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Dark Forces 2 Good, Mysteries of Sith Bad

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: May 20, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The Dark Forces may be the best first-person action video game, but it gets Marred by MOS. It was too easy to kill myself in MOS simply by force jumping. I died a hundred times because there was something overhead when I jumped. Once I died because I jumped straight up, but took damage from the fall. Another time I was on this ledge and couldn't get back up--every time I jumped, I would bounce off the wall and die. When I went to several web sites to get help on how to get off that ledge, the best that I could find was 'it is tricky' to get off the ledge. After dying several hundred times I got bored and quit. I've never gone back.

Ok but the levels stink.And the weapons are very bad.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 10
Date: November 24, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I love the star wars games from x-wing to the phantom menace. I have them all. But there is one game that is not worth it,and that is jedi knight dark forces 2. The story is not exciting. (But it would make a good movie) This game should have been a movie. Not a game. The weapons are very bad. Very bad detailed weapons, bombs,explosions. The explosions suck! Very Very bad! Mysteries of the sith should have been the first part of the game, and jedi knight should have been the add-on. And multiplayer is ok not very good. This is what I don't like in multiplayer. Some players join and mess up the fun in it. Lucas arts allows hacks in games (or cogs) which is bad. The skins are not good and detailed. And thats what I think about this game. I do not like this game. Buy it and be disappionted.

dated

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: December 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game was good in it's time, but by today's standards is lacking in terms of graphics and gameplay. I would wish for a better mapping system that is easy to comprehend. The levels are mazes, and I got lost so often I had to use a cheat to complete most levels. The shooting was easy, while navigating the game map was hard. If not for the cheats, I would have found it unplayable. In addition, Mysteries of the Sith cutscenes would play at a speed too fast to see or hear. Perhaps my system is too modern for this ancient software.

I suppose for the diehard SW fan, any game is good, but if I want to see Mara Jade, I am better off with a book or comic. The MOT renditions of Mara left much to be desired graphically.

I wish that you were not stuck playing Kyle Katarn most of the time. He is just a minor character, and not very interesting.

ok

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: August 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

the games story line is great...exciting and full of action but the game has its pros and cons...first off the graphics pretty much suck...for the time it was made the graphics were awesome but now they are funny...second off the force powers get stupid sometimes...the AI sucks and its too easy to fool them by just using mind trick, its easier just to use mind trick over and over again to finish the levels. But like i said for the time it was made in...its a good game and fun to play but once again...the graphics...SUCK

Good, typical "Star Wars"

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 15, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I've never been a big fan of the 3D shooter genre. So many of them boil down to nothing more than a quick reflexes, and practically none of them have any sense of coherent plot. Jedi Knight, however, remains among one of my favorite games. It is, in essence, the next evolutionary step of games like "Doom" or, of course, "Dark Forces." But its real strength lies in its ability to keep a strong sense of plot and location, and to balance its action with puzzle elements that never seem gratuitous.

The plot is not particularly original, but it's functional. Seven dark Jedi are seeking the sacred "Valley Of The Jedi" (a Jedi burial ground with infinite power.) It's your job, as Kyle Katarn, to stop them. In a sense, the plot is a mix of "Star Wars" with a trace of "Indiana Jones." A side plot involves the fact that Kyle's father was murdered by the dark Jedi, and so the quest becomes more personal.

The story unfolds through a series of cutscenes after each level, with actors filmed against computer-generated backdrops. At times the performances and dialogue will make you cringe, but then so will much of the dialogue in the actual movies. The computer-generated scenery, however, is quite impressive throughout.

Gameplay is like most other 3D shooters. You run about a 3D world shooting almost anything that moves before it can shoot you. If you're hoping to become a "good" Jedi, however, you'll want to avoid shooting civilians. The pace in "Jedi Knight" never gets as frantic as it does in games such as "Quake." You'll rarely face large hordes of enemies in a single room. Mostly, you'll be picking off stormtroopers from a hiding spot, or stumbling into a security room and being faced with two or three imperial officers. A couple well aimed shots will take them out easily. Nevertheless, there's a good arsenal of weapons available to you to keep things interesting.

