Star Wars: Dark Forces

"Eh. It's alright..but not exactly up to par."

-Graphics 6/10-

Yes, it's Star Wars, and yes, its a Doom-style game. But it doesn't live up to the splendor or the quality that would be expect from something that George Lucas would have envisioned.

The graphics from the start, are grainy, and the only real thing that you can see as far as projectiles are concerned, are the red flashes of light that signal a firing of your laser blaster at an enemy.

Even the enemies, those dastardly Stormtroopers, have little or no life to them..their legs move at an awkward angle, and they there are no lighting effects when they fire off their blasters, save for a flash of light. Not too impressive at all.

The backgrounds are what makes or breaks a visual score when it comes to a first person shooter. This time around, everything looks flat and without any real depth. There is alot of that going around with some of the first person shooters these days, and this one seemed to be the predecessor.

There is hardly any of the lighting effects within the game, and everything is darkness upon darkness, that makes it hard for you to see what's in the distance, unless you squint at the screen.

-Sound 6/10-

Star Wars sound and music...but this isn't the work of John Williams here. This is more of the emulated MIDI sound that most of us have come to recognize from the moment the musical score starts.

Even the sound effects of the game have a bland echo to them..no reverberation of the laser blaster, and the occasional yelling of a Stormtrooper for you to halt is about all that you'll get out of this.

There is much room for improvement as far as the sound track of this game is concerned. But, it's another one of those games where you can't turn the sound off...you have to hear, if you have a stereo hooked up, where you're getting shot from. There isn't a choice.

-Control 6/10-

Basic shooter control. One button cycles weapons, one jumps, and one fires off the weapons. Your shoulder buttons handle the strafing and the ducking, but little else needs to be done with the game control.

Some of the jumping takes timing, and the aiming takes practice. A couple of the weapons can be cumbersome and clumsy, trying to fire off laser shots at a moving target, when the shots don't quite come out straight.

This can get on your nerves real quick, trying to make a jump, fire at a bad guy, and then move when you hit the ground at running speed. Again, another one of those instances where alot of improvement could have been done to fix such small complaints.

-Gameplay 6/10-

It follows a certain Star Wars storyline envolving (insert the suspensful music here) the Dark Stormtroopers, agents of the empire that use a combination of technology and a small handle on the Force, to make their way through the system and crush what's in their path.

It's run and gun action, blowing away anything that looks remotely sinister that happens to be in your path. However, the gameplay quickly gets boring as you find that you've been going in a complete circle for an hour, and nowhere near your destination.

Some of the action in the game, comes from watching the interludes between stages...it's supposed to gear you up for the next level..maybe make you feel like you're making a difference in the game by playing it.

Well, that falls short.

As you play, you'll see little variation in the enemies that you face off again, and everything starts looking the same, save for the sewer level. That doesn't make for prolonged gaming, it makes for prolonged torture.

-Overall 6/10-

This game has a Star Wars label on it, but that doesn't mean it's all that great. It's got a half way decent story, but where the game is concerned, and in which you play, move, and interact, the game falls short in all of the catergories.

Graphics, as it is known, in any first person shooter, is an absolute must. IF the backgrounds, and the enemies you go against don't have anything to hold, visually, then you won't have much fun looking at it.

The sound, is another needed, valuable aspect of a video game of any type...if the music and the effects aren't there, then your interest will quickly dwindle off until you don't play anymore.

The control is touchy, and a bit glitchy, but you can get around it with an hour or so of playing the game...the game play is, unfortunately, repetitious, and rather boring after the first two hours of play.

This game is a rental only, unless you're a Star Wars fanatic, but even then, you may find that this game doesn't live up to what it's trying to sell. This was a disappointment of sorts, to have a Star Wars game that could have been really good, really suck.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/24/00, Updated 03/24/00