Star Wars Games: May the Pandering Be With You

I completely forgot that May 4th is some sort of fan-made holiday and honestly picked up these games because they were on sale.  Now, important to state, I actually own both the games as physical copies.  Jedi Outcast is still sitting in it's jewel case in my parent's basement and I swear Force Unleashed is around here somewhere, but I'm a sucker for digital copies. And Jedi Outcast is a fucking pain in the ass to get working on modern systems, so this is a big step up.  What I'm getting at is that these are second opinions, in Jedi Outcast's case, might be 15th opinion, I can't describe how much I played that game when it came out.  And in second addition, I played Jedi Outcast with a "mod", but in my opinion, which I will make adamantly clear, is that I feel, beyond any reason of doubt, that this "mod" is the way the game was meant to be played.

Enough delay, here's the post mortem.

For some incredibly strange reason, EVGA's on-screen FPS monitor shows up in my Jedi Outcast screen shots.  I have this thing running on every game I play, why it showed up in these and only these, I haven't a fucking clue.

For those of you who don't know this game, and I pity you, truly, the full extended title of this game would be Dark Forces 3: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.  Dark Forces started as a doom-esce fps based in the Star Wars Extended Universe and follows the life and times of a one Kyle Katarn, mercenary and all around badass.  They are incredibly well loved by their fan base and are generally regarded as the best Star Wars game series.

The Dark Forces series has always been, well, rather dark.  Quite a lot of the series exists post Return of the Jedi in the rebuilding of the republic.  In the second game, Mr. Kartarn finds a lightsaber belonging to his father and becomes a Jedi.  But, as is such in the Extended Universe and why this game and it's protagonist are so well received is it is such a vast departure from the structure and rules of Jedi past.  Kyle Katarn is not a Jedi, he's a mercenary with a lightsaber and force powers and  uses them to tear through imperials with reckless abandon for Jedi tenants.

But enough backstory, Jedi Outcast.  I mentioned I played with a "mod" and the reason I keep putting that in quotes is this "mod" is in the actual game files.  Some of you have guessed it, others haven't a clue, I played with lightsaber dismemberment on.

Remember in A New Hope when Obi-Wan slices off that... thing's arm off in the bar and then they somehow avoid how swords made out of pure energy would be able to effortlessly slice people in half for the rest of the trilogy?  Well typing in two console commands turns that on full-bore in Jedi Outcast.  This is all in the game, the severed heads, torsos, limbs are all textured properly and have proper physics.  I can only guess, but I'm damn near certain this was how the game was supposed to be, but the ESRB would have branded it M or, god fucking forbid, Ao and it would have ruined sales.  But turning it on changes more about the game than just a little extra gore.

I must have missed it when I was younger, but fucking hell is this game dark.  I won't spoil it because jesus go play this game already, but the entire motivation for Kyle is plain, pure, hateful revenge.  You turn on lightsaber dismemberment and you watch as Kyle coldly and without a second thought slices hundreds of people into pieces in the name of vengeance.

I feel one of the biggest reasons Kyle's character is so well received is because he seems to be the only "human" Jedi.  If you had a lightsaber, force powers and the same motivation, this is what you'd do.

The game holds up a lot better than I expected.  It looks dated, sure, and the most obvious part is level design, it shows it's era rather plainly.  But there's some modern options, and while I did have to change the resolution and FOV in the .config, it's still fairly impressive in a lot of aspects.  The character models are still rather nice, the lightsaber looks proper and glows nicely, and the weld marks on the walls still make me smile.

And while you don't have a lightsaber the whole game, the FPS sections are pretty well put together.  The guns remain useful even after the lightsaber is acquired and they're actually rather varied and fun to play with.  The game is also at least an order of magnitude harder than I thought/remembered it to be.  The hardest difficultly is actually hard.  Health is pretty scarce and while you do get the ability to heal yourself with the force, it carried a pretty steep penalty.  The gameplay has a wonderful flow to it.  The force powers are useful, but require some planning and restraint when using them so you don't burn through your force meter too quickly.  It's just polished to a mirror sheen.  The game just exudes quality in all aspects.  And while you can feel some of the limitations of the engine and the time, it shows real, concentrated effort to make it good.

Like I said, dark

But there's another game I played this week.  I was doing some looking and aside from a few niche indie titles I picked up in bundle sales, this next game has the lowest MetaCritic score of any AAA title in my library.  That is the infamous, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

I think it's criticism is without merit.  There I said it.

I honestly, truly, wholeheartedly, really like this game.  This gig is pretty easy most of the time.  Ratatouille said it in the most eloquent way I can think of.  The life of a critic is an easy one, people off up their hard work and pride as we sit in judgment.  In reality, our criticism is probably worth less than the paper it's printed on.  It only becomes a trying affair when we come in defense of the new.

So here is me, telling you a poorly received game is good, that a universally panned game is worth your time and money.

Admittedly, the Force Unleashed had a lot to live up to.  It's Euphoria engine for it's AI was a tech demo to put others to shame.  There was so much press surrounding it and a lot of people feel it failed to live up to those expectations.

A lot of people just wanted Jedi Knight 4, Jedi Knight 3 being Jedi Academy, a somewhat slump but overall solid game.  What they got, instead was Devil May Cry: Star Wars, and people hated it.  I actually love it.

God this game is pretty.  It came out in 2008 and still  manages to have graphics with such polish and variety that I was still excited to see it all again.  Now it does the DMC4 thing with having you repeat environments, but they're still different the second time around.  You're not backtracking through the exact same thing, the tileset is the same, but not the levels.

This is a console port, so grab your controller, I have no experience with the keyboard and mouse and maybe they work, but controller is good.  The controls are right and make sense.  The movement with force grip takes a level or two to get a hold of but it works just fine.

The quicktime events can be somewhat annoying but gamers kind of need to make a choice, either the finishers are really awesome to watch, or you get rid of quicktime events.  You can't really put a huge number of crazy controls in the game just for the sake of not having a quicktime event to slice a fucking AT-ST in half.

There's a rather amazing amount of collectables in the game that allow for some nice customization.  I can't describe how much time I spent customizing my saber color and crystals in KOTOR and it's sequel so having the opportunity to do so in another game is a big selling point.  And the colors, while familiar, have twists to them.  Compressed and unstable crystals change the blade texture in really interesting ways.  And holy mother of god is the black saber crystal awesome.

The collection is slightly annoying, but just pull up a holicron walkthrough and play the game normally aside from following that, it's not that intrusive.

But the combat, the setting and the story are really well done.  Not often do we get the dark side perspective on things and the way this one sits between episode three and four provides a really interesting perspective on the whole thing.

The game's save system also adds a bit to it's replayability.  Your powers, combos and stats carry over with the file, but at any point you can go back to any level with your stats saved and grab missed holicrons or just massacre people with your supped up character.  It's rare in star wars games to feel truly powerful and this game captures that rather well.  Costumes change every level, without fail and they're amazingly well done.  Every texture is thought out and has something to do with the setting you're in and the planet and it's climate.  When you're in the junkyard, you have protective gear and in the the hot jungle, you have light armor.  Characters in most games are lucky to get one change, let alone 10+.  And if you don't like it, you can change it.  Once it's unlocked, you can just switch it, just like your saber color and composition.

Without the hype and without it, in fan's eyes, attempting to take Jedi Knight's throne, I feel this game would have been very well received, but a perfect storm was brewing and it sits in the limbo of a 65 metacritic score, but with 100% completion in my steam library after one day of play, that I didn't stop, today was Force Unleashed day, and I loved every second.