I made an EGREGIOUS error in my scripting! Dark Forces predates the first STAND-ALONE Windows operating system (Windows 95) by about 4 months. Not the Windows operating system itself.
Ooooh the comment I was going to write. Narrow escape, mate! 😉 But your correction is a little confusing… I think you meant it’s the first that came with MSDOS bundled?
Yea, most games ran through ms dos mode off a disk drive, you would launch the write only ms dos ui and command to the file. It wasn't hard, but it was a learning curve for a middle schooler - but also made playing it feel like an achievement in and of itself😅
I fondly remember playing this, though not spending £80 on an extra 2mb of RAM to play it. When Rogue One came out I thought, 'Hold on, I stole the Death Star plans!'
@@holisticreviews There's more: Jan Ors > Jyn Erso, Kyle Katarn > Cassian Andor, Jerec > Chirrut Îmwe, Grand Admiral Thrawn > Orson Krennic (Appears in the audio drama.), Dark Troopers > Shadow Troopers, The look and representation of Mon Mothma Location Similarities: Valley of the Jedi > Jedha (The fallen statue resembles the concept art from the Valley of the Jedi, with a similar style and look) Sulon > Lah'mu (Both are farm planets with a similar look and style, serving as the home planets of Kyle Katarn and Jyn Erso. And of course the death star plans plot.
This game is not older than windows. I think Windows 3.1 was out when this game was released. DOS was the operating system that Windows ran on top of until Windows XP.
As far as coding goes, the Jedi Engine shares much more in common with what would later become the Build Engine than Doom's, because of the use of portals rather than bsp trees. Iirc they had an asian tech wiz on there who pretty much came to the same conclusions as Carmack's fast orthogonal sector-based rendering (perhaps inspired by doom pre-release builds) and it grew into another beast entirely, fitting it with room over room capabilities and affine texture mapped 3d model rendering, which Doom nor Build ever supported.
In the Topps Star Wars Galaxy magazine feature on this game, it says that the guys at Lucasarts were in communication with ID about creating the style of game, including the implementation of 3D assets into the engine. Pretty fascinating read if you can fine a copy. I also recall they hired architecture students to help create buildings that had some logic to them vs the standard method of the time of just making mazes that made no sense.
Fun fact, many assets from this game were also used in Shadows of the Empire, like the sound effects and voice clips, you may notice that Kyle Katarn's in game voice is the same as Dash Rendar's as well as the voices of the stormtroopers
that’s just one of the quirks that makes Star Wars special. Like how obi-wans lightsaber was originally made from an old camera flash tube and modeling kit parts.
I am so glad someone did a video going through this fantastic game from my childhood. To hell with Disney. They threw out some amazing content when it came to movies they COULD have made. I disavow Rogue One as the story of how the Death Star plans were acquired. Kyle "Motherfu*king" Katarn did that along with Jan "I'm a badas*" Ors. I cannot wait for the Nightdive remake. They have done the work of the Gods in recent remakes.
It’s a shame that we can’t get these games anymore. Disney got rid of all the cool stuff. They don’t even rerelease the games or remaster them. I’ll tolerate most of their BS if they simply remastered games like dark forces or the revenge of the sith game. Even if they remastered and rereleased the force unleashed. But they can’t even do that. Totally worthless.
Can't wait for another excuse to replay this game again, that Nightdive remaster will more than suffice - this game is one of the best shooters of its era and was one of the first games I remember really digging into back in the day. Was pretty damn hard to figure out without a booklet and without the ability to understand English back then.
It usually takes me about a week to finish these long retrospectives. I listen as I fall asleep and then just start the next night at the last part I remember.
33:25 Fun fact this ship is SUPPOSEDLY only 160 meters long, but the interior's actually got to be at least 242 or so converting the ingame units to meters. And the Crow is only partway up the ship when it's at the absolute edge of the interior map. So the ship;'s more like 500m.
IIRC, Lucasarts had already been in the advanced workings of DF before Doom even came out. Perhaps Wolfenstein was their initial inspiration? I just remember how DF was lumped in with the rest of the ‘Doom Clones’ of that time, and the developers basically saying they were already working on this game before ID’s game even came out.
Mr. Prince. I really don't understand why your channel has such a small subscriber amount. Your videos are really good. May the algorithm fairy find your channel soon
I was 9 years old when this came out and my dad installed it on our home PC, shortly after we watched the OT on our VHS. Needles to say, the game blew everyone away at that time and everyone was genuinely shocked at how much attention to detail was put into it. Imagine being a SW fan at that time and having the opportunity to shoot Stormtroopers with their own blasters, blowing up probe droids, those little car things, fighting trandoshans, or going one-on-one against Boba Fett himself! This game not only had a tight story that was additionally visually enhanced by level designs that look impressive even 30 years later (!), but the music and overal sound design honestly made me feel like being a major character in a SW movie that was never made. Apart from the 'Deadly Cargo' mission on Cal-Seti, every mission felt like a treat for a SW fan, from the level design, pletiful secrets, down to objetives. To this day, I consider 'Star Wars: Dark Forces' to be one of the most influential FPS games of all time, and the "Half-Life of it's era". It was obvious that the sequels of this incredibly influential game will inevitably have to include the force and lightsabers, but despite having varying degrees of fun with the follow-up games, nothing came close to this beautigly self-containted action/adventure journey with Kyle and Jen, traveling the galaxy aboard my personal favorite ship in the entire setting.
