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In the last months of 2015, Star Wars was everywhere. Everywhere. TV ads. Billboards. Sneakers. Mac ‘n cheese. Cars. PCs. It’s hard to remember a time when Star Wars wasn’t all around us. Even before the Force Awakens marketing blitz, Star Wars has been omnipresent for a decade now, with a steady stream of cartoons and toys and games and books and comics, some good, many bad. This is what we’ve come to expect from the Lucasfilm and Disney empires. We don’t expect Star Wars spin-offs to be bold and daring, and it wasn’t until I spent the holiday break playing Dark Forces that I remembered Star Wars games were once genuinely groundbreaking.
After watching Force Awakens, my Star Wars fever drove me to replay Dark Forces and Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II for the first time since my childhood. This was actually my first time playing all the way through either; I only had demos as a kid. Despite being released just two and a half years apart, in 1995 and 1997, the games feel like they belong to distinct eras of FPS design. Each is forward thinking in some ways I found fascinating with 20 years of perspective, and comically dated in others.
But not really comically. Like, Jar-Jar-and-his-stupid-tongue-funny. It’s 2016. We know better.
Dark Forces
21 years on, Dark Forces feels almost prehistoric for a 3D game, and its ambition dates it in a way that the arcadier Doom will never age. The 2D sprite enemies, their simplistic AI and repeated audio clips, the labyrinthine levels and obtuse puzzles are the essence of first-person PC games from 1995. Made today, Dark Forces would probably feel like a sanitized Call of Duty clone with lasers.
And yet. And yet. The same way Star Wars took the basic structure of the Hero’s Journey and turned it into a movie unlike anything we’d seen before, Dark Forces cloned Doom and created something amazing from its DNA: a game that placed you into a three dimensional world that was new and yet recognizably Star Wars.
LucasArts’s Jedi Engine added jumping and looking up and down on the vertical axis, so you could explore Dark Forces’ world like it was a real place. The stormtroopers and Imperial officers may have been crudely animated 2D sprites, but they looked just like they did in the movies. The blasters sounded the same. The music captured the essence of John Williams in simple MIDI.
Instead of revisiting locations from the films or playing out some hackneyed video game version of the battle of Hoth, LucasArts took places we’d glimpsed, like the interior of a Star Destroyer, and spun out their own creations with the scope and detail to bring them to life. The world is gray more often than not, but Dark Forces keeps switching out tilesets as you reach new levels. One Imperial base looks different than another. Ship interiors take inspiration from the Death Star. Natural canyons, blocky and angular as they are, admirably lend scale to Dark Forces’ representation of the galaxy far, far away.
Even the hundreds of stormtroopers spread across the campaign makes it feel like you’re struggling against the Empire, a Rebel underdog deep inside an overwhelming military machine. The mostly static cutscenes and briefings between missions feel rudimentary next to the 3D world—possibly Dark Forces at its most dated—but Mon Mothma lends the story an air of legitimacy, too.
I found Dark Forces’ additions to the Doom template simultaneously the coolest and the most frustrating bits of its design. I appreciated some of the puzzles I had to solve to make my way through Imperial strongholds, and not always knowing where to go in its layered and complex levels. Other relics of the time—like how difficult it was to discern a random decorative texture from an interactive control panel—really do add depth to the world, making it feel more real and less like a linear guided tour through some Cool Shit, as so many shooters today are.
But I spent more of my Dark Forces playthrough appreciating what it pulled off in 1995 than I did really having fun. The shooting doesn’t have Doom’s oomph, and I ground my teeth in frustration while trying to navigate the sewers early on, and while trying to make one particular series of jumps between rising and falling platforms later on. If you’ve played Dark Forces, you know the one. And the computer core in mission 11? Fuck that hexagonal nightmare.
I'd recommend playing with a guide on-hand for the most obtuse bits, but Dark Forces is still worth a run through to get to Jedi Knight, where the series really finds its way. And it's easy to play on modern hardware thanks to DarkXL, a rebuilt version of the game that supports high resolutions and Windows.
Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
What a difference two years makes. When LucasArts started using scale models for Star Wars in 1977, they first had to figure out how to make them look like real spaceships. A couple years later, for Empire Strikes Back, they had that down—the next step was making them look good, leading to the invention of Go Motion. Jedi Knight followed a similar path, going fully 3D, telling a far more complex story with full motion video, and slowly unlocking Force powers throughout the campaign. Dark Forces’ great success was putting you inside a Star Wars world with the best technology available at the time, and Jedi Knight amplified that tenfold.
