Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

"Worthy sequel with the good use of Star Wars license, a must have."

Alas, one game that all Star Wars fans have been waiting for. Where you get to use a light saber battle the evil forces in the Star Wars universe. Is this game up to its hype? It sure is. With Light saber battle, Force powers, and multiplayer option, no wonder this game is a classic already.

The story continues you as Kyle Katarn as he embarks on a quest into his past and learns the mysterious ways of the Jedi. Your father has been murdered by Jerec the most powerful of seven Dark Jedi. Jerec wants to unlock the Force energy of thousands of past Jedi Knights held in a hidden Jedi burial ground. Your father died keeping the burial ground's location a secret from Jerec. As Kyle, you must stop Jerec's evil quest and avenge the death of your father. This task forces Katarn to decide his destiny. If he chooses the dark side, he will come into enormous power. If he chooses the light side, he faces seemingly insurmountable evil. Whatever path Katarn chooses will change the face of the galaxy forever.

Lucasarts has outdone themselves again. Jedi Knight graphics is superb. Although, Jedi Knight played on my system weren't that good. But looking at the 3Dfx screenshots Lucasarts has on the site, I was convinced this game graphics could go all the way. Even though you don't have to have a good graphic card to play Jedi Knight, but you won't get the high resolution or the special effects you see in the screenshots. Even so, the graphics in this game that will probably be the best you ever seen in low resolution. With the new engine, blaster explosions are all light-sourced, and the other attention to detail is astonishing. Now enemies are not sprites and limbs can be chopped off by Light saber (if carefully aimed). If you leave Kyle not moving for a while, computer will control the camera and swirl around Kyle as he looks impatiently. He begins to shift from side-to-side, fidgeting with his weapon. When displaying the game using the third-person camera, you will see Kyle's back and his movements of opening a d oor, looking up and down, or swinging the light saber. There is a multiple resolution mode in the setup. This time, no more animated drawings, instead now are live actors/actresses for the cinematic. They might not be the best but good enough not to be count as reading the script. Bottom line, graphics are at best with 3D accelerator and decent with default setting.

The gameplay is something Jedi Knight has and some other shooters don't. After all, every Star Wars fan always want to be a Jedi Knight him/herself. With a few keys to memorize, players can jump right into solo play. Later on, there will be more keys to memorize and I find myself pressing the wrong Force keys. When you play Jedi Knight on easiest difficulty, it is still hard. Though there are fewer enemies to fight but the puzzles and some jumping techniques are hard for newbies. So save early and save often or you have to start from the beginning when you die. Two elements that make Jedi Knight a big hit, One is Force ability and other is holding a Light saber in your hand. AI's are a bit smarter than ones in Dark Forces are but some still run around and do nothing at all. Many fans were disappointed by Dark Forces because they forgot to include Light saber as a weapon. Another mistake they fixed is multiplayer games. Dark Forces left that out too. Now they fixed that mistake by throwing more than we wanted. You can change the Light saber color, your character model, and your Force power. They also put Capture the Flag in multiplayer option. The only multiplayer support is Internet Gaming Zone (and Kali).

The sound effects are movie like quality. There is also option allow owners of the Aureal 3D sound card to enable better sound effects. The player can also select the number of digital channels that the game will use, and the selections are 8, 16 and 24. The more channels you choose, the more sound effects can be played at once but I must warn you don't over do it when you only have Sound Blaster 16. In sum, player can balance the sound system the way they wanted or they can have. Music also played an important role in Jedi Knight, with John Williams' score played throughout the game, feels like you are in the game. Sometimes when I entered certain part of level and ''Imperial March'' song starts to play, this tells me something deadly is ahead. There are 7 tracks can be played on a CD Player, start from track 2.

Overall, when Jedi Knight first come out, it already is a classic. With Light saber fight over multiplayer with your friends, something all Star Wars fan dream of. If you haven't play this game, better go get it now. The Force is with this one.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/31/00, Updated 08/07/01