STAR WARS™ Dark Forces (Classic, 1995)

read the tin

Its a good game

This version of the game appears to be faulty. Either that or it doesnt work on computers like the one I have. for example some of the controls are faulty, In my case it was when I pressed F5 to turn night vision on, it wouldnt turn on. I had this same problem when I attempted to turn my light on in the game

I only played the demo for this game back in the 90s. So, as I play it now I am not looking back at it through the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. Nor am I going to give it a pass, just because it's Star Wars. When it comes to story and puzzles in FPS games, I am reminded of a John Carmack saying- "It's like the story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not as important." Came into this game expecting a pure FPS game. Boy was I wrong. Game has some extremely annoying puzzles that completely block your progress until you finally guess at the right thing to proceed. All the time I am wondering when the action is going to start again. Some of these puzzles are specifically designed to waste a lot of your time while you flail away, wondering when you're going to get to shoot something again. Oh, and you can only save the game between missions. So, there's no saving the game before trying to jump to some distant ledge. Dare to make a human mistake and you will suffer for it. There are times when there are way more enemies than there is ammo. There is no kill count at the end of the mission like in other FPS games, so I guess you're not meant to take out all enemies like in most FPS games. These are just some of the examples of bad game design decisions that went into the game. Of course, this game was made back in 1995 before they knew the internet was going to be as big as it is. Back then, many game devs purposely made games quite cryptic, hoping to sell clue books or hint books for extra cash. To this day, I am thankful the internet put an end to that.

It's fun, don't get me wrong. But it's not just Star Wars DOOM. The levels aren't the best, with many of them using very similar colors that make it confusing to walk around. There aren't many enemy types, and the types that exist just aren't super different from each other to be exciting. The AI is either very bad or extremely accurate with grenades as soon as you turn the corner. But my main gripe with this game comes from the difficulty. Easy is dead easy. Normal is still very easy, and you know you'll get through it. On Hard I had the most fun until the game started laying mines everywhere. No, really, everywhere. Mines in a row, mines around corners, mines where you're gonna land, mines behind boxes, mines under items, mines in secrets. For a fast-paced game like this...it really slows you down and is pretty infuriating. I ended up blazing through Normal and had an okay time. I don't think I would replay this game.