16:05 Did you realize there's a map? One of the Easter Eggs on one level was seeing the head of Max from the Steve Purcell comics and then-LucasArts game "Sam & Max".
I had access to this game on the mac when i was a kid in the 90's and STRONGLY influenced my love and appreciation for star wars games and lore. I love this game and as a kid it was something very special for me. glad to see younger generations able to enjoy it and see it the way I did.
Same here. Once I played this game, I went from being a Han Solo fan to a die-hard Kyle Katarn fan. His journey through the EU into becoming the new Master of Combat Arts in Luke's Jedi Temple was icing on the cake and a fine end to an incredible original character.
Anybody else stoked for the remaster coming next year? I'm hoping we see a similar situation with Dark Force II, because getting that game to run properly on modern PC's is an absolute nightmare. I still haven't gotten it done.
@@R1ck_Ryder I actually discovered that mod package between this comment and now, and I CANT GET THAT RUNNING EITHER! I actually went so far as to contact the developer behind OpenJKDF2 and even he can't help right now. I'm in a unique situation where my specific hardware configuration (I think) doesn't play with the engine and he has to do new development.
@Dovah21 they way I did it was buying the game on GOG, clicking on its exe in the Browse Files option, then the game will say your missing Direct Play. After that the game should launch and then you can commence with the Remastered mod installation
"The puzzles/navigation was not that hard." Bro, I first played this when I was 11. I spent a YEAR replaying the first 3 levels because I could NOT beat that sewer level. Any hint as to what that center switch did or what I was supposed to do in the doors it opened probably would have got me through but, ugh that level frustrated and terrified me. I never figured it out and I saw dianoga's popping out at me in pitch darkness as my nightmares! I finally got some cheat codes online once we got dial-up and skipped that level to continue on and beat each subsequent level until the prison level, also never figured that one out. I was probably 32 by the time I showed my kids and revisited this game to finally figure out where to go and what to do on each level. Playing this game as a kid in 1996 is kind of akin to the first time my kids tried Oculus Quest. It truly was revolutionary to me, and I also experienced DOOM as a 10 year old! Oh, 90's computing. PC gaming on shareware and CD ROM really was a secluded experience; NO HELP or guidance with lot of terrifying things trying to kill such a young kid hahah
Loved this series ever since it first came out. And while I do think that Rogue One is the best of the Disney Star Wars projects (and Andor) there is something classic about this take on the Death Star plans and what came after. Yeah, the Legends timeline rules.
When Rogue One was announced and we saw Cassian Andor for the first time, I was hoping we'd be getting an on-screen version of Kyle Katarn. While Cassian is no Katarn, there's glimpses of a similar sort of character in him. I wish they'd kept this in, though, because Kyle's story was amazing.
@@andreichira7518 I really much prefer this Dark Forces game and the radio adaptation of Star Wars over Rogue One. Honestly feel like I'm the only person in the world who thinks that film is just awful, all style and no substance.
@@MonsieurJimjamsRouge One’s first two acts are not my cup of tea, but the finale is amazing and Andor blows everything else post 1980 out of the water.
Funny story. I found and started playing Dark Forces in 1996 on PC. I was playing this game when my future wife called me for the first time. I didn't pause the game. :) Twenty six years later, that wonderful woman is still with me and went to see all the Prequels at midnight and all of the Sequels. This game started a new life for me. :)
WOW! My new favorite TH-cam channel just off one video. Truly fantastic content. I love your genuine enthusiasm for the experience, as well as your ability to review it while also embodying the character and story as the game progresses. It was a lot of fun reliving this game with you. Cheers
You should do a retrospective on Dark Forces 2. I played and beat DF as a young kid, when i saw DF's 2 in the store i freaked. The whole jedi thing hit me blind, so i doubly freaked.
One of my all time favorite SW games, this is the canon to me. Kyle got the Death Star plans, not Jen Erso. I can't wait for the Nightdive Remaster, if just to play it with quality of life additions. I hope that Nightdive eventually work on remastering Dark Forces 2 and Mysteries of the Sith and eventually bring them to modern consoles
It was little more than a DOS shell until Windows 95. The first REAL windows OS relesed was Windows NT in 1993. But I wouldn't' classify that as a consumer gaming system.
I played this game few years ago after being huge fan of Jedi outcast. This game held up surprisingly well and only remember that final boss kicking my ass forever. Excited to eventually try the remastered and play this again.
Excellent retrospective. I love how you juxtapose modern game footage with the classic game. Dark Forces is a game I remember fondly from when I was 12 years old. Star Wars videogames used to be so immersive. They were really trying to recapture the Cinematic experience. This game came out before even the special editions of the movies hit theaters, but it was all a part of the lead up to seeing Star Wars in theaters again after 20 years. I think Star Wars games really benefited from being made "in-house" by Lucasfilm. The people behind the games cared about the lore, because they weren't just programmers for hire. They really were invested in it.
