Star Wars: Dark Forces is an old-skool FPS similar to Doom, only it’s set in the Star Wars universe. Set just after Episode IV, Dark Forces follows our hero as he attempts to uncover the Empire’s new secret weapon and destroy it before it can be used against the Rebel Alliance.
I love Star Wars: Dark Forces so much. It combines two of my favourite things: Star Wars and classic FPS. For a nostalgia bomb this game works so well on a Millenial like me. Of course, the game was originally released in 1995 but I never played it at the time.
The game focuses on a rebel soldier fighting to free the galaxy of the Empire’s oppression. So far there have been no lightsabers, and the only onscreen Jedi has been Darth Vader. I haven’t completed the game yet, so that may change later. But this is a game that focuses on the ground troops rather than the space wizards.
What this creates is a game where you fight with blasters, shooting your way through Stormtroopers, Empire soldiers and droids, and those weird creatures that live in the Empire’s waste disposal facilities. In typical DOOM fashion you can’t look up or down, so it’s fortunate that the Stormtroopers aim is as bad as it is in the movies.
I did have some problems playing the base game, namely that the mouse sensitivity is too low. It wasn’t terrible, but this combined with the inability to look up and down made the controls feel a little clunky by today’s standards. I guessed that there might be some mods to improve this, so I did a search and found the Force Engine.
The Force Engine is a rewrite of the original game’s engine that improves the graphics and controls, as well as adding mod support. While I didn’t install any extra mods, I took on the improved graphics, better mouse sensitivity, and the ability to aim up and down.
After this the game plays even better. While it may not be 100% true to the original experience, it’s an extremely fun way to play a classic game and, for me at least, makes it a lot more fun. I haven’t finished the game yet, but I don’t think I’m going to stop playing any time soon.
May the Force be with me.
