With the sequel for Dark Forces, LucasArts did something different: they started a different franchise. While the title does have Fark Forces 2 in it, the game is actually the first game in the Jedi Knight series. Or maybe Dark Forces was, it just didn't have much to do with Jedis. Kyle Katarn is still the main character, but this time around he turns out the be strong in the force, thus becoming a Jedi knight during the story of hunting down his father's murderer.
After the fall of the empire, Kyle Katarn is working as a mercenary for the new Republic. 8t88, an information broker droid, reveals Katarn the name of his father's murderer: a Dark Jedi Jerec who is looking for the fabled Valley of the Jedi, a source of power Jerec intends to use to give birth to a new dark empire. 8t88 isn't altruistic with his information, he ends up double-crossing Katarn and at gunpoint, demands information from a data disk he is unable to read. This disk the droid found from Katarn's father's study. As Katarn declines the honour, the droid leaves, telling his men to take care of the mercenary.
Quick-witted Katarn tackles his assailants and begins a chase of 8t88, which also takes him on the trail of Jerec and his Dark Jedi companions. As he is chasing Siths, it's only fair that Katarn himself gains Jedi tricks of his own during the story. In fact, he can go either on the light or the dark side of the force, which does influence how the story goes. While the light side of the force is the proper ending, you can follow the dark path and end up taking Jerec's place as the new emperor.
Jedi Knight was released only 2 years after the release of the first game, but a lot changed technically. The first clue is the cinematics, which is now a mixture of real actors and CGI. The production values are actually quite nice and while the CGI isn't motion picture quality, they do look very nice and the acting is pretty solid as well.
The second difference is, that the game is now in full 3D. No more sprites as enemies and pseudo-3D levels, all are shown in mid 90s 3D glory, which is to say a lot of blocky shapes are thrown your way. That is if you play the vanilla version of the game instead of a fan modded version, which increases the quality of the textures, lighting effects as well as resolution of the 3D models as well. And really, fan mods might be the best way of getting Jedi Knight running on modern machines, as the vanilla version might not play ball on modern OSs and hardware. Jedi Knight Remastered is the one you should use, as it really is a nice upgrade on the game.
Jedi Knight was the first modern Star Wars game that gave the fans of the universe finally the chance to play as a Jedi in a fully realised 3D world. Besides the standard Star Wars guns, Kyle can now field a lightsaber and tackle his enemies with it, slicing them up while deflecting blaster fire. Hot on the heels of power-hungry Dark Jedi he also has to go sabre to sabre with them, matching his light powers with their dark force.
Now, in all truth, I'd be lying through my teeth if I'd claim the lightsaber swinging to be exciting or even that well done. It's not, really. The epic duels against the Dark Jedi are something of a bore and even the fight against Jerec is something of an anticlimax. There's actually a little actual reason to use most of the Jedi powers at all during the game as they feel mostly tacked on. There are three powers that I used commonly: speed, jumping and on occasion force sight. Everything else is just pointless, even healing is better done with bacta tanks and medikits.
Disappointing Jedi trickery aside, Jedi Knight is a big improvement over Dark Forces what comes to narrative and overall gameplay. The gunplay is fun, the controls feel smooth, not that Dark Forces had anything to be ashamed of, and the levels are well designed and have quite a bit of variation in them. With the fan-made mods, the game even looks very nice with all the upgraded graphics.
Star Wars Jedi Knight might be a tad hard to get running smoothly on modern machines. I don't know how the GOG version fares in this, but the Steam version needs the fan patches installed if you want to run it on the machines of the modern era. So, if you do want to get Jedi Knight, it would be good to keep the possibility of technical issues in mind, especially if you want to play it in its original form. For this review, I played the game in the fan-made Remastered form.
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