You have undoubtedly seen innumerable lists of the best video games in the war of stars universe Today as so many websites like to do these things on May 4th. I would like to try something differentand tell you what’s best war of stars Video game is.
The former tells you about excellent video games that happen to have characters and locations from across the internet war of stars Universe. X-wing, Super Star Wars, Pod raceretc. You know the lists. They’re usually pretty similar.
The latter that I’m more interested in is more about which game is most faithful to the look and feel of the war of stars Movies (preferably the original trilogy as this is the one with the greatest legacy and influence). Which game feels the most like it actually belongs in the game war of stars Universe.
For me this is the game Dark forces, a first-person shooter released in 1995.
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Sure, others are getting closer. X-wing does a very good job especially with its soundtrack (TIE FIGHTER less is it path also purple) while I always felt Republican command The darker side of the prequel trilogy is best captured. More recently Jedi: Fallen order was pretty good too!
But Dark forces just feels Law. As if someone had shaken the end Reich strikes back and this game fell out, as dark and as real as one war of stars Game would ever get.
For starters, it looks like this. It reuses locations and design elements from the original trilogy, such as the interiors of Imperial installations (including the Executor), paved firearms, and gritty desert huts, but where new areas need to be created it relies heavily on existing ones war of stars Subjects.
There is no time in Dark forces– and that’s a rarity in war of stars Games – where you can point out where the actual Star Wars designs end and the work of Lucasart’s very own artists begins. Everything you see Dark forcesFrom the walls to the cannons to the ships it looks like this designed by Ralph McQuarrie and belongs in one of George Lucas’ original films.
Does it help that it’s a first-person game? May be. We are certainly getting a lot closer to the light switches than, for example, in Galactic battlefieldsThis enables us to appreciate those finer details. But many others war of stars Games, off Unleashed power to Jedi Knight to, well, Obi-Wan did the same, and the closer perspective was proof that they weren’t Star Warsy how Dark forces managed.
The game gets its cast right too. You don’t play a Jedi; it wouldn’t be up Dark Forces II that Lucasarts is ruining everything and turning Katarn into one. Indeed that More sacred than you Space wizards aren’t really involved at all; Dark forces Populated by men and women as well as aliens and robots, much like the original trilogy that we must not forget, it keeps its powers of power in check for the most part until the end of the year Return of the Jedi.
And it’s a good cast! Before Kyle Katarn became a sloppy beard in later games, he was a bad guy, part secret agent, part command. His main enemy is a gruff, fat Imperial officer. Nothing special, no obscure and implausible Sith, just a bad guy. Your allies are not a random exodus from the expanded universeThey are people like Mon Mothma. General Madine is in this game, just like his Great Hair. And your buddy, Jan Ors, may be the coolest Star Wars buddy since any of them.
Not only does this video from PixieButt1 show one of the early cutscenes, it also drops a ton of cool trivia!
Few Star Wars games could resist the temptation to bond with the movies somehow. The X-Wing Games tried their hand at all three of the original films, from trench runs to Hoth evacuations to more death starswhile Shadow of the empire did it pretty well to slide between the films.
But that often feels forced and more than a little unnecessary. We saw As the movies have gone, it always feels a bit silly when a video game twists things to fit its own story. Dark forceson the other hand, does it play cool. It starts with Kyle being the guy who steals the plans for the first Death Star (below), something we can relate to and say, “Hey, that’s neat” (even though) Rogue One will arrive at some point and remodel this, which is not the case Dark forces’ Error!) then it retreats into the shadows and never touches the overarching history of the films again, leaving it free to do its own thing.
Which is what made Dark forces so good. It saw Star Wars and it sound Star Wars and it felt Star Wars, but instead of trying to turn off a particular movie or scene (which ultimately undermines the whole process), it set out – and managed to – do it on its own terms. They never flew alongside Luke Skywalker or fought Darth Vader (although even that game couldn’t resist a Jabba cameo), but you still felt like you were living in the same world they lived in.
It is a testament to the strength of the characters and design in this game that for a 90s FPS that has become virtually insignificant, Dark forces Still resonating with Star Wars fans outside of the video game scene. It was Kyle’s ship, the Moldy Crow introduced to the hugely popular tabletop game X-Wing Miniatures, while the Dark Trooper design previously became the canon of the expanded universe produce an action figure and recently deserve a starring role in The Mandalorian.
If you’ve never played before Dark forces, or have it and want to play it again, it’s available in major downloadable stores. You won’t be getting a lot of miles out of the gameplay, which is more Downfall as Half a life, but the cutscenes and general mood are as good today as they were in 1995.
This post originally appeared on Kotaku in May 2015.
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