There’s a good mixture of weapon types, but the precision weapons are either weak or get you killed while you’re lining up a powerful shot, the rapid-fire weapons are set to Miss, and the explosives are more likely to get you blown up. Yet, despite their cool looks, most of the weapons are only somewhat fun and useful. From the motion blur that accompanies Force Speed to the delightfully devastating disintegration animation of being hit by a disruptor rifle, the special effects and overall visuals of this game are always a joy to enjoy. Pre-rendered cutscenes don’t look terribly fake, robot sentries explode with satisfying fireworks, and there’s some attention to detail in one rainy level that perpetually astounds me: the rain creates sparks as it vaporizes upon contact with your lightsaber. I kid because I love, but this game still looks pretty good, despite what my graphics card would lead you to believe. A nice-looking wall, mind you the textures in this game are all very Star Warsy, level architecture is appropriately complex and visually pleasing, and the character models hold up significantly better than the face-on-a-stick aesthetic of the original Jedi Knight. The special moves are quite stylish, and the character animations in general are fluid and realistic enough to keep you immersed in the authenticity of the game world until a dead Stormtrooper inevitably gets lodged halfway in a wall.
The possibilities are…limited to these two options, mostly, but doggone it, they never get old! Oh, wait, and you can Force Push flying rockets back at the guy who launched them, and that’s tremendously awesome. You might also run along the side of a wall and give your foes a glowing haircut. You might, for example, choke an enemy and hold him immobile in the air, then hurl your spinning saber at him. Not that, uh, Kyle gets his lightsaber back and becomes a Jedi again.īut if he did recover his Force powers, it would be a lot of fun to combine hypothetical lightsaber combat with the Force. Independent of anything else the game may offer, it’s all worth it for the lightsaber combat. Special moves, including a sneaky backwards saber thrust and a blood-rage leap slash, increase your chances of dying while trying to show off.
You’ll eventually have access to three distinct saber combat styles called Light, Medium, and Why Can’t I Hit Anything, giving you a choice between dealing heavy damage and actually connecting with your target. Saber attacks are coordinated with your movements, so a running slash will have a different effect from a cowardly standing swipe. While there are many reasons to play JKII, the robust and elegant lightsaber combat is, dismembered hands-down, the primary selling point. The ensuing story is one of revenge, redemption, and reloading saved games, as lightsabers are fatal when applied liberally to your torso. It’s only a matter of time before the irony sets in and the game takes a turn for the not-expected. The game kicks off with Kyle on a not-exciting mission for the New Republic with longtime spaceship pilot and not-girlfriend Jan Ors. Hero Kyle Katarn was a bad Jedi in the last game, so he’s given up the Force for Lent and has returned to his not-Jedi mercenary ways.
Jedi Knight II happens a few years after MotS, which happens a few years after Jedi Knight, which happens a year after Return of the Jedi, which happens a few decades after George Lucas ruins your childhood with Phantom Menace. Failing that, a cameo by Lando Calrissian wouldn’t hurt. If a true sequel could ever hope to come near the brilliance of Jedi Knight, it would need to capture the spirit of Jedi Knight, build on the innovation of MotS, and become bigger, more modern, and more refined. Jedi Knight‘s full-length expansion pack, Mysteries of the Sith (known to all the cool kids as MotS), gave us more weapons, more Force powers, new friends and foes, new locations, and a few interesting surprises-superior in some ways, inferior in many, but overall a worthy and satisfying successor to My Third Favorite Game Of All Time, According To That List I Made. Saber combat is about as sophisticated as a fifth-grade love poem and the graphics have aged about as well as an unrefrigerated piece of meat, but even that relative simplicity has its charm. The villains are memorable, the locations are intriguing, the challenges are challenging, and the vintage FMV cutscenes are precious. I love the first-person carnage with Imperial Repeaters and Concussion Rifles I love the third-person carnage with lightsabers and customizable Force powers. Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II is one of my all-time favorite games, if you can trust the Top 10 list I contributed to GameCola’s Issue 1-1 Tribute oh so long ago. A bit of blathering introduction is in order.
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