Its FMV story is unfortunately every bit as bad as the words “full motion video” usually imply. Hero Kyle Katarn has the gruff voice down, but can’t do much more than frown and deliver terrible dialogue from awkward bluescreen-turned-CG-graphics sets. Everyone else is even worse, especially Dark Jedi Jerec, who is wearing the banana hammock equivalent of a pair of sunglasses and has chin tattoos that I mistook for a bad fu manchu for 90 percent of the game.
There’s no passion to be found here, but the story loosely justifies Jedi Knight’s strength: the experience of gaining badass Force powers over the course of 20+ levels. Where later Bioware RPGs would much more deliberately tie your Force skills and alignment into the narrative, Jedi Knight mostly just gives you points to assign between missions, and bam, you’re a Jedi. Believable? Not really—but the FMV cutscenes already threw immersion out the window. Accept Kyle’s inexplicable mastery of the Force, and Jedi Knight will hand you a really satisfying skill progression from blaster-wielding slowpoke to Jedi superhero.
Gaining Force powers in Jedi Knight gave me one of my favorite experiences playing games: the feeling that I’m using abilities to play the game in a way it wasn’t meant to be played. To outsmart the designers by navigating the environment and defeating enemies in ways I wasn’t meant to. The best-designed games give me this sensation even when it’s not true: they make me feel clever and powerful, even when I’m following the path I was meant to.
When you first start gaining powers in Jedi Knight, they’re a convenience. You can use Force speed to get around more quickly, or Force jump to leap over a gap that would’ve taken longer to cross by foot. Gradually, the game starts introducing areas you need Force powers to navigate. By the end, you’re jumping a dozen meters into the air, yanking blasters out of your enemies’ hands, and sprinting across levels to avoid unnecessary combat.
Jedi Knight ties its high-level light and dark Force abilities to some key story decisions, which would be a great idea if the story wasn’t such a galactic suckfest. Star Wars games have done it better since. But Jedi Knight deserves credit for doing it first, and for doing Force powers so, so well. Dark Forces let you view Star Wars from an angle very different than the films, and in making Jedi Knight, LucasArts did the same with the Force. This was the Force we imagined watching the films, letting a heroic master run faster, jump farther, sense enemies that can’t be seen, heal his body when he’s injured. I don’t know if Jedi Knight’s powers were directly influenced by the novels filling out the Expanded Universe in the 90s—almost two dozen were written between 1991 and 1997, with different authors granting Jedi new skills—but it nailed the toolset, making the powers fun to use and believable within the Star Wars fiction.
Acquiring those Force powers is unfortunately tied to the most archaic part of Jedi Knight’s design (aside from the FMV, I mean). Completing each level earns you a measly one point to put into the Force skill tree. Most of the points come from discovering secret areas in each level. And there are a lot of them. These secret areas are usually packed with health and ammo, hidden in dark corners or behind stairs or on top of structures. Finding them is a fun excuse to explore..until you miss one of the six or eight or ten hidden areas in a level and miss out on the entire Force point bonus. Fun, that is not. The secret areas feel like a holdover of Dark Forces older design, and as poor match for the Jedi power system.
It's no coincidence my favorite level in the game has only a single secret room right at the outset. Jedi Knight is even more varied in its level design and settings than Dark Forces, but one really stands out: The Falling Ship, which has Kyle rushing through a ship before it hits the ground and explodes. The ship and gravity are both twisted, making for some surprisingly fun platforming on a tense time limit. I failed on my first time through but enjoyed going at it again, racing the clock to make it to the hangar bay and escape in a smaller ship. This is the kind of setpiece you'll see in a blockbuster AAA game today, but Jedi Knight managed to pull it off in 1997.
When I played Jedi Knight’s expansion, Mysteries of the Sith, I skipped most of the secret rooms, and was nearly crippled by my meager Force powers in the last few levels. They really felt like a necessity, and only save scumming and dodging tougher enemies carried me through to the end. Freakin’ vornskrs, man. Most of Mysteries of the Sith feels like an uninspired retreat of what Jedi Knight has already done, which is a disappointing first (and only, really) outing for EU heroine Mara Jade in a Star Wars game.
But the last few levels, hard as they are, are its salvation: they take you deep into an old Sith temple to bring Kyle Katarn back from the Dark side, and it feels every bit like the hallowed, dangerous ground it should be. Well, mostly. The leaping dog creatures and yeti monsters may be based on Timothy Zahn’s novels, but they come across as goofy video game enemies. And the zombie wizards? Maybe a step too far.
