Dark Forces (1995)

This year, I made a list of all the classic first person shooters I both did and didn’t play when they came out. I like to think of myself as pretty well-versed in the genre, but in less than half an hour, I had already tallied 50 notables FPS games in the 1993-2003 that I’d never even touched. Probably chief among them was Dark Forces

I was a Star Wars fan before I even went to school, and the Jedi Knight games in the same series gave rise to some of my favourite gaming memories. Even more prominent in my collection were the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. But, due to a variety of technical and personal reasons, gaming in 1995 sort of passed me by, and somehow I missed what seems like a perfect game for me until now.

Context

1995 was a monster year for high-quality gaming. Commander & Conquer, Super Mario World 2, Donkey Kong Country 2, Full Throttle, Tekken 2, Time Crisis and a bunch more show that the video gaming industry was already in a mature and healthy state, with plenty of high quality releases to offer gamers.

While the industry was in a position of health at this stage, the first person shooter genre was really only in a fledgling state. Wolfenstein 3D was a smash in 1992, and when the full version of Doom landed in December 1993, it blew everything else out of the water, kickstarting an arms race of FPS development. 20 full FPS games were released in 1994, most of them riding on the Doom’s coattails.

And early in 1995, along came Dark Forces.

The Assessment

Dark Forces is set in the Star Wars universe, and you play as Kyle Katarn, a former Imperial soldier turned mercenary. Your mission is to infiltrate the Empire and do the usual Rebel stuff: steal the Death Star plans, rescue General Crix Madine, and kill thousands of Storm Troopers along the way. Oh, and stop Vader and his cronies from developing a new superweapon: the Dark Trooper.

The game was a technologically groundbreaking game when it was released in 1995. It was one of the first first-person shooters to feature a fully-realized storyline, complete with cutscenes and voice acting. Its graphics were impressive for their time, though they now look woefully outdated - Doom has inarguably aged better despite being an older game. The Jedi Engine used to develop the game was built from the ground up by LucasArts. It allowed for developing levels more into the Z axis, so Dark Forces could have a map with any number of areas on top of one another. This sort of feature might sound trivial at first, but it was a powerful leap in development in 1995. It seems mad, but in Doom you never actually set foot in a room that sat above another room because the engine was incapable of it. There was no veritical limit to a level in Doom, but you could never have another room on top of or below the one you were already in.

The combat is nice too, with a decent physicality and weight to each of the weapons, though the Thermal Detonators are a little underwhelming. Small energy, health, and ammo top-ups are plentiful, but you’ll need them because Dark Forces is hard. Almost all enemies in the game deal out big damage, so it’s best to go into each room and start blasting before asking questions. Rather annoyingly, vertical look is controlled by the Pg Up and Pg Down buttons. The aforementioned verticality of the game was somewhat abused by the level designers at times and, while there was a vertical auto-aim if you lined up with a foe at a different vertical height from you, the lack of a mouse look up or down would be beyond frustrating to the modern gamer.

I do feel I should mention the game’s audio is still top notch. The walkie-talkie texture of storm troopers talking and the warble of probe droids really add to the sense of atmosphere, and the sounds of blaster fire will absolutely warm your nostalgic heart. Also, the game’s soundtrack still holds up, composed by Clint Bajakian, was also outstanding, capturing the spirit of the Star Wars universe in a neat little MIDI package.

A lot of the aged-in issues I’ve mentioned so far have been somewhat remedied by a fan remake of Dark Forces on something called the Force Engine. And if you see fit to play Dark Forces after reading this, I cannot stress strongly enough that this is the way you should do it. The improvements in graphics and stability, as well of the addition of mouse look and quick saves, make this the only way to play the game and not tear your hair out. Maybe we’ve all been softened by years of easier game design and more comforting and forgiving environments than the ones presented in Dark Forces, but playing the game with the Jedi engine in 2023 feels like running a marathon on one leg.

One of my main problems with Dark Forces is the level design, something the Force Engine cannot improve. One of the things championed about Dark Forces at the time was its emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving. The levels were designed to be nonlinear, with multiple paths and secrets to discover. The puzzles were presented as challenging, but in reality were frustrating. In the early 90s, there was a trend of making solutions to problems in games obscure and artificially difficult to conquer in order to inflate play time and subsequently generate a sense of value for money. One example is in the Detention level, where you need to line up the map’s two central elevators at different floors (something you can only do by taking a roundabout way around the entire map), entering a small and unremarkable door, proceeding to injure Katarn by dropping through the elevator shafts, and finally coming out into the area you need to reach to proceed to the end of the level. There is absolutely no indication or hint in the gameplay that this is what you had to do. Of course, back in the 90s we all had a bit more time to play games, so it’s not inconceivable that you may have just willingly wasted hours at a time pressing every button and shooting every wall to unlock a secret, but this is one of the parts of Dark Forces that has really aged like milk.

One major pain that has mercifully been revoked by the Force Engine rebuild version is the extra lives. Much like a coin-op platformer in an arcade, you start each level with a set number of lives and have to get to the end without losing them all. There are unmarked checkpoints throughout the levels where you can respawn, but if you lose all your lives, back to start with you. Objectively, this wouldn’t necessarily be a pain, but some deaths in Dark Forces come cheap. You’re never too far from a floor mine in a dark room, or a sheer drop off a cliff, or being crushed by an inability to jump over a chest-high hurdle while a drill crushes you from above. Even on Easy difficulty, enemies hit hard and you’re never more than a half dozen shots from a restart. The Force Engine implements quick saves and quick loads, which a feature much needed in the modern gaming landscape.

The biggest downpoint is, of course, the lack of a lightsaber. At least that was remedied in 1997’s STAR WARS Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II.

Summary

Despite the pretty major flaws, Dark Forces is still a pretty remarkable artefact of gaming history. A Star Wars game that took Doom’s formula, shook it up and tried something new. It’s a swing and a miss, something no one should ever be criticised for attempting. Is it classic? No. It is good? In places. Is it worth playing? Honestly, only for Star Wars nuts and classic FPS completionists (both demographics of which I am a part).

If you’re a fan of old first-person shooters or the Star Wars universe, then Dark Forces is probably worth checking out. However, be prepared for a challenging experience, and don’t expect modern conveniences you may have become accustomed to. The game is a product of its time, but it remains a robust experience with the aid of the Force Engine project.

Rating

Dark Forces (Jedi Engine): 😐

Dark Forces (Force Engine): 👍