STAR WARS™ Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

There is a patch that enables 3D acceleration for nVidia cards under Windows 10.

It's a great game, no doubt. But it's in a bad state. On Windows 10, it crashes every time I try to leave the in-game menu. I've had to play through the game using only quicksaving. Turning on hardware acceleration makes the screen go black. I had to get dgvoodoo to run it at higher resolutions. If you can get past that, it's a 5/5.

What to say, really ? This is the 90s. Story wise: Kyle, the protagonist, contracts chlamydia and ends up in the space clinic. Unable to pay his hospital bill, he suffers from a mid-life crisis and is forced to move back to his single father's home. There with the guidance of his P.E teacher's ghost Kyle picks up his old cheap knockoff lightsaber and uses it to engage in some intense RP sessions with the local 501st boys. Gameplay: early on Kyle can't do jack sh*t asides from jumping and shooting so if you're not in the habit of playing old school shooters expect to "git gud" and save scum a lot. Later, you get the limited edition Hasbro saber; which apparently stimulates your pituitary gland's midichlorian juices making it so you can instantly learn how to fire Ki blasts and use stem cell therapy to heal yourself. Guns are always viable, except in sword fights. Sword fights are bullshit and I love them. They can be solved by drunkenly side-straffing around and smacking your opponent's shins until they pass out from the pain. (It's a lot of fun.) Sound: Yup, it's OG Star Wars alright, great orchestral themes here. In terms of foley it's all fairly neat, Kyle apparently wears stilettos though judging by the sound he makes while running on tarmac. (Ohh and the sound those alien assh*les make when lobbing thermal detonators still gives me nightmares. Great stuff.) Compatibility: idk, it works ? It doesn't seem to like my graphics card that much. Conclusion: this is just like my opinion, man. P.S. Don't kill WeeGee. Unless you want the disembodied voice inside your head to leave you "on read" like your Ex does...

I love this game, and I am glad to have it in gog.com Sadly, the game does not support 3D for Windows 10 (unlike Windows 7) and it seems, that the previously included "Mysteries of the Sith Add-On" had been removed!? This is why I have do downvote it to 2/5.

Jedi Knight was very impressive when it first came out, a time when expanded universe novels and games were essentially the only Star Wars stuff out there besides the original movie trilogy. The plot is a little bare bones and a bunch of villains just appear with almost no backstory, but the live action cutscenes are still great, even if the acting is slightly off and the CGI elements are very obviously not part of the scene. The worst thing about JK is the in-game graphics, which have ugly, grainy textures and jagged polygons, similar to an early Playstation game. I highly recommend getting the Jedi Knight Remastered mod, easily installed via a simple exe, to bring the graphics up to a more bearable standard, closer to Jedi Knight 2. There are a few other flaws as well, such as cumbersome, hard-to-use and often ineffective Force powers, mines that immediately blow up in your face if you use their primary fire mode, and a heavy reliance on a lightsaber combat system that manages to be incredibly simple yet almost impossible to reliably attack or defend yourself with. But overall, it's a fun ride with great level design and deep immersion into the Star Wars universe. The Mysteries of the Sith expansion goes a little deeper into the expanded universe lore, has even more complex level design (sometimes a little too much, you'll be searching a few rooms for several minutes just to find where to go next), and a few new weapons and powers. It's essentially more of the same (minus the live action cutscenes), but exploring new planets and seeing even more cool Star Wars tech, a lot of which has continuity with other games such as TIE Fighter or Shadows of the Empire. The final levels are an unfairly difficult slog through endless lightsaber battles, but at least manage to be atmospheric, and cheat codes are easy to find if you just want to get through the game. If you use a graphics mod, this title holds up really well and is highly recommended.