Dark Forces is still the best Star Wars shooter

[Darth Roxor]

in today's episode of rpgcodex nuggets of wisdom, we learn that the concussion rifle is weaker than the blaster

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

in today's episode of rpgcodex nuggets of wisdom, we learn that the concussion rifle is weaker than the blaster

This is the one exception i thought about mentioning it, but still you don't get it until later on, and having two weapons that does not suck instead of just one is not going to make the gameplay much better. 95% of the time i'm just using the starting blaster, better than the others ones and almost never runs out of ammo since stormtroopers drop them.

 

[Dr1f7]

...because the game does not grovelling revolve around Luke, Han, Leia, or unlikely cameo appearances by minor characters, or any of that shit. It's protagonist is not a Jedi, has no special powers beyond their blaster rifle.

i never understand this line of thought.. what makes star wars star wars is jedi and lightsabers and force shit. without those, it may as well be any other sci fi series.

 

[Dr1f7]

While I like Dark Forces OK, it's still ultimately a lesser DOOM, whereas Jedi Knight is its own thing, and is excellent to boot.

and this is the result of what i said above, if your star wars game doesn't have star wars in it, you might as well just play the better game: doom or quake or wolfenstein or whatever

 

[Louis_Cypher]

What makes Star Wars Star Wars, is it's attitude. Just like with Tolkien. All the big geek franchises have an attitude or vision, putting aside whether we agree with them or not.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

i never understand this line of thought.. what makes star wars star wars is jedi and lightsabers and force shit. without those, it may as well be any other sci fi series.

The aesthetics of Star Wars are cool.

The JEDI vs Sith is okay, but they focus so much on it that it doesn't feel special or mythical as it was intended anymore, to the point that mundane people in the SW universe feels more mythical than the Jedis.

Besides, the Jedis in the original trilogy are okay but later on they became so overpowered that there is no tension anymore, like DBZ level of overpowered shit.

 

[Modron]

i never understand this line of thought.. what makes star wars star wars is jedi and lightsabers and force shit. without those, it may as well be any other sci fi series.

Somebody never played the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series.

 

[JamesDixon]

i never understand this line of thought.. what makes star wars star wars is jedi and lightsabers and force shit. without those, it may as well be any other sci fi series.

Somebody never played the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series.

There hasn't been a Star Wars flight sim that beats it to date. SWG Jump to Lightspeed was close, but that abomination EA put out was the worst.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Alas, I really wanted to enjoy playing it—it really deserves it, but the engine suffers the same flaw (for me at least) as Rainbow Six, RotT:Darkwar , Quake2, and BF1942; namely some nasty simulator sickness resulting headaches that can last for hours. I simply cannot play them for more than a few minutes before it begins.

 

[Dr1f7]

alright you guys make a good point i guess i was wrong

 

[Rincewind]

Alas, I really wanted to enjoy playing it—it really deserves it, but the engine suffers the same flaw (for me at least) as Rainbow Six, RotT:Darkwar , Quake2, and BF1942; namely some nasty simulator sickness resulting headaches that can last for hours. I simply cannot play them for more than a few minutes before it begins.

Story of my life man when it comes to first-person games. I'm okay with walking sims and stuff like Morrowind when I'm mostly only walking. Converging lines are a nightmare, though, and widescreen monitors make that a lot worse (e.g. Half Life is quite okay on a 4:3 CRT but horrible on a 16:9 screen for me).

Try running these games in windowed mode so 10-20% of your desktop is visible, plus make sure the wall behind your monitor is lit. That tends to help if I really *must* play some faster 3D game. I think the desktop being visible with icons and shit sends your brain a signal that "this is not real, don't throw up".

You can also try artificially limiting the FPS to 20 or 30. Fluid-looking 60+ FPS makes the problem a *lot* worse for me, whereas 30 FPS or less again sends the signal that "this is not real"... which is what we want.

And don't even get me started about that fad in movies with shaky cameras... Uh...

 

[ind33d]

DF2 made 1 irrelevant

 

[yellowcake]

I gave DF Engine a spin last night and I had a blast, so to speak. The engine is fantastic and graphic great, everything works including glorious IMUSE MIDI music. Probably first time I had hardware MIDI music playing on my X-Fi HD since I got it ten years ago. They should have made this kind of engine wrapper for TIE Fighter too instead of porting it to Alliance engine.