One of the many games I remember playing as a kid and wish they fully remade on today's best gaming engines. X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter would definitely be on that list as well. Great job with this video, thanks for making it! Brings back soooooo many memories.
Real quick corrections here: Windows has been around since 1985 (though not in wide usage until the late ‘80s/early ‘90s), and Disney had nothing to do with General Grievous, George Lucas was responsible for that turd…
Brilliant video! Can we talk about how that weapons engineer moff had built his weapons lab in the sewers of a city? 😂 This was during the Empire’s heyday! Why did he feel the need to hide his lab in the sewers? 🤣 If there’s a lore explanation behind it, I’d love to know.
Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie. Just because games were released for dos doesn’t mean there was no windows. Windows 95 was appropriately released in 1995, and it wasn’t the first windows os by a bit of a walk. Gaming on windows was held back for a long time. Windows had a shut down option for restart into dos. Keep in mind that these operating systems were kinda written on top of dos. Like command line wasn’t there it was dos prompt.
Considering I played all the games before it and the ones after LucasArts, I have to say that this one, along with the X-Wing/TIE Fighter, broke the mold. Clint Bajakian was already an old acquaintance for those of us who had bought a few games. For example, apart from the X-Wing and TIE, his work on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is also great. It's fantastic how he modifies Williams' music a little bit to create wonders. For some reason, the part I got most excited about in this game is when you go to the prison to free Crix Madine and that part of the music plays, the return of the Jedi, when the rebel fleet has come out of hyperspace and the different wings start reporting on its status.
I remember this being included as a sample game (just the first mission) bundled with the soundcard and speakers set of Sound-Blaster back in those days....
Glad I found this channel, awesome videos! I am hyped for the other entries in the dark forces/jedi knight franchise. Jedi Outcast and Academy are so amazing because they really let you feel what having a lightsaber is all about, especially with dismemberment turned on
1:37 this is unlikely, development started a bit before Doom released or MAYBE slightly after. Officially it was more inspired by Wolfenstein but when Doom came out the project scope expanded.
"The music is dynamic, I can't think of another game that did it." That would be the IMUSE music system, first used in the original release of X-Wing in 1992. It was sadly not reused for the more popular CD-Rom release.
Very nice review. I remember being so excited when I was a kid for this game. The night dive remaster should be great, night dive is an amazing studio that release amazing modern remaster of all these legacy games.
This game is still my all time favorite and my first time I learned about Kyle Katarn. My dad originally owned this game on the Macintosh but it was only a 3 level demo disc, so the PS1 version was the only version in which I can play the game in its entirety. I still like to go back to it every now and then.
I'll never forget being a kid in my dad's computer repair shop and seeing this game on the shelf. Obsessing over it. But not being allowed to play it because they only had the one copy for sale. I finally played 5 or 6 years later on the ps1 and was still blown away like it was release day. So much so that it never even occurred to me until JUST NOW nearly 23 years later that it WAS a Doom clone.
I still remember the first time I saw Dark Forces, it was the demo playing on a computer in Circuit City. Stopped me in my tracks. The game became my life until Goldeneye was released a few years later. My best friend and I made custom levels with Dark Forge and uploaded them to our GeoCities Dark Forces webpage. I can still find it with WayBackMachine. It was the early days of the internet and an absolute hell of a time. I'm 40 years old and can still vividly remember the excitement this game made me feel almost 30 years ago. The last time I saw some of the levels in this video was when I was playing the game in-period. Brings back lots of emotions and childhood memories. I still have the original box with its complete packaging and Mac CD-ROM. Can't wait to play the remaster. Thanks for the video.
29:00 there is a room you need to jump throw a window where one imperial officer has the red key. Inside there is a control panel that turns a large fan on so you dont need the gas mask
Great video and fantastic to see Dark Forces getting some love. Gotta do Dark Forces 2 : Jedi Knight next though, surely ! Kyle Katarn is almost more Star Wars to me than Luke and Co. Spent huge chunks of my youth playing all of these games and I hold them very dearly.
@bradsbrickpost I'd rather they didn't as they'd probably just use him as fan service for 20 minutes then side line him to whatever "super epic" OC they're pushing.
Wow, what a great cover of this old game. Never got to play it myself but I can really hear how much fun you are having with it. Love the running narrative you have, really makes watching it more fun.
Oh man, I spent so much time playing this on my 486 back in the day. There's a lot of wonderful touches, but the one I remember best is a minor detail: If you punch a droid, you take 1 point of damage. Because you just busted your knuckles on that darn robot's shiny metal face.
This takes me back to when I was 13 years old and got this for my birthday. It was such a great game. Although I absolutely hated the sewer level. The music really made the game and got you hyped up.
Great video. I was 20 when this came out and loved playing this. Correction though, Win95 was out when the game dropped but the DF had to be launched from the DOS prompt. I had to install a CD ROM to play this.
