Journey To Become a Jedi Knight - Dark Forces 2

My journey to knighthood is rolling along at a pretty good clip. Taking down Mohc in Dark Forces was a fine test of skill, but now it's time I step up to the big leagues and enter the Jedi world. I'm talking lightsaber battles, I'm talking force powers, I'm talking light and dark side morality, I'm talking about Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2.

            The story of Dark Forces 2 is on a much grander scale than the previous game. Set one year after Return of the Jedi, the game opens with Jedi master Qu Rahn being held captive by the Dark Jedi Jerec and his other fallen Jedi pals. Jerec forces Rahn to tell him the location of the Valley of the Jedi as to harness the massive power it held. Ultimately Jerec used the force to rip the info from Rahn before killing him. Turns out Rahn didn't know the coordinates, but his pal Morgan Katarn knew exactly where it was.

            Meanwhile our good friend Kyle Katarn was tracking down a bounty hunter droid that held a data disk from Kyle's father Morgan. Kyle eventually got the disk and returned to his family home where he used the disk to access a recording of his father that tasked him with protecting the Valley and gifted him Rahn's old lightsaber. Kyle then interacts with the force ghost of Qu Rahn and begins his path of the Jedi. This is where the game turns from what Dark Forces was to what the Jedi Knight series becomes.

            The first thing I noticed when I started playing is that LucasArts really went for it in terms of production value. Dark Forces 2 has an actual soundtrack that doesn't sound like tinny beeps that someone hammered out on a midi keyboard. The orchestrated soundtrack sounds like it was pulled from the movies and it does the game a ton of favors. It feels like you are playing a lost cut from the saga.

            Speaking of Dark Forces 2 feeling like the movies, this game has fantastic FMV cutscenes that add a layer of campy authenticity of the game. The main actors are able to sell their performances relatively well compared to most other titles I have seen using FMV. Most of the actors looked really great and had fantastic costume design.

             Dark Forces 2 is rendered in full 3D environments and uses 3D character models instead of the sprites used in the first game. LucasArts utilizes these environments to provide a world with a monstrous sense scale. As a result, the level designs have been changed to be quite a bit more linear than the past installment. While that may initially sound like a negative statement, it is not. The previous title had incredibly complex designed and vague in instruction levels that bordered on maddening. Dark Forces 2 streamlines this to avoid the little moments that give you fits of blind rage. All of this is done wonderfully and makes this sequel feel like a gigantic leap forward.

             Whereas the previous title felt like a modified Doom clone, Dark Forces 2 feels much more akin to something like Quake 2. The way the controls are mapped make it feel like a more competent FPS. Now it is no longer a hassle to aim up and down as those options are mapped to the mouse by default instead of to the PGUP and PGDN buttons. this gives you much more control as to where you can fire your weapon and platform to. In the previous game I had a hard to spotting out areas that required me to drop down to a ledge because the up and down controls were difficult.

            This being a game that delves much deeper into the Jedi side of the Star Wars franchise there are mechanics making use of Force powers, and of course, light and dark side morality. The Force powers add a new aspect to the game that allows you more freedom to your approach and you gain different ones depending on your morality. I played light side seeing as how I am a Jedi in training and the powers I mostly used were Force jump and speed for traversing areas, Force pull to yank weapons away, and Force healing, a light side ability, to regain my HP.

            Naturally a game focusing this heavily on the Jedi would have lightsabers as a weapon and Dark Forces 2 handles them decently. The lightsaber will naturally deflect most blaster fire coming in head on, which can allow you to rush enemies for a one shot take down. However, the lightsaber battles against the dark Jedi in this game were pretty difficult. I could never find a good rhythm to settle in and it always ended up with me jumping in running in circles slashing like crazy.

            Dark Forces was absolutely everything I wanted from the series. The moment to moment action was incredibly fun and the story with Jerec and his pals was very interesting. The force was certainly strong with me as I was tested through the rough lightsaber battles(Especially against Jerec); even worse was my battle with steam trying to get the game to run. However, the will of the force shined through and let me experience what Dark Forces 2 had to deliver and it was amazing. I'm looking forward to my next step of my path to Jedi Knighthood.

Check out my experience with Dark Forces here

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