 

[Atlantico]

I gave DF Engine a spin last night and I had a blast, so to speak. The engine is fantastic and graphic great, everything works including glorious IMUSE MIDI music. Probably first time I had hardware MIDI music playing on my X-Fi HD since I got it ten years ago. They should have made this kind of engine wrapper for TIE Fighter too instead of porting it to Alliance engine.

They also should have revamped X-Wing because TIE Fighter is perfectly fine and wonderful to play in the DOS/Mac Collectors' Edition.

X-Wing is the seriously dated one (but still charming and playable)

These games need and must have iMuse and the Alliance engine is cringe.

 

[Nikanuur]

While I like Dark Forces OK, it's still ultimately a lesser DOOM, whereas Jedi Knight is its own thing, and is excellent to boot.

I agree to a degree but I still love both greatly, and I wouldn't choose one over another. Simply put, KK is above any competition:

 

[NecroLord]

Lmao, another galaxy brain referring to Dark Forces as a "Doom clone".
Meanwhile it has huge levels, jumping, crouching, alternate fire modes, an arcade-like Lives System, voice acting, cinematics.

 

[Nikanuur]

...because the game does not grovelling revolve around Luke, Han, Leia, or unlikely cameo appearances by minor characters, or any of that shit. It's protagonist is not a Jedi, has no special powers beyond their blaster rifle. Today Disney/Hollywood execs, on top of their many other sins, are convinced that you need 'familiar faces' in games. The Star Wars galaxy is massive and the likelihood of running into movie characters is negligible, meaning implausible cameos shrink the breadth of the setting. This constant fixation on what someone like Han was doing between movies is really constricting. Dark Forces instead created a new hero. It created a feeling of isolation and self-reliance, with a brand new character, Kyle Katarn.

I played through the entire series again just recently (Dark Forces I + II, Jedi Outcast & Academy).

One thing that many people tend to forget is how atrociously bad the actual FPS gameplay is in Outcast & Academy.
It's impossible to hit freaking anything, the crosshair has no bearing on where a shot would land. Instead the shot will go from the actual "exit" of your gun towards some point in the distance where the crosshair would be.
I consider myself good at FPS games, but I can't hit shit in the Jedi Knight games.
Absolutely awkward and the forums are full of people who began doubting their own sanity and thought they had lost all skill before realizing that others also can't hit shit in those games.
Of course, once you get the lightsaber, you almost never go back to shooting (except some sniping). And that lightsaber combat is still the best there is - which is a fucking shame because it's not actually THAT good.

But Dark Forces I and II are just amazing.
They also show that auto aim is not necessarily a bad thing, which is an interesting realization in this day and age - at least it was for me.
I didn't miss the precision, except for some fringe cases where auto aim clearly wasn't up to the task.
And the games are pretty hard even with auto aim.

As much as I like shitting on Disney, though, I do understand why Kyle Katarn is not canon.
The dude is completely OP.

I will end this saying:
Pew! Pew!

In Dark Forces, you are supposed to emulate the movies' shootouts: stand in cover, step in, shoot in the general direction of the enemy, and step back to the cover using the strafe key.
In the cover, you re-caliber the center of your monitor's screen to where you think the enemy will approximately be when you step in again (taking into consideration that the enemy moves also) and repeat the process.
On top of that, you can 'Doom' yourself in to a degree, equipped with shields, using grenades or hard-hitting weapons, etc. Honing your skills at hip-shot accuracy while sprinting or doing some other shenanigans helps greatly.

I should like to think that no other game has done a greater job portraying just this up to this day.

Also, the auto-aim works just perfectly. You just have to aim in the general direction, as hinted, fire, and at least one or several of shots WILL hit. The actual hit-to-miss ratio rises in direct proportion to your skill of centering the whole screen on the enemy, with certain added effects playing a role—such as the precision of weapons themselves. The blaster is much more precise, albeit underpowered, than repeaters, etc.

 

[NecroLord]

The blaster is much more precise, albeit underpowered, than repeaters, etc.

Have you even played the game?
The blaster is not very accurate at range, but the repeater has pinpoint accuracy, where you aim is where all the bolts go.