Nothing in Jedi Knight or Mysteries of the Sith is as challenging as getting the games to run in the first place. To play them yourself, I recommend slavishly following the directions on JK2DF, which was the only way I could get the games to run on Windows 10. The GOG and Steam versions each have their own problems, and patches and mods are often not fully compatible with one version or the other. You can also grab a Mysteries of the Sith texture pack to make the game look comparable to Jedi Knight retextured.
Hoo boy, are the original models and textures ugly. But they're still better than the FMV.
Becoming an outcast
I haven’t tackled Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast yet, but it’s next on the list, and I have high expectations. LucasArts wisely handed the series to FPS maestros Raven Software, and by 2002 3D games could do far more advanced cutscenes than the awkward first steps of Mysteries of the Sith. I expect Jedi Outcast to be the game that turns Kyle Katarn into a genuinely interesting character.
And I hear the lightsabers are pretty cool.
I am in need of some help here. I have a gaming desktop computer running Windows 8 Pro, and a Samsung 500T tablet running Windows 8.
So far games have been great, but I cannot figure out how to run two particular games on Windows 8: - Star Wars Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight - Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith Neither of these games work at all, when I can play Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy on both my desktop and my tablet without any problems. I have both the Steam version of these games, and the original CD's of the games. I've tried creating a post on the Steam game forums, but to my surprise (sarcasm), my post was completely ignored, so I thought I'd try here. I can find hardly anything online for help on this. All that's said is to try compatibility mode, and I did! I see screenshots of the game running on Windows 8, and people saying that compatibility mode fixed it, not for me! I also tried re-downloading, using Steam version and original CD version, but nothing will work! It will act like the game is launching, then just do nothing.. If anybody here could give me advice that would help me get these games running, I'd greatly appreciate it. If any more information is needed, I will provide it. Thank you again.
> >Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars: Dark Forces
DOS - 1995
Also released on: Mac
4.55 / 5 - 226 votes
Download extras files
Manual available Description of Star Wars: Dark Forces
The early 1990s saw numerous first-person shooters trying to imitate the success of Doom. Dark Forces marked LucasArts entry into the FPS arena. Development started before Doom’s release in 1993, but they decided to delay Dark Forces so further improvements could be made. The main improvement was an enhanced game engine which allowed the player to look around, jump and crawl - gameplay elements that FPS gamers now take for granted.
Rather than recreating the original Star Wars films, the story introduces a new plotline featuring Kyle Katarn. Kyle is a former Imperial Officer turned mercenary who joins the Rebellion. He is initially hired to steal the plans for the Death Star (this game came out before the release of the film Rogue One) before investigating a series of attacks on Rebel bases by mysterious ‘Dark Troopers’ – upgraded Stormtroopers.
Despite the fact they are made from simplistic 2D sprites, Star Wars fans will instantly recognise many of the enemies encountered. Storm Troopers, Imperial Officers, Probe Droids and many others, all feature across the 14 missions as well as appearances from characters such as Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett. The levels have a very distinct Star Wars feel to them and represent bases, mines and other facilities, not to mention an Imperial Star Destroyer. However, when compared to Doom the level design causes the game to advance at a much slower pace, relying on both puzzles and combat to progress the story.
Overall, the game can probably be considered slightly more difficult than other FPS games from the time, and will appeal to those who want a more challenging experience as well as Star Wars fans.
Review By Richard
External linksCaptures and Snapshots
Screenshots from MobyGames.com
Comments and reviewsStar Wars Dark Forces 2 Windows 10
Chuck1432018-04-111 point
For mac users, the DOS game version works nicely with the Boxer app. Here's where you can get Boxer. It's free http://boxerapp.com/
!2017-10-300 point DOS version
only if it would work on my computer
Trooper2017-08-230 point DOS version
Why can't I get any sound? It's fine but it would just be nice to have it? But it doesn't ruin it anyway good game!!
Storm trooper2017-08-232 points
Sounds not working on mine any way to fix ? And also how do you rub games not through dos cause I'd like to play zelda on my PC but won't work .thanks
kokot2017-08-050 point
good game i like it! :) so i like ther gzasr
josh j2017-04-141 point
very good game especially if you love star wars!
best of the series imo hate the non lore friendly oh hey look now im a jedi crap. sound and cool factor were actually best features graphics were low par at best. if you dont have it buy it for the sound track alone!
boi2017-03-281 point DOS version
such a good game! amazing graphics for its time. best retro fps iv'e ever played
NeonSamurai2016-08-101 point
If your looking for the sequels for this incredible game, then you want to look up the Jedi knight series. The best jedi games ever made.
