A couple of years after Doom had shown the world what 1st person shooters were all about, LucasArts decided to throw their hat on the FPS ring with their own take set in the Star Wars universe. Instead of a mostly plotless, gore-filled shooter, Dark Forces was a more of a story-driven experience, with some links to the movies as well.
The first mission places you in the boots of a mercenary Kyle Katarn, who is doing a secret mission for the rebels. His goal is to secure the blueprints for a new weapon the empire is calling the Death Star. While you don't see the outcome of this successful theft in the game, the results are seen at the end of the New Hope when Luke Skywalker blows up Death Star with a well placed hit through a small ventilation port.
After the successful heist, Katarn is introduced to the main story. The imperium has launched an attack on one of the rebel bases by utilizing a new form of Stormtroopers, which are more deadly and ruthless than the standard forces. These troops are called Dark Troopers, a type of robotic soldier from a project led by general Rom Mohc. Stopping this dangerous project becomes the main objective of Kyle and his pilot Jan Ors, who ferries Katarn in between his missions.
Dark Forces is often seen as a Doom clone. The term was used during its original launch as well, but it's not really the full truth of the matter. While it looks and plays very much like Doom, there are still several differences in terms of gameplay. One big difference is the ability to jump and look up and down. While looking up and down is somewhat of a pointless feature, thanks to auto-aiming, jumping is something that is often needed during the missions, as the maps are generally built with that in mind. Jumping can help you get around enemies or just reveal secrets. Lastly, there's crouching as well. So, overall, LucasArts managed to add quite a bit to the mix in terms of movement.
One notable difference comes in the form of the status screen, which shows you separate pages on your current weapons collection, missions goals, inventory items and the maps screen. Just like in Doom, you can see the map as an overlay, but there's a separate map mode as well, in which you can zoom the map of the level. Noteworthy items you can pick up include night vision goggles and spiked shoes for slippery surfaces.
Each level can have multiple objectives you need to tackle before you can conclude the mission. Usually, concluding the mission requires you to backtrack to the starting point where Jan Ors left you, but at times, you can end the missions after the final objective has been closed. It's one of those odd design decisions, which probably was more about who designed the levels in question and how they felt about backtracking.
After each mission, there are some snippets of the story given as well. This comes in either form of a missions briefing, which you get in front of each new mission, but there is quite a few cinematics as well. And as far as story and narrative go, not Doom, Duke Nukem 3D or Quake managed to go as far as Dark Forces did. There are even some puzzles in the mix.
Some of the weapons you can use are familiar from the movies. You have a blaster pistol and a stormtrooper rifle and thermal detonators. Mines, plasma rifles and welder guns bring quite a bit of variation on the ways you can tackle the enemies, all come with their own pros and cons.
Most of the enemies you'll probably recognize from the movies. Not only are the imperial troops after you, but more alien-looking enemies are also on the menu as well. So, all in all, the enemies, weapons, the graphics and the sounds and the music all hammer in the very familiar feeling of good, old Star Wars.
Despite Dark Forces is a pretty solid FPS and it was a decent hit when it came out, it does seem to me that it isn't as well-remembered game as Doom is even now. Back in the day, it was criticized because of its short length, which is a bit silly, as it does have quite a bit to play, but I guess in contrast to Doom with its multiple episodes, the tighter 14 episodes does seem a tad short. Another point of criticism was the lack of multiplayer mode, which definitely made Doom far more playable, as you could go head to head with actual people. With Dark Forcers the single-player game is all you get.
Another aspect is the lack of saved games. Yes, really. Dark Forces wants you to sit and play through each mission at once, not relying on saving, but your skill. It also has lives, which allow you to continue from where you drop off dead during the mission. You could consider them as a kind of a temporary form of quicksaves, but other than that, there's no way of saving your progress during the mission. Each completed mission is ticked to a list from where you can then choose the next mission each time you start the game. It's another one of those interesting design choices, which feels almost like an arcade-style approach in game design. I'd call it a blemish myself, as I don't see why there isn't a proper save system.
That said, Dark Forces is still very playable even today. It has smooth controls and the maps are reasonably well made, offering some nice challenges. The story, while not some grand piece of fiction, is also fun enough of an excuse to boot it up from time to time.
Like with Doom, there's a fan-made port for Dark Forces called DarkXL. Unlike with Dooms several source ports, DarkXL is somewhat of a forgotten engine replacement and while it still floats around the net, no improvements have been made for it in years. I haven't tried it in ages, but I do remember it working reasonably well, offering some smoother graphics in higher resolutions. I've read that not all the missions work as originally intended though, so using DarkXL is at your own risk, as it seems it won't be improved upon anymore. But, on that note, there's a new project in the works, The Force Engine, which aims to improve from where DarkXL left off. The Force Engine is far from being complete but could prove to be interesting.
Anyhow, if you want to give Star Wars: Dark Forces a spin, it's easy enough to find from several digital outlets reasonably cheap. You can get it from GOG and Steam, usually reasonably cheap.
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