Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

"JediKnight is the best FPS ever!"

This is THE ONE GAME that put LUCAS ARTS on the map. I purchased this game 6 months after it was released. The online-demo was just so good. The adventures of KYLE and his accomplice JAN continues smoothly(if not visually) from DARK FORCES. Very worthy of not only being a sequel to DARK FORCES. But being sequeled itself. MEGA ROCK'N! A very good time.

GRAPHICS 8/10
Both storm troopers and regular characters look truly 3D, with the exception of shoulder-joints. The cut-scenes were a little lack-luster including out-of-sync audio(lips). Not to bad for a game designed to be cutting-edge with the hardware available back in '97. However, using today's P3(INTEL) or XP(AMD) with a 32MB AGP video card and choosing that HI-RES graphics install option while upping the screen resolution to 1024x768 and turning on the 3D accelerator card option, back buffer to system memory, and increasing the cache to 256 will kick-butt over the default settings like you wouldn't believe and better some of today's game graphics.

AUDIO 10/10
HI-RES sound option- YES PLEASE!. John Williams original score from the movies. Cloud-city music. Entrancing. Unearthly. One phrase ''A3D positional audio''. Sounds of doors, elevators, water, explosions, laser rifles, blasters all sound like they are echoing in the same room with you. Off the walls, pulling you in. Don't drive playing the CD on a sunny day. You wont return home.

GAMEPLAY 9/10
Almost like sludge on a slow, plain 300mhz machine. Very responsive on a very fast machine. 256MB(DDR or better) of main memory helps. Joystick/mouse/keyboard - all good. Gamepad - forget it. No force-feedback:( If you use a large(17''-21'') monitor it will time-suck you! I play it when I get rusty at Q1, Q2, Q3- as a refresher.

LEVEL DESIGN 10/10
Don't even fight it. Sleep. Who needs sleep. Just when you start feeling board with the vertigo city, JAN picks you up to travel far away to another planet....How cool is that! New technology appears to transport you(although not our own). Mile tall buildings, open sky, green pastures, the L.A. sewer system, wooden(almost log) houses, secret weapons caches, ducts, blinking lights, grates to cutt-open with your LIGHTSABER!

MULTIPLAYER 8/10
Deathmatch, CTF. While it seems impossible to have it find a game for you automatically(there are now utilities like QTRACKER). Join a game from a website or host your own On a LAN or over the Internet.

Buy it for FUN, as a FPS, for a LAN party, or travel deeper yet into the Star Wars galaxy. Red and Blue Lightsabers!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/08/01, Updated 12/08/01