STAR WARS™ Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

Coming from Star Wars Dark Forces 1, this game offers both more quantity and quality. It even has live action cutscenes. I finished it using openjkdf2 which is like an engine remake, it works pretty well mostly, encountered little issues, nothing game breaking. This game is quite challenging and also entertaining, like Dark Forces 1 most weapons are not hitscan and the projectile speed is quite slow which means player can actually dodge bullets, with inclusion of light saber there is a chance incoming fire can be deflected back to the enemy just like in the movies. My issues with this game is the boss fights could be better, and last couple of chapters became a little too easy due to force powers like the totally OP force "Protection" which nagates most damages for a very reasonable amount of time. Overall this game is totally worth the money.

Dark forces 2: A lot of things about this are improved in Jedi outcast and Jedi Academy, so it's easy to forget how well it actually is done in this one. While it is not the first to feature a lightsaber and allow the player to swing it at will it is the first where you have a good amount of freedom to it. You choose which direction to swing. The blade can also deflect blaster fire. You get to choose Force powers. Early on you can have both light and dark side but in the long-term it does demand that you choose a side. Unlike Jedi Academy it's not about a one-off decision, it's a consistent pattern of behavior; if you want to be light side you have to play like that. You have to Protect the innocent. if you want to be dark side, you take them out. Both sides of the force have 5 unique powers each and all of them are useful and significantly change how you play. It's not a huge surprise that the lightside is defensive while the dark side is destructive. But they do a great job. I’ve played through this a bunch of times and enjoy light side and dark side equally for slightly different reasons. Mysteries of the Sith: in a number of ways this is very much like Jedi Academy I do think that one overall fares better. I've gone back and forth on how I feel about this one many many times so what I'll do is just try to neutrally report what this offers. Some parts feel more like light RPG than action; the huge levels that both of these feature are sometimes full of regular people going about their business in situations where you don't have to put yourself in danger by protecting them. In addition to core plot, this has individual adventures that all feel at home in the Star Wars universe. Because of this you get to enjoy some stories that absolutely would not support an entire full length game, but make for deeply engaging one offs. The weapons in this are among the best I've experienced in slightly over two dozen years of playing first person shooters

SW dark forces 2 and its expansion are one of those game that I find myself playing again after years : a simple but compelling story of the SW expanded universe with plenty of action both with guns and lightsaber. Yes, that's right! you'll use both the old weapons from DF 1 and this time you'll be a Jedi ( actually, you can even choose if being one at all) with lightsaber and force powers included (both dark and light side). Amazingly, this mix works surprisingly well and never force you to play a role you don't want to, with both force powers and guns being completely fun to use ( but not perfect : some force powers are dubious and two weapons have a strange hitbox). On top of that, level design is really surprising good yet intricate sometime , but always enjoyable and to the point. Plus, the cinematics are filmed with real actors that manage to keep you immersed in the story, although some parts are a little overacted ( Jerec is one of my favorite villains of all time ). It goes without question that this game must be played : even to this day, it has aged awesomely and can be enjoy by both Fans of SW franchise and gamers alike.

3 stars because I had to use my brain to make this game work with 3d. I'm an old tech I was around during 386's and DOS. This game won't work out of the box anymore on windows 10 except in really bad software mode which looks and runs like well.......... Think Tomb Raider 1 on early DOS without the glide patch. Anyway this game will work with full 3d if you use Dege's directx wrapper. That's DGvoodoo to the rest of the planet. You simply download the wrapper and unzip it to any folder. Then to use directx go into the MS folder inside the dgvoodoo folder you just unzipped and look for the x64 folder and copy the directx9 dsd9.dll into the main directory of the jedi knight gog folder. You are not done there. Next copy over the main exec file of dgvoodoo and all the files into the mian dir of jedi knight gog folder. Sounds complicated? No it works. Run the main DGvoodoo exe from the gog game folder and set the options to match your pc and hit apply. Be sure to edit the driectx tab inside the dgvoodoo app itself and leave it running. Next fire up the game and watch as it works with no black screen and full 3d. Do that right and it works or you can sit and cry about it being black screen mode either way it works now for me on windows 10.

It's amazing how well this game holds up. Both as a First Person Shooter and as a Star Wars game. The gameplay is fast and exciting, with a fairly good story to boot. Pick this one up as soon as you can.