STAR WARS™ Dark Forces (Classic, 1995)

I originally bought this game when it first came out, way back in 95. And now, it is reborn for the windows age, and I must say, it is all that I remembered and more. True, I'm having to dust off the cobwebs of my memory, but I have played 6 missions already and things are coming back to me. If you like first person shooters with a good dash of puzzle-solving, and you have never played this game before, I would say you'll like Dark Forces. NOTE - it took a bit of tweaking to get this game to work on my system, a Windows 10 laptop, but I was able to find my problem on the website support page and did not have to contact Support.

Dark Forces is a no-holds-barred epic Star Wars action game. It was created by Lucasarts circa 1995, at the highth of the company's incredible success with point-and-click adventure games such as Monkey Island, Sam & Max and favorable cash-ins on popular franchises such as Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, making Dark Forces an action game made by excellent story-tellers. Each mission begins with an immersive briefing that sheds light on not only the planet on which your mission takes place, but your reasons for being there and explanations for why you'll have to take certain paths and combat certain obstacles, all the while giving you a nuanced glimpse into the loyal and light-hearted working relationship between mission handler Jan Ors and player character Kyle Katarn. Level design and mission structure is very narratively based. You'll be navigating maps with a clear and realistic sense of archetecture, from bombed out cities, to sewage systems to Imperial strongholds, every corner has a story to tell. The game technically boasts large advancements for the FPS genre, being the first game to render multiple layers of world space, allowing areas and locals to be much larger and multi-floored then its competitors. Dark Forces may not be as long or as challenging as other games of its era, but it is an excellent Star Wars entry, and acts as foundation for the Jedi Knight series, which builds upon every idea started in this title. It may not feature a lightsaber, but it also doesn't blow up the entire cast with the death star in the last 10 minutes, nor does it put an over-emphasous on the narratively-uninteresting plot of stealing the plans to the death star. What other writers might tell in two and a half hours, this game conveys in 20 minutes with a fully original story containing new, longlasting characters and exciting developements afterwords. Definitely a fun time for any Star Wars fan.

This game holds up very well today in terms of design. The core of the game is you are a former Imperial who has joined the Rebellion and is going on missions for them, with the basic structure of each level being complete objectives and escape the level via ship (generally). The objectives are what really stand out for a game of the time when compared to something like DOOM where the only objective in each level was to find secrets and push a button at the end. The objectives make the missions feel interesting and lets them tell their own story. There is no save feature and the only way to advance is to clear the level in the alloted lives (usually 3 with 1 hidden in the level). It provides a strong challenge on medium but it's by no measure impossible. If you're looking for an old school FPS with a strong Star Wars theme you really can't do better than this. Plus it was nice to do such amazing things without the help of the Force (though later games do make the lead character a Jedi). Kyle the former Imeprial turned Rebel is a cool character.

I love this game. Nice miusic, early doom graphic. And also not so good map designes. After 3rd level realy easy to lost. Anyways must play for any retro gamer and Star Wars fan.

I know some people who refer to this as “that one in the series that doesn't let you use a lightsaber”. And this is of course an entirely accurate assessment. With that said it is still worth going back to. In fact by the time I finally got a chance to play it I had played the three sequels and Mysteries of the Sith. You'll enjoy this once you accept the fact that it doesn't in fact not let you use a lightsaber or Force Powers, and place it in its correct context. This was a time where there were a wealth of first person shooters, a lot of them reveled in being offensive, really violent, provocative in subject matter and such. We got a lot of great games out of this trend. This one does not try to do that same thing; rather it is a bit of Star Wars Expanded Universe, taking a character who I understand was already appearing in other media, letting you play as him and allowing you to take on waves of Stormtroopers. It's very natural that this subgenre started with allowing the player to gun down 1940s Nazis and later we got this game where you take on space Nazis. The story is quite good, I found myself determined to experience the entirety of it despite knowing significant chunks of it already. The shooting itself is quite satisfying and you get to use guns from the Star Wars universe. At this point Kyle Katarn is very much Han Solo; he becomes a mix of that and Luke Skywalker in the sequels. This is of course very effective for appealing to fans and also casuals, since it's undeniable Han Solo is a lovable rogue. This is far from the first Star Wars game or even the first really beloved one but one can't claim that all of them got four main entries and one expansion pack. The puzzles are pretty good. Level of challenge is reasonable. There’re parts that really put you through the ringer but it's not obnoxious and frustrating. This truly does feel like you're in the Star Wars universe. Not as much as the sequels but considering technical limitations? Impressive.