STAR WARS™ Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

Mouse controls absolutely shocking. No amount of tinkering can get this into anything remotely like playable

I've just finished JK (well, i cheated for the duels, ok..) but there seems to be a problem with the Mysteries expansion : virus detected in the installer....

I recently finished this game and I enjoyed every second of it. It takes time to get used to the controls and the fact that you have to unlock the secret areas to get Force powers. Since the game was released in 1997 there is no handholding and an online guide is recommended to help you unlock the secret areas unless you played this game before ( I also had to download a mod to make it run more smoothly on my gaming PC). But once you get good and learn how to play the game. You will enjoy + understand the game and the story arc of Kyle Katarn. If you want to know the full story of Kyle Katarn's journey to become the Chuck Norris of Star Wars. Start with Dark Forces or start here (Doesn't matter). Then move on to MOTS, JO up to JA. You could always read some Legends/EU novels later on if you want to. Such story writing and character development is hard to find these days.

Jedi Knight may not be the prettiest looking game in the series (even sprite-driven first installment is more beautiful), but this game is in some ways a step up from the original and one of the most unusual action games I've ever played. JK combines features of a Quake-like shooter (with its fast-paced crazy gunfight dynamics and open and twisted levels), slasher (our hero is an aspiring Jedi/Sith wielding a lightsaber, after all), and simple RPG (in depending on our attitude towards living beings in the game world, we enter the branch of the "light" or "dark" side of the force, acquiring the appropriate set of abilities; some plot twists and the ending itself also change). All this together looks unexpectedly harmonious, which, apparently, is no small accomplishment. This does not mean that there are no flaws: as I said, the graphics sometimes look ugly; the abilities of the "light" and "dark" sides of the Force are unbalanced in favor of Light; jumps (both regular and "Force-Jump") are a bit clunky; and sword fighting is very simple “click your opponent to death”. It's no easy to get to work on modern OS. But the game is addictive, both because of its unusual gameplay and because of the interesting plot about Kyle Katarn's search for himself. Perhaps Jerec (antagonist of JK) and his minions in FMVs are more goofy than menacing (despite being quite deadly in the actual gameplay). However, with time I more and more think of them as more of external forces (like whirlwind) that can push our hero to one or another choice, and so their (sometimes outright comic) presentation is not much important in that regard. In general JK shares one distinctive feature with the original trilogy – it feels like real adventure in which your hero slightly transforms from cynical and low-life mercenary-like type (like he was in the first Dark Forces) into someone different (for good or for bad - is left to the player). This game feels like it is more than sum of its parts.

This is still such a great game. I saw some other reviews saying it had been difficult to get working on newer systems, but it worked straight after installation for me on Windows 11.