I still vividly remember this game from when it first came out, and it was revolutionary for its time. The graphics and game-play were amazing, and it really pulled you into the world.
Reyce2016-08-10-2 points
*REVIEW*
As always, the biggest compliment I can give any retro game is that I will continue to play it. With Star Wars: Dark Forces there is a definitive ending (which I’m dangerously near!!! *gasp*) I will continue to play it and probably hunt down it’s sequels. When you are competing with fully rendered 3D war simulators, that’s a near impossible statement to make for a game practically older than the youngest member of my family… But make it, I shall. Full Review: http://cooldownpodcast.com/reviews/reyces-retro-reviews/star-wars-dark-forces/
Biolix2016-06-12-6 points
Please i need help :( I can't play the game .. do you have a solution, if there is any on windows10 TT^TT ?
GamingKid832432016-03-131 point DOS version
Try using Boxer to run the DOS version on your Mac.
pooISbrown2016-02-030 point
thanks 46yovirginguy, I could never understand why it was always in a small window when I played it before but now it is full screen well sort of...there are borders to the left and right but I don't care at least it is not a small window anymore. love the music in this game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
46YOvirginMALE2016-02-020 point
FYI everyone, if any games are running in a small window in the middle
of the screen or a window in the upper left corner using dosbox then just edit the CONF FILE by double-clicking it. try changing output from surface to overlay(or some other choice). try changing both fullscreenresolutionwindowresolution to fixed. try changing scaler from NONE to one of the other choices. by messing around with these values you should be able to get the game in full screen mode.
7772016-02-02-1 point
wow, a DOS game that actually WORKS!!!!!!!
none of this DISC IMAGE SHIT/mountimage/can't find cd in drive bullshit,i wish ALL the dos games here were this easy to get working.
c++meNOunderstand2016-01-290 point
sooooooooooo fond memories of this game.
played a many hours into nighttime and tired the next day like a zombie(jajajajajaja). best firperson game from many year ago and is a still awesome one to this day!!!!!!!!!!!!! so much I love .
DoranAughneyWASsexy1990s2016-01-281 point
finally a game that DOESN'T need to be MOUNTED, or countless
hours lost screwing around trying to get up and going..I just unzipped and played using dosbox. and for those of you who hate dosbox first try tinkering with it's CONF file, open it by double clicking it to edit stuff, under CPU change game CYCLES from auto(slow) to MAX(almost 60 fps?) and change the scaler from the default to something else, I changed it to SUPEREAGLE and the game looks sweet!!!!!!!!!!!
poormanisme2016-01-280 point DOS version
a very good game that I used to play in the 90's..ah good times.
ok for those of you who are new to dos games on windows the first thing you need is WinRAR or a similar program(just google it) then download and set it up.next thing you need is DosBox(again google it). WinRAR will let you EXTRACT files you download,rightclick on the downloaded file and select extract file..game will be extracted to a default folder. now install dosbox, ok so the easiest way to play the games is to dragNdrop the games .exe file onto the dosbox icon within the dosbox folder, so for dark forces you would drag the dark.exe ontop of dosbox application.exe , it's not as hard as it sounds..hope I got the instructions correct,if anyone can give a better explanation then plz do so seeing as I am not so good at explaining things.
NeWBaY2016-01-07-1 point DOS version
Hi Everyone!
How can I get to run the dos version. I have windows 8.1 and no idea how I can install old games
darkforces2015-12-281 point Mac version
Mac version doesnt work on el capitan apparently
xx_pussyslayer_xxx692015-12-13-1 point
Met a girl in the wasteland once, real pretty.
V.A.T.S said I had a 0% chance to hit that 10/10 realism
passini2015-09-021 point Mac version
heel yeah!
JLC4202015-08-231 point
A bit buggy with the controls. Can use either left mouse or arrow's on key board to move. Right mouse button to shoot and space bar to activate doors etc.
