no idea how the block function works. It seems automatic, but only occasionally works, so you just end up getting shot/chopped to pieces.

The guns are still fairly inaccurate but the enemies have no problem ripping you apart. Health packs and shields are frustratingly infrequent and the game loves to put you in situations where you have to take a hit. So travelling down a lift to find a Stormtrooper at point-blank range who can shoot first. If you don't have enough health to survive the bullet, then you are doomed.

There's plenty of switches, platform jumps to add to your frustrations, but it isn't as bad as the previous game. Still, it's supposed to be a first-person shooter, so I'd rather these be kept to a minimum.

In darkened areas you need to activate your night vision goggles which is a nice touch, although can be frustrating when you run out of batteries. Still, there's is a force sight power, although fumbling through your list of powers in the heat of battle isn't exactly fun.

You can save at any point which you need to do given that there's danger round every corner. If it isn't enemies that are causing a problem, it's the environment. Floors and atmosphere can hurt you even if it doesn't look dangerous; you just have to keep your eye out on your health. Using force powers can hurt you to. Force jump without landing on something higher will incur fall damage, jumping and hitting your head on the roof also hurts you, although that one does make sense.

I found Dark Forces 2 to be a frustrating experience. Everything about it is an improvement on the original, but it's still damn annoying. It still seems to be regarded as cult classic, but for me, it's not a great game.