STAR WARS Dark Forces

Take the role of an ex-Imperial trooper and join the Rebel Alliance!

Before Star Wars: Rogue One appeared in the theater, the Death Star plans were stolen by an ex-Imperial soldier named Kyle Katarn. The game was built in the era of DOOM, Rise of the Triad, and Duke Nukem. It does show that this "Golden Era" of FPS games does lack numerous modern day game design, but it holds up pretty well and it is still a really fun game to play... especially for Star Wars fans.

 

Death Star Plans
Death Star Plans

Kyle starts off just outside of a computer lab that contains the Death Star plans. In fact, the first level has you capture them and send them off to the Rebel Alliance and the Death Star is destroyed between Mission 1 and Mission 2! The game is not strictly about the plans, but the Dark Troopers that the Empire is testing and planning on putting into their military.
 

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Jabba doesn't take kindly to Kyle sticking his nose in his business.

The storyline outside of delivering the Death Star plans has Kyle chasing after his old mentor General Rom Mohc. Kyle's mission is to explore these Dark Troopers General Mohc has designed and began testing before Lord Vader. He does get sidetracked doing other tasks including rescuing an informant who has been feeding the Alliance information about the Dark Troopers, saving his cohort Jane when she is captured, and messing with Jabba as his business crosses paths with Kyle. The end result is Kyle reaching the Executor to sneak aboard the Arc Hammer and put the ship down, along with all the plans for the Dark Trooper project.

Arc Hammer
The Arc Hammer
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As mentioned, the game is pretty dated and unlike DOOM, it does not have a really good over-engine mod that will make everything look fantastic and bring in modern day amenities like GZDoom does for those games. There is an alternative called DarkXL, and while it is nowhere near as complete as GZDoom, you will still get a lot of the high res images to populate, while others have that vaseline look. DarkXL has been long since abandoned and only released 2 full public versions, it can be a bit of a pain to get working, especially if you want to use the Steam client to launch it every time you wish to play.

If you are a fan of the DOOM-age of FPSes, love Star Wars, and want to play a relatively fun game for under $5 (usually around $2 on Steam sales)... this is your game! I haven't played the game in about 20 years, but I found myself playing all the way through it in Hard and enjoyed the whole experience.
 

Score 8 out of 10

It suffers if you use the default engine controls, but with DarkXL running, it makes the controls feel more modern.

When it was released, the graphics were pretty amazing. Using DarkXL, the engine can make most of the textures look great high-res.

The music can get repetitive after a while, but it does contain numerous hooks from Star Wars music.

It is Star Wars. The levels are pretty fun, but once you beat the game, there really is not a need to replay it.

PROS / CONS

  • Star Wars
  • Multiple Environments
  • Seeing several familiar characters
  • No real replay value
  • Game suffers on modern PCs without a mod
  • 90's level design

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