Eventually, you'll confront each of the seven Jedi in a light saber battle. The duels, unfortunately, are one of the more irritating points of the game, and are often won through rapid sword swinging, rather than through any sense of strategy. Fortunately, you can view the battles in a third person perspective, which at least helps you get a better sense of your proximity to the enemy.

The third person view is also useful for some of the platform jumping sequences. In typical Star Wars fashion, each location is infested with bottomless pits for the unwary.

Despite the annoying sword fights, Jedi Knight is the most immersive Star Wars game I've played, and truly gives you a sense of playing a movie-- something many games aspire to do, but rarely succeed in doing.

still a great value

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I had to write a follow-up review now that about 3 years has passed since my last one, and two sequels to this game have been published. Despite playing the newer games, I dusted off and fired up my old copy of Jedi Knight/Mystery of the Sith (JK/MOtS) and had a blast. The two are obviously dated, but don't suffer as much in comparison in terms of game play as the original "Dark Forces" (circa 1994) had in light of JK/MOtS. Like DF, all the games in the Jedi Knight series are first person shooters. JK/MOtS added the lightsaber and force powers with an enhanced game engine - besides better graphics and sound, it was now possible to combine moth horizontal and vertical head movements using the mouse (DF had separate buttons for vertical looking, which made the interface feel exceedingly clunky in comparison). Also, basic movements were more natural - you never had that feeling prevalent in DF that you were a golf cart instead of a person.

But above the improved engine, JK excelled because it was as much a SW experience as it was a game - with a tight story line, excellent level design and filmed FMV cut scenes. (Most people hated the cut-scenes - poorly acted and not very effects laden - but I loved them; they added to the movie-like feeling and, anyway, "Attack of the Clones" had horrible acting and scenes that went on much longer) You never had that feeling of other shooter games where you suddenly stopped and wondered - OK, where am I, what am I looking for and why am I hitting all of these buttons. The story returns pro-rebel mercenary Kyle Katarn to the fore. Learning that his father was killed by an evil dark jedi named Jerec, Kyle sets off on a mission of revenge. Soon he learns more - that Jerec rules an entire faction of imperials intent on locating the lost "Valley of the Jedi" (also featured in "Jedi Outcast"). The burial place of countless jedi, the valley also holds a bottomless reservoir of their force power. The plot has Kyle tracking a traitorous droid named 8T88 from Nar Shadaa to his father's home planet of Sulon (the droid decodes a map leading to the valley - the map is then destroyed). Great level design makes each player map seem less a map than a place that must be navigated. AI suffers in terms of the imperial troops - who prove bad enough before their blasters are force-grabbed away. Balancing that out, the game is generous with boss modes - sending you up for 5 lightsaber duels with the dark jedi, including the climactic duel with Jerec. Personally, I hated the saber duels - they always seemed to boil down to hopping and slashing with sabers. (Jedi Outcast is most improved in that respect - there are much better looking duels, and more of them). Your force powers are divided between generic powers (speed, jump, sight) and those specific to light (heal, persuasion) or dark (lightning) forces. Your reliance on dark or light powers (and your ability to keep from killing various innocent by-standers) will determine whether you are a light or dark jedi. (The consequent difference for one side or another is not that great - mostly it determines which of Jerec's evil jedi you will fight in one of the latter duels, and which cut scenes you'll watch). Sound and graphics compare well with the newer games, and the overall plot makes you feel like you're in a Star Wars movie.

This edition also comes with "Mysteries of the Sith" - a companion disk that uses a slightly altered game engine and was originally released separately, but otherwise required JK be installed. In MotS, you play Katarn for the first several missions, then assume the role of Mara Jade, a former imperial agent brought to the light (her character was introduced in the novels of Timothy Zahn). The tight plotting of the first game is gone - replaced by looser story arcs (as Kyle, you must save a rebel base from an imperial ground assault, then destroy an orbiting asteroid the imperials are using to stage their attack; as Mara, you will infiltrate the palace of Kapa the Hutt and then, in a switch, go to work for him; you will also track down and try to retrieve a jedi holocron and save a rebel corvette from marauding pirates; eventually you will follow Kyle back to a mysterious planet of the Sith where it's dark and swampy, the locals are hostile and hungry, and your weapons don't work). If uneven, MotS has its share of thrills and challenges. AI is noticeably improved (with stormtroopers ready to go fisticuffs when their blasters are force-grabbed) and gameplay is much more challenging on the whole. Should you tire of the levels provided, an entire on-line community has crafted single and multi-player levels for both games.