Nice video... I have a few comments. 1) I seem to recall being able to shoot the mines with one (or maybe more?) of the guns. 2) You didn't mention the secondary fire modes for the weapons... I believe that was a first for an FPS. 3) This was, the first FPS to have hand grenades (in the form of the thermal detonators)... you can make life much easier by using the secondary fire mode to bounce them off of walls to kill enemies without exposing yourself to them, that was mind blowing back then. 4) X-Wing and TIE Fighter also had a dynamic music system (iMuse, IIRC) before Dark Forces came out (though some of the music is certainly borrowed from the movies). 5) The 3d ships in levels were amazing at the time and actually helped set me on my path to my current job as a creative director. Even though you can't get inside it, the Moldy Crow and 3d TIE fighters also added a lot to the immersion. I actually brought this up with the lead engineer of a later game (Ghost Recon) because people were asking for helicopter insertions for the 2nd expansion of that game (Island Thunder) and the team determined it was technically infeasible with Ghost Recon's game engine. I mentioned the Moldy Crow in Dark Forces, told him to put some ropes on the ground and show a helicopter flying away. His response was, "We can do that." They did, and it seemed to please a lot of the people who were requesting that feature. One of my favorite techniques in game design is when you can't technically do/show something that would be really cool, then imply it... and just maybe you'll trick people's subconscious minds into thinking that you did! Ironically, things have come full circle, and now I have had a couple people working for me that used to work for Lucasfilm before it was bought by Disney, and one of them used to report directly to George Lucas! 😅
As a kid, I found the game at goodwill. I didn't know anything about computers, but I got the game running. The sound never worked. I'd play the first two levels so much, but the dark sewer level and sewer monsters scared me so much, that I just stuck to those first two levels until I got much older. Never got to finish it, so I'm excited for the night dive remaster to finally give it the full attention it deserves.
@@evprince Also, regarding the music commentary at the end. At the time (1995), Star Wars games mostly didn't really play the classic John Williams scores. Other than the 16-bit SNES renditions on the Super Star Wars trilogy, that is. CD-ROM was still new technology at the time, and most home computers didn't have advanced sound cards. Since games were made with DOS in mind, LucasArts created original music through its proprietary iMUSE technology. Both X-Wing and TIE Fighter were also comprised of mostly original music. The first SW game to fully embrace the John Williams movie score was Rebel Assault.
Ah man, this game was something. I played it back in the day. Couldn’t last longer than an hour because I got motion sickness every time. But man, did I love it. I must have played that Death Star level a hundred times at least. There’s were all these fun hidden sections that you could find by running along each wall and spamming the action key until something happened. Good times.
Dude all your vids are bangers!!! Thank you for making such dope Indepth reviews of what was truly one of the best parts of my childhood! Long live the old EU!! I can only imagine you've read the old EU books, I'd be very interested in watching any content you did breaking down those as well!
Great video! Dark Forces was such an amazing game when it came out. The graphics, sound and feel were so far above other FPS or "Doom clone" games at the time. Absolute classic!
I remember playing this on my dads computer on Dos when I was like 6 in the 90s. It was the only thing I knew how to launch on Dos, my dad got tired of launching it for me so he showed me how to use Dos...at age 6
Great video, it brought back a lot of memories. I'll have to get the force engine installed and give it another go for old times sake. I'd love to see you cover it's sequel Jedi Knight in the future
This was one of my favourite game of the '90s and I still play it on my tablet Dos emulator! It's long overdue for a total remake the way System Shock is being done.
Great, great video! Just some obs: 00:36 - It's not older than Windows OS. Actually, Windows 95 has already been released, and before that everyone was using Windows 3.1. Very few games could run on Windows platforms because of memory allocation, so generally all of them were released on DOS back then. This changed a bit after W95 was released. 01:35 - The development of Dark Forces was already going on when the mods for Doom started to popularize. The thing is that Doom was a huge, huge success in 1993, and Lucasarts knew that a Star Wars game in the same genre would also be, so they began to work on it. 02:30 - The Jedi Engine was built from scratch but using some BSP insights from Carmack, I believe. It uses the same principles. 07:20 - It's not as small as it seems. There is a huge secret area in this level. 17:04 - That's actually from New Hope 49:00 - Clint Bajakian is amazing. The reason they decided to put his compositions in MIDI format is because they had already created the iMuse system for their point and click games. iMuse is a music engine that is reactive with the gameplay and can make transitions between tracks in a "natural" manner. This game was also sold as floppy disks back then, what would need a MIDI soundtrack anyways. They would later try to use iMuse with recorded tracks in X-Wing Alliance in 98, but it was a mess.
Another awesome star wars video Evan!! I really hope you get around to the knights of the old Republic or the Jedi outcast and academy games. Would love to see those.
The Dark Troopers in this game was more powerful and menacing. They were really nerfed down on The Mandalorian, since the ones in the game are suppose to be resistant to lightsabers since they’re made of Phrik.
Love this game. Had it on white label pc as a kid. I remember being stuck on the rescue krix madine from prison level for days. Took me ages for figuring out you had to use the lifts. Fave level was the vault mission with boba fett. And i hated the ice level with a passion
Great video! I hope you do the other games in the series :) One small nitpick: Vader's ship the Executor is pronounced as the legal term, like it is the "executor of Vader's will", not like executioner. Again: small nitpick :P I did legitimately enjoy your video though!
I remember Dark Forces coming out (have got a big box version of it) and it was so weird to read magazine articles saying that it "wasn't very Star Wars" - when it very much was. Loved the game, played it many, many times over the years. One thing: The PS1 version of this (bought by my brother in law) was one of the few game who's fisheye effect & frame rate made me physically ill.
