I’d never played Jedi Academy before. This seems remiss of me, given how much I love Jedi Knight II. What could have happened in 2003 to distract me so?
Anyway, better late than never.
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Category: Gaming
Blogs related to computer games.
Blog 883: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
And so we finally come to where it, for me, all began. 2002’s Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast was my very first Star Wars game, so it’s probably wise to concede that there may be some bias approaching. I first played this game having just bought The Best of Ultravox and Gold: The Greatest Hits of Spandau Ballet, so please play those in your head while you read this too.
Jedi Knight II is quite a departure from the previous entries in the series. Developed by Raven Software rather than solely in-house at LucasArts, and built off the Quake III Arena engine rather than their own tech, it’s something of a fresh start in almost every way.
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Blog 882: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
Where are we at for title-stack by now? Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith makes four, but maybe we’re dropping the Dark Forces II entirely since this is an expansion pack. (Although gog sells it bundled with Jedi Knight, it comes as a separate installer so maybe it’s one of those fabled expandalones?)
But the real question is: did a brand new suite of missions manage to address any of the more wobbly bits of Jedi Knight?
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Blog 880: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
If I said that Star Wars: Dark Forces would have made a perfect film, then it’s no surprise that its sequel basically just went ahead and made a film. Yes, Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II is the one with the live-action cinematics, supplanting the hand-painted characters of the first game’s cutscenes with proper costumed actors.
Dark Forces ended with a distantly observing Darth Vader asserting that “the force is strong with Kyle Katarn.” Let’s find out just how strong, shall we?
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Blog 878: Dark Forces
I used to like Star Wars. The original trilogy? Bangers. The prequels? Flawed execution of a fundamentally solid plotline.
Then there were the video games. Jedi Knight II has long been one of my favourite Expanded Universe adventures, but I’ve never played the game where this particular storyline began and I’ve been meaning to catch up for years.
Kyle Katarn started his life in 1995’s Dark Forces. Now, I struggled to play Doom and gave up on it after a few levels because it was too old even for me, so it was with some trepidation that I took this particular plunge…
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Blog 877: Supreme Commander 2
Sometimes I am taken by the oddest notions. I never played Supreme Commander 2 at the time because, well, it didn’t exactly get rave reviews, and I’m on the fence about Supreme Commander itself anyway.
For some reason, however, the thought of it entered my head recently. And once I get a thought in my head, there can be only one answer.
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Blog 876: Dark Sector
I can’t remember where I first heard about Dark Sector, but it came up in conversation somewhere fairly recently. People said it was good.
The funny part of this story is that it’s a game by Digital Extremes — who were vital to the creation of the several cast-iron belters in the Unreal franchise, but who were also subsequently responsible for the catastrophic misfire Pariah. Funnily enough, Digital Extremes don’t mention Pariah at all on their website’s games list. They do, however, mention Dark Sector. That’s an encouraging sign.
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Blog 872: Tower of Time
I have to admit that I tend to choose which game to play next based on one critical factor: does it have audio worth listening to, or can I turn it off and sing along to my own CD collection instead? Sometimes the decision is easy; the likes of Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex have spectacular soundtracks and sound design in general. Sometimes my hand is forced, by a game like Command & Conquer just not having subtitles. Finally, though, you have your Skyrims, your massive overwrought RPGs that never have enough music to cover the thousand hours you’re about to put into them (and the music’s probably forgettable orchestral munge anyway).
After a period of enjoying deserving games with their proper audio, my vocal cords start to get nervy. I like to sing. But I also want to play video games. So I need to find a game that can allow me to satisfy both needs at once.
Thus we end up at today’s candidate: Tower of Time. This may be slightly uncharitable of me, but after playing for a quick burst, I was assured that, yes, this is one I can sing along to.
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Rao Dao Zao 