Dark Forces - Full playthrough 2/2
1Dark Forces (1995)
Full playthrough on medium difficulty on PC.
The version from steam has been modified with The Force Engine (https://theforceengine.github.io/). With TFE, the game runs easily on modern day systems, but more than that, the graphics, controls and many more features have been vastly improved.
The 2nd part of the playthrough contains the following missions:
- Robotics Facility
- Nar Shaddaa
- Jabba's Ship
- Imperial City
- Fuel Station
- The Executor
- The Arc Hammer
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Dark Forces has been often called the Doom with Star Wars as it's a classical first person shooter released not long after Doom 1 (1993) and Doom 2 (1995). However description does not give enough credit to this games as it has enough features on top of the Doom games to stand as it's on milestone. You can look up and down, jump and crouch which was not possible in Doom. Instead of going from one level to the next game provides a detailed briefing for each mission, which often include puzzles, secret passages and special items.
The protagonist is Kyle Katarn and it's his first appearance in the Star Wars franchise. The next game in the series is called "Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight". After that, the Dark Forces title has been dropped and further titels in the series only carry the "Jedi" name.
The game's videos show well known Star Wars characters like Darth Vader, Mon Mothma, Jabba and more. In general is the game very close to the source material. Enemies, weapons, levels, characters and sounds are exactly as expected for a Star Wars title and provide instantly a great atmosphere.
I could find only 2 topics that could be considered problematic for today's gamers. First, the game has no save feature and unlocks the next mission upon beating the current one. It means, you have to finish the mission and not exceed the number of lives. However, this problem is resolved with The Force Engine as you can quick save the game. The second point is that most levels contain sections that feature puzzles and mazes-like structures. Finding a mission objective can be difficult for the first time. This was the way back in the day, but today's games tend to support the player much more with minimaps and markers on the HUD. To mitigate that, I suggest using the map (TAB). The map has different settings for rotating and zooming.
Overall, Dark Forces is one of the best retro games and one of the best Star Wars games for me. It combines an excellent first person shooter with perfect Star Wars atmosphere.
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