"Look sir, droids!" - Davin Felth

It's kind of sad that I know the name of the Stormtrooper that says that line, isn't it? Anyway, this game is an old favorite of mine, I got hours upon hours out of the official single player story and even more out of the legion of creative fan missions that came out after people figured out how to mod this game. Dark Forces is a milestone in the first person shooter genre because it introduced features that were either not possible, or weren't implemented in ID Software's vaunted Doom engine which debuted two years earlier with Doom.

Developer: LucasArts Entertainment Company (Now just LucasArts)
Publisher: LucasArts Entertainment Company (Now just LucasArts)

Gameplay: From a basic standpoint, Dark Forces didn't really depart too much from the genre as everything that moves is more or less your enemy. The mission setup and features not present in the Doom engine though are what set Dark Forces apart from the legion of Doom clones from the same era. Although Heretic was likely the first game to allow you to look up and down, this feature wasn't fully realized until Dark Forces. Dark Forces was also the first FPS to allow the player to jump and crouch. The Jedi engine also allowed developers to construct more advanced levels than those found in Doom, for example the Doom engine didn't allow the developers to build levels on top of levels.

Dark Forces was the first FPS to feature level-on-level support

Dark Forces was also the first FPS that featured a real story, and varied mission design. The storyline isn't too important in this article; suffice to say that while not particularly deep, it's a step above what most shooters provided at the time.

Shooting stuff was still your top priority

Design: Dark Forces gets props for using its multi-layered level support wisely. Level design was logical; LucasArts didn't place levels over levels just to show off their engine. The level design is actually one of the best aspects of the game, it's varied... no two levels look alike, and the goals in most missions are fairly unique. The first mission has you stealing the Death Star plans from a secret Imperial base and escaping, while another may have you planting charges in an installation's reactor core to level the place. LucasArts did a really good job at breaking away from the "Find all the colored keys and reach the exit, rinse and repeat". You still do have to find colored keys from time to time, and you usually do have to reach an exit point, but there's more to each mission than shooting everything in sight.

Besides missions being objective based, there are also puzzles. That's right, you heard me, puzzles. LucasArts wanted to spread pain and suffering unto the masses, so they included a few logic puzzles strewn throughout Dark Forces. The most irritating puzzle is definitely that large vault on Corsucant, I spent hours cracking the door puzzle to get into the vault.

Dark Forces had arcade "puzzles" too, such as this one where you have to shoot a switch while riding on a conveyer belt and getting shot at

If Dark Forces had one gaping flaw it's the lack of an in-mission save feature. Before you started your next mission you had to make sure you had several hours to spare, as the only time the game saved was between missions. Instead Dark Forces utilized a "life" system like Wolfenstein 3D. Unlike Wolfenstein, though; Dark Forces' life system was actually decent. If you died you respawned at an invisible checkpoint you probably passed earlier on with all of your equipment. If you run out of lives though; you'll find yourself back at the mission select screen.

Nostalgia Factor: Dark Forces was very nostalgic for me, so I'm sure that some of my opinions were painted by this fact. Regardless, even if you factor out nostalgia many folks have found Dark Forces to be a very enjoyable game despite its outdated graphics. Dark Forces was definitely ahead of its time, as even Duke Nukem 3D which would be released a year later stuck to the traditional "get keys, find exit" gameplay of the era.

Critical Reception: Dark Forces received mostly positive reviews from critics and players.

GameSpot Review

Coming Soon Magazine Review

How it holds up: Dark Forces definitely felt the effects of the sequel syndrome with Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight hitting shelves two years later followed by its expansion Mysteries of the Sith a year after that. Then a few years later Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast was released followed by Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy a year later. Despite having three sequels, Dark Forces is still a very good game today because it's the only one without Jedi (not counting Darth Vader). Dark Forces also felt "darker" than its subsequent sequels.

Nar Shadda made its first visual appearance in Dark Forces

Useless Trivia:
- The game's protagonist Kyle Katarn has become a major character in the "Star Wars Expanded Universe" in the years since his debut in Dark Forces.
- The seedy "Vertical City" of Nar Shadda which has become a prominent location in Star Wars video games made its first visual appearance in Dark Forces. It was later featured in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Knights of the Old Republic II.
- Han shot first.

External Links:

Dark Forces on MobyGames

Dark Forces Demo

The Definitive Davin Felth Fansite