We have that on record, I know, but in case anyone needs a reminder: Dark Forces is the best war of stars video game ever made. It might not be the best video game made with the war of stars license, but it is the most StarWarsy. That’s the way it is very cool to see the game get a fresh coat of paint thanks to the work of a dedicated fan.
luciusDXL has spent the last few years doing this Working on The Force Enginean attempt to “reverse engineer and rebuild the Jedi engine for modern systems and the games that used that engine.” It is now available in version 1.0 and can be downloaded. To celebrate, this trailer has been released, showing some of the improvements we can expect from a game first released in 1995:
To be more specific, The Force Engine lets us play the same thing Dark Forces, but with many modern improvements and details, like proper widescreen support, higher resolutions and, most excitinglyly, full mouselook support (the original, like demiselocked the player’s movements on the X and Y axes). [Actually, you could look up and down in Dark Forces, but it was on Page Up/Down, and incredibly awkward to use -Er, Actually Ed]
There is also a modern save system, a real crosshair, and built-in support for mods. As a matter of fact, about the only change here that goes beyond cosmetics or quality –from-Life improvements are some tweaks to Boba Fett’s AI, although these – and everything else – can be turned off if you want to play the game the way it was intended in 1995.
If you have Dark Forces (it’s available on Steam and GoG for spare change) and want to download The Force Engine, You can get it here. Oh, and before we go, note that this is an engine project, not just one Dark Forces Project, which is the other game built on top of the Jedi engine—Cult classic western outlaws– will soon receive similar treatment.