Will work only with a virtual dos program such as dosbox. I myself find dosbox complicated so I use dosblaster 3.0 which runs dosbox for you. You will need to also have dosbox installed but you don't need to mount drives and so on. Dosblaster does it for you Star Wars Dark forces I give a 3.5/5 for it's time.
josh2015-06-17-1 point DOS version
i have only got it today
Hulsie2015-05-02-10 points DOS version
I always heard there were X-rated Easter eggs and cheat codes in this game.
TomyYoung2015-02-202 points DOS version
Yes sure about 7or vista. I have not played this game in many years because of the CD compatibility issues Star Wars!
Jip Jackson2015-01-300 point DOS version
As far as changing the buttons if you don't have a programmable keyboard there are 3rd party software out there for free. Some take a minute to get rite but once the profile is set your good. Just google it key remapper or something similar
Raster2015-01-170 point DOS version
@ Muzza You can emulate dos using Dosbox and play it through that.
You can find it at Dosbox.com .
muzza-p2014-12-07-6 points DOS version
how do u play it on 64bit windows 7?
Anthony Of Corruscant2014-08-110 point DOS version
The best game in my life;
councellor palpatine dù càzz! (frase francese).
negroid2014-07-18-2 points DOS version
HA he HA
ball322014-06-20-1 point DOS version
Best game but keys are diffrent.
Old Timer2014-02-160 point DOS version
It was better than Battlefront/Battlefront II in that the stormtroopers didn't roll around on the ground like some sort of super action men. Seriously, how did their helmets stay in place while they were doing that crap?
indstr2014-02-12-1 point DOS version
Eh, it was OK. I played it a couple times back in the day. HeXeN took up way more of my attention though so this fell by the wayside :)
Peterd2014-02-08-2 points DOS version
So..how do you change le buttons?
fett2014-01-25-1 point DOS version
is it was here all along!. . i havent play this since over 10 years!
slacker200122013-12-12-1 point DOS version
re key config, push ctrl+F1 for dosbox key mapper tool
Jose1319912013-08-30-1 point DOS version
Still have the cd on ps1 and its very fun game but ps1 frame rate was bad. Can't wait to download here and run it on dosbox for good frame rate.
Darth2013-08-25-2 points DOS version
Error to read HelNum.fnd
st1122013-07-21-1 point DOS version
i love dark forcs!!!!
i loved it from the day i got one for my brother, but he is stingy and wont let me play it.
Gino2013-06-021 point DOS version
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Hi how can I setup the kay configutration?
Killer132013-05-050 point DOS version
Thanks a lot it's a EPIC game
Quazar19982013-04-060 point DOS version
wont read my swlogo.lfd anyone know how to fix?
Necroscope862013-02-26-1 point DOS version
Currently doing a Let's Play on it. xD
Leitbild2013-02-130 point DOS version
Yeah! One of the best Star Wars games I played ever! Even if not a real Star Wars enthusiast, I enjoyed this game very much. It was a decent and solid made shooter with great varying missions and enemies..
I can't really say what engine it uses, but it can compete with other great FPS games of it's time (including Doom, of course).. ;)
Satan's Taco2013-01-110 point DOS version
Love this game!
Carlsgro2013-01-080 point DOS version
you will tell me where the rebels are ! This game is awesome
m9v132013-01-060 point DOS version
This game is really fun lol
[MH]-Kyle Katarn-[FDR]2012-10-120 point DOS version
One Word DOSBOX Google It
Darknut2012-08-050 point DOS version
I remember having the demo from the disk and it would loop you around this one level, when you've finished looping it says Level complete.
Pink Floyd2012-07-297 points DOS version
This was the best FPS back in the day and was surpassed by its sequel Jedi Knight which is the best FPS in the history of mankind. I remember how revolutionary Doom was when it first came out and this game was just so much better with its awesome storyline and choice of weapons. Despite the fact your character was not a jedi yet and could not carry a lightsaber like its sequels this game still managed to be one of the best, most memorable, and fun FPS's I ever played. The level designs and graphics were very well done and the sound was superior. The dark troopers were nasty and you got to fight Boba Fett. I had both the Dos version CD for this and the win95 version CD but neither will work on Windows XP. Many abandonware sight downloads have the same problem with their download. This download does work in xp which is just fantastic. Not sure about 7or vista. I have not played this game in many years because of the CD compatibility issues. Now I can finally play it again!
Licurg2012-04-250 point DOS version
Amazing game, a FPS at least as good as Doom.
Derpo2012-03-241 point DOS version
Dark Forces was great. Simply fantastic.
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Other Releases
Star Wars: Dark Forces was also released on the following systems:
Mac
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