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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Tag: FPS
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 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 866: UT Isn’t Just For Christmas
According to my calculations, Santa brought me a copy of Unreal Tournament (GOTYE) at the end of 2002. It was something of a surprise; up until then, there had been a touch of the “no ultra-violence” about my access to games, and yet there we were, with my parents spontaneously introducing me to one of the most violent games available at the time. (It is a strong possibility that they had no idea what they were actually buying.)
I might play UT2004 every December to mark the festive season, but the big day itself belongs to the original and best.
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Blog 864: Invasion
Every year, when the festive season comes upon us once more, I play UT2004. Every year, it makes me think. This year, I was padding out my campaign playthrough with a bit of Instant Action. I always like to slip in a bit of Onslaught and the bonus Assault missions, but this time I decided to have shot at the Invasion game mode, which I had only played once or twice before.
I quickly remembered why I had only played it once or twice before. However, it set off a train of thought that I want to explore: I think that with a few adjustments, Invasion mode could blossom into something special.
(I should change my middle name from “Danger” to “Distracted”.)
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Blog 849: Project Snowblind
Project Snowblind was originally touted as an entry into the Deus Ex ouevre, albeit by a different developer than Ion Storm. However, Crystal Dynamics took a bold step — they realised that they were making something a bit different and cut ties to let Snowblind become completely its own thing.
It’s always been an object of interest to me, even more so now considering that the actual Deus Ex prequel that did get made would have been much better off had its developers realised they were making something different and not crowbarred their game into a mythos it didn’t suit. Sigh, etc.
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Blog 842: No One Lives Forever
Sometimes I hate legal battles over who owns the rights to what game. While I’m a big believer in physical copies, I’d still rather oft-lauded classics were available digitally than… not at all.
So here we are at No One Lives Forever, a 60s-spy-thriller-based FPS from the same people that made my beloved Shogo: Mobile Armor Division (and more surprisingly, the studio who would go on to make Lord of the Rings fanfic Shadow of Mordor), and a game that’s consistently revered by critics whenever it’s mentioned. But I missed it at the time, and it has been locked in a legal dungeon for twenty-odd years so I’ve not had the chance, until… Windows XP computer, internet auction site, still-factory-sealed box, you know this story by now.
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Rao Dao Zao 