Concerning the platforming. I think your smooth experience is because of the Force Engine and a modern mouse. I played this back in 95 and the platforming was very difficult as the controls were not so responsive. You have to remember that we didn't have laser mice then. We had that rubber ball in the middle of the mouse and dust would roll around the the directional wheels causing the mouse to jump. But, even if you cleaned it, they were not as accurate as the mice we have today. That said, I can't wait to play the remaster.
I made an EGREGIOUS error in my scripting! Dark Forces predates the first STAND-ALONE Windows operating system (Windows 95) by about 4 months. Not the Windows operating system itself.
As an ambassador to the IT community you are forgiven hahah nice video sir.
Ooooh the comment I was going to write. Narrow escape, mate! 😉
But your correction is a little confusing… I think you meant it’s the first that came with MSDOS bundled?
Yea, most games ran through ms dos mode off a disk drive, you would launch the write only ms dos ui and command to the file. It wasn't hard, but it was a learning curve for a middle schooler - but also made playing it feel like an achievement in and of itself😅
haha it's okay
well, thats ONE lol
Ah yes, the REAL Rogue One.
Rogue What?
Rogue squadron? Rogue leader? Rogue elements?
@@BeachTypeZaku
@@Gator159 Rogue State!🤣
So real
I'll die on this hill
I fondly remember playing this, though not spending £80 on an extra 2mb of RAM to play it. When Rogue One came out I thought, 'Hold on, I stole the Death Star plans!'
Jan Ors > Jyn Erso
@@holisticreviews
There's more:
Jan Ors > Jyn Erso,
Kyle Katarn > Cassian Andor,
Jerec > Chirrut Îmwe,
Grand Admiral Thrawn > Orson Krennic (Appears in the audio drama.),
Dark Troopers > Shadow Troopers,
The look and representation of Mon Mothma
Location Similarities:
Valley of the Jedi > Jedha (The fallen statue resembles the concept art from the Valley of the Jedi, with a similar style and look)
Sulon > Lah'mu (Both are farm planets with a similar look and style, serving as the home planets of Kyle Katarn and Jyn Erso.
And of course the death star plans plot.
Theres a reason Kyle is called Space Chuck Norris.
This game is not older than windows. I think Windows 3.1 was out when this game was released. DOS was the operating system that Windows ran on top of until Windows XP.
As far as coding goes, the Jedi Engine shares much more in common with what would later become the Build Engine than Doom's, because of the use of portals rather than bsp trees. Iirc they had an asian tech wiz on there who pretty much came to the same conclusions as Carmack's fast orthogonal sector-based rendering (perhaps inspired by doom pre-release builds) and it grew into another beast entirely, fitting it with room over room capabilities and affine texture mapped 3d model rendering, which Doom nor Build ever supported.
In the Topps Star Wars Galaxy magazine feature on this game, it says that the guys at Lucasarts were in communication with ID about creating the style of game, including the implementation of 3D assets into the engine. Pretty fascinating read if you can fine a copy. I also recall they hired architecture students to help create buildings that had some logic to them vs the standard method of the time of just making mazes that made no sense.
@@lfroncek No wonder there weren't any safety rails. Architects, am I right?
@@jtjames79They must've hired actual Star Wars architects :D
Fun fact, many assets from this game were also used in Shadows of the Empire, like the sound effects and voice clips, you may notice that Kyle Katarn's in game voice is the same as Dash Rendar's as well as the voices of the stormtroopers
that’s just one of the quirks that makes Star Wars special. Like how obi-wans lightsaber was originally made from an old camera flash tube and modeling kit parts.
@@alexello1189and how IG 88s head was an old car engine part. You can actually see the exact same part behind the bar at the cantina in episode 4
I am so glad someone did a video going through this fantastic game from my childhood. To hell with Disney. They threw out some amazing content when it came to movies they COULD have made. I disavow Rogue One as the story of how the Death Star plans were acquired. Kyle "Motherfu*king" Katarn did that along with Jan "I'm a badas*" Ors. I cannot wait for the Nightdive remake. They have done the work of the Gods in recent remakes.
It’s a shame that we can’t get these games anymore. Disney got rid of all the cool stuff. They don’t even rerelease the games or remaster them. I’ll tolerate most of their BS if they simply remastered games like dark forces or the revenge of the sith game. Even if they remastered and rereleased the force unleashed. But they can’t even do that. Totally worthless.
Can't wait for another excuse to replay this game again, that Nightdive remaster will more than suffice - this game is one of the best shooters of its era and was one of the first games I remember really digging into back in the day. Was pretty damn hard to figure out without a booklet and without the ability to understand English back then.
Solid EU Starwars focus. Excited for more to come!
It usually takes me about a week to finish these long retrospectives. I listen as I fall asleep and then just start the next night at the last part I remember.
33:25 Fun fact this ship is SUPPOSEDLY only 160 meters long, but the interior's actually got to be at least 242 or so converting the ingame units to meters. And the Crow is only partway up the ship when it's at the absolute edge of the interior map. So the ship;'s more like 500m.
IIRC, Lucasarts had already been in the advanced workings of DF before Doom even came out. Perhaps Wolfenstein was their initial inspiration?
