Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

"I shoot people with lightning."

I waited years to get this game. Between circumstances and money, the opportunity to purchase it never came until late 2001/early 2002. Before that, I satisfied myself with the demo. Well, after so long a wait to buy the full game, all I can say is that it was worth it... for the most part. Released in 1997 as the sequel to the hit Dark Forces, Jedi Knight had many improvements and innovations. Among these were multiplayer, a third person perspective from which to play (a first in the genre I believe), and most importantly, the ability to use a lightsaber and force powers.

Sadly, I've never finished the single-player campaign to this game, but the story itself is interesting enough to keep the average gamer playing. It somewhat helps if your a Star Wars fan, but it's not totally necessary. You are Kyle Katarn, a mercenary who has done some work in the past for the Rebellion (the first Dark Forces covers that story). In this game, Kyle is attempting to avenge his father who was killed by the Dark Jedi Jerec. Kyle's journey will take him on the path to Jedi Knighthood. Of course, what Jedi Knighthood is really up to the player. Do you want to be a Dark Jedi, and use the Force for evil, or take the path of the Light side, and use it for good? It's up to you.

The game play for the most part is very solid, and very rarely gets stale. You start off in the city of Nar Shadda, armed only with your trusty Bryar Pistol. This is probably by far, the most accurate weapon in the game. Along the way, you find 8 other weapons, including a Stormtrooper Rifle, a Repeater Gun, a Concussion Rifle, and, of course, your lightsaber.

The game has a lot of non-stop action, with a few puzzles thrown in. These puzzles have different solutions ranging from finding keys to flipping switches. Nothing really serious. Usually, you'll be blasting and slashing your way through hoards of Stormtroopers, Imperial Officers, and several types of aliens. This is a good thing, rest assured.

The difficultly can vary from time to time, depending on weather you get stuck on a puzzle. Three difficultly levels are provided, plus a few extra options that can be turned on or off at anytime. For those who can have trouble aiming at the far away targets, or just don't like to thing about things like that, the game provides an auto-aim feature. Turned off, the game gets a bit more difficult. The game also provides a crosshair. I will tell you now; this is probably, by far, the worst crosshair I've ever seen. It's so light it's almost useless much of the time. The third-person perspective is very important, as it's the view of choice for the lightsaber, and it makes those extra tricky jumps a little bit easier.

Obviously, using a lightsaber and your Force powers becomes a necessity at some point. As you might expect, these are probably two of the most entertaining aspects of the game, as they're kind of a break off of the usual BFG wannabe in most first-person shooters (though the game's Concussion Rifle does act well as one of those). With the lightsaber, you can perform a small variety of slashes (not as many as I would of liked, but enough) and deflect blaster bolts. Unless you're ready to shoot, have the lightsaber out, because a detachment of Stormtroopers will not wait for you to find a comfortable nook for you to pick them off with your Repeater Gun. Lightsabers are (presumably) the only way to harm a Dark Jedi, aside from possibly using Force powers.

The game's Force powers are very diverse. There's something there to suit everyone's tastes. From Force-enhanced jumping to running, healing to blinding, lightning to choking, there's something for everyone to love. Of course, at some point, there comes a choice, will you stay on the path of the Light side, or turn to the Dark side? This is pretty much decided by how you treat the civilians scattered throughout the game. If you run about killing them all on sight, you will definitely turn to the Dark side. If you avoid them (which sometimes can be difficult), you will become a Jed Knight.

Graphically speaking, the game is quite blocky by today's standards, but it still looks good if you max out its graphics. When it was made back in 1997, game's actually gave you the option of weather you wanted to use (or even could use) 3D acceleration. Of course, since 3D acceleration is more of less standard now on PCs, you may as well turn it on and get the best graphics you can get out of the game.

Between many levels in the game are cutsceans. These are not the cutsceans we tend to think of, where we are given small doses of wonderful graphics playing out the story. For Jedi Knight, they actually got actors to play the assorted parts in the game. Where actors would not work, such as in the case of the droid 8t88, the character is completely computer generated, with a voice actor supplying the voice.

As you might expect, the acting can be downright cheesy at times, but it gets the job done. Sadly, the computer generated characters, effects, and environments to not go well with the actors, and it gives of a decidedly fake look.

The game sounds exactly as it should sound. Blasters sound like blasters, lightsabers sound like lightsabers, and aliens mumble and yell things in their native language. Not much else to say. The music, likewise, sounds like it should, taking music directly from the movies from John Williams incredible soundtrack.

Replayability can be questionable, since some don't like the ''cheapness'' of the multiplayer. Force Blinding, Grip, and Throw are all considered cheap moves, and players who use them frequently will find themselves generally disliked (although I myself do use grip on occasion). The multiplayer has also fallen victim to hackers and ''coggers'' (.cog is a type of file used in Jedi Knight), so that can be another turn off. There are a few resource sites from which you can download many excellent mods and maps, several of which are used in multiplayer a lot, and thus, increase the replayability. Overall, many play just to have fun. The elitist feeling that I've gotten from other games does not seem to be as strong here, so the environment can be fairly newbie friendly.

Well, I didn't expect this to be this wordy. Overall, this game is definitely worth buying, since it's now a fairly common bargain bin item. For 10 bucks, it's a great deal, especially if you become attached to the multiplayer as I have.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/18/02, Updated 08/18/02