In short, both games are still great values and enjoyment isn't terribly undermined by your having played Jedi Outcast - though it's obviously not the mind-blowing experience of 1997 (still, it's aged better than the Spice Girls). If you've got a P4 - it's just an excuse to turn the graphics up to excessive. I first played this on my P200MMX computer with VoodooII graphics acceleration, and enjoyed every minute. On my P4, I had no Windows XP problems, and was able to crank graphics to the full.

Want to be a Jedi?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 26, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game takes you into the world of the Jedi, battling evil, or helping it, protecting citizens, or destroying them. Choose your path, The Dark or The Light, and choose well, for forever will it dominate your destiny!

A classic

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Okay, let me start off by saying that I do love this game. When it came out it was a landmark in terms of moving SW gaming in a good direction. There are some big problems with it, but if you're looking for some good SW fun, they can be overlooked.

First, the good: the storyline is simply awesome. Kyle Katarn progresses as a character very well in this game, aided by the cinematic cutscenes that feel like part of the SW movies. These cutscenes, in fact, made me fall in love with Kyle's character, which in Dark Forces was a lot like Han Solo but now is more like a rogue-ish, bad-... Jedi. Many of the other characters, a la the Dark Jedi, are also enjoyable.

Also, in terms of gameplay, the choice between the light side and the dark side is a great idea, and it's a lot of fun to make the choice. The levels are well-done, and the enemies, while lacking somewhat in AI, are well-balanced. They are true to the Star Wars universe but still vary in difficulting, and there is still that one enemy you just HATE--for me it was the dianogas in Dark Forces, and the Mailocs in Jedi Knight.

There are several problems with this game, however. First off, it just doesn't feel entirely true to the Star Wars universe. The Valley of the Jedi idea feels essentially like a spiritual superweapon, but a superweapon that seems to extend beyond the realm of Star Wars. The bowcaster and thermal detonator (which is more like a bomb in ROTJ) aren't true to the movies, either. And some of the Force powers are from the movie, but some are not, and there are some form the movie that aren't included in this game (like Obi-wan's distraction). I especially had a problem with the invisibility-inducing Persuasion, which is supposed to way of implementing the Jedi Mind Trick, expect that it should only work on the weak-minded, not Kyle, Dark Jedi, or against other players in multi-player. Lightning never worked very well for me either. In short, the Force powers were a good idea but could have been implemented better. Same for the lightsaber, which I really only used when fighting the Dark Jedi.

My biggest problem, though, is the engine. This was a period in gaming when the Quak engine was big, mostly because from a programmer standpoint you could do things that were impossible before like true 3D maps and fluid moving characters as opposed to cartoon sprites (if that means anything to any of you). The result, however, was that in those early days of blatantly pixeled characters the environments didn't look very realistic. It is pretty clear Kyle Katarn and his enemies are crafted from polygons. The original Dark Forces looks more realistic in terms of screen shots than Jedi Knight.

These problems shouldn't deter you from buying this game, though. This is a great game, with an excellently scripted single-player and a really good multi-player platform.

Not bad at all!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Not bad at all.Really cool graphics I must say.This game looks and feels like any of the newer games coming out.It even looks better than Phantom Menace.
The game play is pretty cool too.You get to put your hands on a lot of weapons including(yes!)a lightsaber.You get to use some force powers too(you`re a freakin` jedi for god`s sake!).
Bare in mind that the only reason I`m giving this game a 4 stars rating is because I`m still playing it,so get it and start kicking some imperial tail!

???

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

well...to be honest for all you folk out there...i havent gotten the game yet...but i orderd it online, and the reviews i have read, i gave it 4 stars...i am scared though..because i saw that you play as first person even with the lightsaber....whats with that? how can you play as first person veiw with a lightsaber? if that review is right...then i am gettin rid of that game in a flash...no way am i playing first person with a lightsaber

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