I just remember how DF was lumped in with the rest of the ‘Doom Clones’ of that time, and the developers basically saying they were already working on this game before ID’s game even came out.
Plus, Dark Forces 2 was the first game to actually have lightsaber combat. It also did a really good job making Dark Forces feel like its own thing.
Mr. Prince. I really don't understand why your channel has such a small subscriber amount. Your videos are really good. May the algorithm fairy find your channel soon
🙏
We'll get there. Evan is already successful, the world just hasn't caught up to him yet. We got in on the ground floor.
the algorithm got me here, i hope many more. Awesome work, keep it up and it will eventually become big if you keep this production quality!
Because he still has few videos. But we’ve found him, so that counts!
Because uploading a video to TH-cam doesn't telepathically last ever user on the site know a video has been uploaded.
I was 9 years old when this came out and my dad installed it on our home PC, shortly after we watched the OT on our VHS.
Needles to say, the game blew everyone away at that time and everyone was genuinely shocked at how much attention to detail was put into it. Imagine being a SW fan at that time and having the opportunity to shoot Stormtroopers with their own blasters, blowing up probe droids, those little car things, fighting trandoshans, or going one-on-one against Boba Fett himself!
This game not only had a tight story that was additionally visually enhanced by level designs that look impressive even 30 years later (!), but the music and overal sound design honestly made me feel like being a major character in a SW movie that was never made.
Apart from the 'Deadly Cargo' mission on Cal-Seti, every mission felt like a treat for a SW fan, from the level design, pletiful secrets, down to objetives.
To this day, I consider 'Star Wars: Dark Forces' to be one of the most influential FPS games of all time, and the "Half-Life of it's era".
It was obvious that the sequels of this incredibly influential game will inevitably have to include the force and lightsabers, but despite having varying degrees of fun with the follow-up games, nothing came close to this beautigly self-containted action/adventure journey with Kyle and Jen, traveling the galaxy aboard my personal favorite ship in the entire setting.
In a year I bet this channel has grown substantially, lord knows it deserves it
Thank you sir 🙏
16:05 Did you realize there's a map? One of the Easter Eggs on one level was seeing the head of Max from the Steve Purcell comics and then-LucasArts game "Sam & Max".
Somehow every 90s and early 2000s Star Wars game has a side plot involved about Crix Madine turning to the rebels
He along with Kyle are the OG imperial defectors before that trope was overdone in new canon
Hahahaha yeah, I swear I had to rescue him in Rogue squadron and X-Wing on PC. The man sucks at not getting captured
@@simon-piermartineau7218 Yeah the Rogue Squadron Mission with him broke me as a kid, it was so difficult lol
I had access to this game on the mac when i was a kid in the 90's and STRONGLY influenced my love and appreciation for star wars games and lore. I love this game and as a kid it was something very special for me. glad to see younger generations able to enjoy it and see it the way I did.
Same here. Once I played this game, I went from being a Han Solo fan to a die-hard Kyle Katarn fan. His journey through the EU into becoming the new Master of Combat Arts in Luke's Jedi Temple was icing on the cake and a fine end to an incredible original character.
It wasn't released before windows os. Windows 1.0 came out in November 1985
21:27 X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter had dynamic music also. 😊
Anybody else stoked for the remaster coming next year? I'm hoping we see a similar situation with Dark Force II, because getting that game to run properly on modern PC's is an absolute nightmare. I still haven't gotten it done.
Look up Dark Forces 2 Remastered 3.0 and enjoy my friend
@@R1ck_Ryder I actually discovered that mod package between this comment and now, and I CANT GET THAT RUNNING EITHER! I actually went so far as to contact the developer behind OpenJKDF2 and even he can't help right now. I'm in a unique situation where my specific hardware configuration (I think) doesn't play with the engine and he has to do new development.
@Dovah21 do you have discord? I had some issues at first as well
@Dovah21 they way I did it was buying the game on GOG, clicking on its exe in the Browse Files option, then the game will say your missing Direct Play. After that the game should launch and then you can commence with the Remastered mod installation
@@Dovah21 you could also search for VC++ all in one dow loader since the game mat have some old runtime you need to use
Not before Windows but before Windows 95SE and the rest. One of the best.
"The puzzles/navigation was not that hard." Bro, I first played this when I was 11. I spent a YEAR replaying the first 3 levels because I could NOT beat that sewer level. Any hint as to what that center switch did or what I was supposed to do in the doors it opened probably would have got me through but, ugh that level frustrated and terrified me. I never figured it out and I saw dianoga's popping out at me in pitch darkness as my nightmares! I finally got some cheat codes online once we got dial-up and skipped that level to continue on and beat each subsequent level until the prison level, also never figured that one out. I was probably 32 by the time I showed my kids and revisited this game to finally figure out where to go and what to do on each level. Playing this game as a kid in 1996 is kind of akin to the first time my kids tried Oculus Quest. It truly was revolutionary to me, and I also experienced DOOM as a 10 year old! Oh, 90's computing. PC gaming on shareware and CD ROM really was a secluded experience; NO HELP or guidance with lot of terrifying things trying to kill such a young kid hahah
Yeah. That detention level was hell in 1995. I saw the little door but took a while for me to click that uou had to "Die Hard" your way through
Loved this series ever since it first came out. And while I do think that Rogue One is the best of the Disney Star Wars projects (and Andor) there is something classic about this take on the Death Star plans and what came after. Yeah, the Legends timeline rules.
