Star Wars Dark Forces

[Diego]

This has to be the longest I waited to play a game. Around 1995 I played a demo of Dark Forces that came with Full Throttle and thought "this was kinda fun, I wanna play that one day". So now I got it on the star wars humble bundle and it's indeed kinda fun. Only took me 20 years.

[kyyrma]

Lucky you! It's a good game despite feeling pretty aged now.

 

The sequel Dark Forces: Jedi Knight is even better, and JK2 and Jedi Academy are not half bad either.

 

Edit: Oh, also had this very same experience just a few weeks back. Played through Strife for the first time now that it's on Steam. Crazy how ahead of its time that game is!

Edited February 11, 2015 by kyyrma

[Airship Ballet]

Played through Strife for the first time now that it's on Steam.

Did somebody say Strafe?

[PranQster]

Dark Forces...wow, that goes back a bit. I remember an easter egg somewhere, when crouched on top of a crate, with "Ewoks Suck" sprayed on the wall.

[freyk]

Internet archive posted the full version of the game as freeware on his site(?)

Also doom, duke3d and other old popular full version games.

 

- Edit

Added an extra link

Edited February 11, 2015 by freyk

[Diego]

Did somebody say Strafe?

 

I don't think their kickstarter's gonna make it

[Airship Ballet]

 

I don't think their kickstarter's gonna make it

[plasticman]

Funny. I also hopped into Dark Forces for the first time, just a few days ago. Can't remember what gave me the Idea, maybe the humble bundle... (I remember seeing the advertising).

 

While I spent much time on Jedi Outcast and Academy when those were new, I did a godmode run through Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight and tried the DF Demo only biefly back then. No lightsabers...

 

Technically Dark Forces is interesting. It's a Doom-Clone (no licensing, engine built from scratch, afaik) with a few enhancements: the player can jump (and it feels somehow thief-like) and it seems they found a way to stack a few 2.5D-levels on top of each other. This means -- unlike Doom -- floors above floors are possible.

 

Although these features enable a more vertical gameplay, the lack of restriction may also be the reason why the game did not age so well. Mouselook was not invented back then. No way to change the keyboard controls, and the defaults are terrible.

 

This is sort of fixable when playing with Dosbox. You can change keymappings with CTRL+F1 and at least get WASD working.

 

I have been looking for a decent modern way to play it, something like what zdoom or doomsday is for doom. Closest thing I found is the XL Engine, but it is still too alphaish and unfinished. Compared to the original I found content to be missing, some NPCs not appearing at all.

 

Any hints that point me in the right direction are welcome.

 

Dark Forces Mod for Jedi Academy does not count.

[Diego]

I'm pretty happy with the standard controls on this version I'm playing. It uses mouse to look (no up and down of course) and wasd works like modern games. The auto aim is useful. No doubt this has been worked for this release, the original was made to play with arrow keys and ctrl etc

[Paralytik]

They're in the clear!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strafegame/strafe

[Airship Ballet]

Yesssssssss

[Diego]

Great news I wouldn't have backed this (or know it existed) if you hadn't posted it here.

[elwing]

Closest thing I found is the XL Engine, but it is still too alphaish and unfinished. Compared to the original I found content to be missing, some NPCs not appearing at all.

 

 

well, the bad news is that this project seems more or less dead as the developer got no more time to work on it, and he didn't post anything in one year, the good news is that it will probably go opensource .. which I think will greatly increase the work on it and might in a reasonable amount of time lead to a working version...