Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Star Wars: Dark Forces for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.
A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
660: Star Wars: Dark Forces
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Re: 660: Star Wars: Dark Forces
In today's climate of over-saturation of Star Wars content is hard to cast our minds back to the times when things like a prequel trilogy seemed out of the question. A book here or a Dark Horse Comic there were all we had to sustain ourselves on. The games, especially the PC games, were a shining beacon in those days. Here were new Star Wars and they were moving, interactive even! Along side the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games, Dark Forces ranked up there with the best and was my personal preference.
The sound of blasting stormtroopers, visuals and design of Imperial bases, even a hologram of the Death Star! All of this seems old-hat now and maybe done to death even. But at the time it was phenomenal in its sense of place, rooted right in there in the Star Wars universe. Add to that the theming of the missions. You weren't just flipping a switch, Kyle Katarn was disabling a shield generator. He wasn't just picking up a blue key, he needed the credentials of an Imperial officer. However I feel one of Dark Forces most outstanding features though is perhaps one of the game's biggest barriers to a replay.
At the time, the vast and labyrinthian levels were not only in keeping with the theme, but were unlike something many of us had seen in a game before. Now however, these truly maze-like areas often lead to more frustration than wonder. The feeling of not knowing where to go or what to do has lost a bit of its charm, especially combined with sometimes muddy and indistinct graphics. Despite playing through the game religiously, at least until Dark Forces II, in a recent play through a few years ago, I often found myself getting lost or turned around and started to realize that I was not having much fun anymore. It put me off replaying Jedi Knight, a game I loved even more and put much more time and effort into, developing mods and so on. I think I would like that one to remain a happy memory.
Nevertheless, I think Dark Forces was important, if nothing else than in its use of licensing, and continued the stream of great Star Wars games that seemed like it would never end. Like the Galactic Republic, we did not know how close that end was!
The sound of blasting stormtroopers, visuals and design of Imperial bases, even a hologram of the Death Star! All of this seems old-hat now and maybe done to death even. But at the time it was phenomenal in its sense of place, rooted right in there in the Star Wars universe. Add to that the theming of the missions. You weren't just flipping a switch, Kyle Katarn was disabling a shield generator. He wasn't just picking up a blue key, he needed the credentials of an Imperial officer. However I feel one of Dark Forces most outstanding features though is perhaps one of the game's biggest barriers to a replay.
At the time, the vast and labyrinthian levels were not only in keeping with the theme, but were unlike something many of us had seen in a game before. Now however, these truly maze-like areas often lead to more frustration than wonder. The feeling of not knowing where to go or what to do has lost a bit of its charm, especially combined with sometimes muddy and indistinct graphics. Despite playing through the game religiously, at least until Dark Forces II, in a recent play through a few years ago, I often found myself getting lost or turned around and started to realize that I was not having much fun anymore. It put me off replaying Jedi Knight, a game I loved even more and put much more time and effort into, developing mods and so on. I think I would like that one to remain a happy memory.
Nevertheless, I think Dark Forces was important, if nothing else than in its use of licensing, and continued the stream of great Star Wars games that seemed like it would never end. Like the Galactic Republic, we did not know how close that end was!