Calling it legends is slander. Instead you should refer to Canon as fanfic.
Not legends. The true Legendary canon.
When Rogue One was announced and we saw Cassian Andor for the first time, I was hoping we'd be getting an on-screen version of Kyle Katarn. While Cassian is no Katarn, there's glimpses of a similar sort of character in him. I wish they'd kept this in, though, because Kyle's story was amazing.
@@andreichira7518 I really much prefer this Dark Forces game and the radio adaptation of Star Wars over Rogue One. Honestly feel like I'm the only person in the world who thinks that film is just awful, all style and no substance.
@@MonsieurJimjamsRouge One’s first two acts are not my cup of tea, but the finale is amazing and Andor blows everything else post 1980 out of the water.
Funny story. I found and started playing Dark Forces in 1996 on PC. I was playing this game when my future wife called me for the first time. I didn't pause the game. :) Twenty six years later, that wonderful woman is still with me and went to see all the Prequels at midnight and all of the Sequels. This game started a new life for me. :)
Wholesome
The force was with you that night! 😂
Congratulations 👍
WOW! My new favorite TH-cam channel just off one video. Truly fantastic content. I love your genuine enthusiasm for the experience, as well as your ability to review it while also embodying the character and story as the game progresses. It was a lot of fun reliving this game with you. Cheers
Welcome aboard!
You should do a retrospective on Dark Forces 2. I played and beat DF as a young kid, when i saw DF's 2 in the store i freaked. The whole jedi thing hit me blind, so i doubly freaked.
Next month!
@@evprince heck yea, also surprisingly TIE fighter has a very good, and lore packed story. Look forward to more of your work.
One of my all time favorite SW games, this is the canon to me. Kyle got the Death Star plans, not Jen Erso.
I can't wait for the Nightdive Remaster, if just to play it with quality of life additions. I hope that Nightdive eventually work on remastering Dark Forces 2 and Mysteries of the Sith and eventually bring them to modern consoles
Games that confused,make you mad and rage quit and throw up, ahhh the good old days :)
If the sequel trilogy were written competently, Finn's character arc would have mirrored Kyle Katarn's...
Would have made more sense for sure. But nah let's have him die at the end, and lets kill all the heroes we grew up with. Barf
You’re one of my new favourite channels! Thank you so much for this!
Wasn't Windows originally released in 1985?
It was little more than a DOS shell until Windows 95. The first REAL windows OS relesed was Windows NT in 1993. But I wouldn't' classify that as a consumer gaming system.
I played this game few years ago after being huge fan of Jedi outcast. This game held up surprisingly well and only remember that final boss kicking my ass forever. Excited to eventually try the remastered and play this again.
Excellent retrospective. I love how you juxtapose modern game footage with the classic game. Dark Forces is a game I remember fondly from when I was 12 years old. Star Wars videogames used to be so immersive. They were really trying to recapture the Cinematic experience. This game came out before even the special editions of the movies hit theaters, but it was all a part of the lead up to seeing Star Wars in theaters again after 20 years. I think Star Wars games really benefited from being made "in-house" by Lucasfilm. The people behind the games cared about the lore, because they weren't just programmers for hire. They really were invested in it.
46:30 Except for the lone brown-clothed Imperial officer idling in the hangar, the true final boss of the game.
One of the many games I remember playing as a kid and wish they fully remade on today's best gaming engines. X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter would definitely be on that list as well. Great job with this video, thanks for making it! Brings back soooooo many memories.
I'd prefer the original Tie Fighter, I always found that game to be more attractive than the vs title.
This was the game with the anti-Ewok graffiti easter eggs, iirc.
i beat every mission on hard and in jabbas ship you need to punch out 5 kell dragons at the start its brutal haha
Real quick corrections here: Windows has been around since 1985 (though not in wide usage until the late ‘80s/early ‘90s), and Disney had nothing to do with General Grievous, George Lucas was responsible for that turd…
You Take that back! The Dark Forces Audiodrama is a Masterpeice! XD
I have both on my audible!
This was one of the first game ive ever played with my dad. i still replay it at least once a year
Brilliant video!
Can we talk about how that weapons engineer moff had built his weapons lab in the sewers of a city? 😂 This was during the Empire’s heyday! Why did he feel the need to hide his lab in the sewers? 🤣
If there’s a lore explanation behind it, I’d love to know.
What an amazing retrospective! Love it! Subscribed!
Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie. Just because games were released for dos doesn’t mean there was no windows. Windows 95 was appropriately released in 1995, and it wasn’t the first windows os by a bit of a walk. Gaming on windows was held back for a long time. Windows had a shut down option for restart into dos. Keep in mind that these operating systems were kinda written on top of dos. Like command line wasn’t there it was dos prompt.
Considering I played all the games before it and the ones after LucasArts, I have to say that this one, along with the X-Wing/TIE Fighter, broke the mold. Clint Bajakian was already an old acquaintance for those of us who had bought a few games. For example, apart from the X-Wing and TIE, his work on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is also great. It's fantastic how he modifies Williams' music a little bit to create wonders.
For some reason, the part I got most excited about in this game is when you go to the prison to free Crix Madine and that part of the music plays, the return of the Jedi, when the rebel fleet has come out of hyperspace and the different wings start reporting on its status.
Fantastic coverage and extensive assessment of one of my favorite games when I was growing up
2 is coming soon!
I remember this being included as a sample game (just the first mission) bundled with the soundcard and speakers set of Sound-Blaster back in those days....
Glad I found this channel, awesome videos! I am hyped for the other entries in the dark forces/jedi knight franchise. Jedi Outcast and Academy are so amazing because they really let you feel what having a lightsaber is all about, especially with dismemberment turned on
“I am a legends fan through and through” me too, the evan, me too.
its great to see a video game review channel that is also an EU fan
subscribed.
Welcome, we'll be going through a ton of legends stuff here.
1:37 this is unlikely, development started a bit before Doom released or MAYBE slightly after. Officially it was more inspired by Wolfenstein but when Doom came out the project scope expanded.
"The music is dynamic, I can't think of another game that did it."
That would be the IMUSE music system, first used in the original release of X-Wing in 1992. It was sadly not reused for the more popular CD-Rom release.
Very nice review. I remember being so excited when I was a kid for this game. The night dive remaster should be great, night dive is an amazing studio that release amazing modern remaster of all these legacy games.
This game is still my all time favorite and my first time I learned about Kyle Katarn. My dad originally owned this game on the Macintosh but it was only a 3 level demo disc, so the PS1 version was the only version in which I can play the game in its entirety. I still like to go back to it every now and then.
Underhanded comment about how Disney fucked the franchise is a sub from me
I'll never forget being a kid in my dad's computer repair shop and seeing this game on the shelf. Obsessing over it. But not being allowed to play it because they only had the one copy for sale.
I finally played 5 or 6 years later on the ps1 and was still blown away like it was release day. So much so that it never even occurred to me until JUST NOW nearly 23 years later that it WAS a Doom clone.
I still remember the first time I saw Dark Forces, it was the demo playing on a computer in Circuit City. Stopped me in my tracks. The game became my life until Goldeneye was released a few years later. My best friend and I made custom levels with Dark Forge and uploaded them to our GeoCities Dark Forces webpage. I can still find it with WayBackMachine. It was the early days of the internet and an absolute hell of a time. I'm 40 years old and can still vividly remember the excitement this game made me feel almost 30 years ago. The last time I saw some of the levels in this video was when I was playing the game in-period. Brings back lots of emotions and childhood memories. I still have the original box with its complete packaging and Mac CD-ROM. Can't wait to play the remaster. Thanks for the video.
29:00 there is a room you need to jump throw a window where one imperial officer has the red key. Inside there is a control panel that turns a large fan on so you dont need the gas mask
Oh wow I did my even know that
Now you know and your welcome
Really enjoying this series. Keep up the amazing work!
Great video and fantastic to see Dark Forces getting some love.
Gotta do Dark Forces 2 : Jedi Knight next though, surely !
Kyle Katarn is almost more Star Wars to me than Luke and Co.
Spent huge chunks of my youth playing all of these games and I hold them very dearly.
Dark Forces 2 is GOAT
Great video and very nostalgic! Although the majority of my time was spent on Dark Forces 2!
Next month, DF2
@@evprince nice!! I'm still hoping that at some point Disney will rework Katarn back into canon. The Mandoverse seems like the perfect spot for him.
@bradsbrickpost I'd rather they didn't as they'd probably just use him as fan service for 20 minutes then side line him to whatever "super epic" OC they're pushing.
@@evprince it could definitely go bad and I have the same reservations. Thrawn in Ahsoka was a major letdown.
This was an excellent play-through and commentary. Great watch! Thanks
Wow, what a great cover of this old game. Never got to play it myself but I can really hear how much fun you are having with it. Love the running narrative you have, really makes watching it more fun.
Those classic Lucasarts midi tunes at 9:00 take me back man.
Very well done video!
You deserve more notoriety
Oh man, I spent so much time playing this on my 486 back in the day.
There's a lot of wonderful touches, but the one I remember best is a minor detail: If you punch a droid, you take 1 point of damage. Because you just busted your knuckles on that darn robot's shiny metal face.
It's sad to see how much love, quality and effort was put into old Star Wars content compared to the endless trash Disney farts out today
Star Wars entered the absolute worst timeline in 2012
I liked how the medal you got at the end was one of the same ones from X-Wing. The "Star of Alderaan" if i remember.
This takes me back to when I was 13 years old and got this for my birthday. It was such a great game. Although I absolutely hated the sewer level. The music really made the game and got you hyped up.
Great video. I was 20 when this came out and loved playing this. Correction though, Win95 was out when the game dropped but the DF had to be launched from the DOS prompt. I had to install a CD ROM to play this.
Nice video... I have a few comments. 1) I seem to recall being able to shoot the mines with one (or maybe more?) of the guns. 2) You didn't mention the secondary fire modes for the weapons... I believe that was a first for an FPS. 3) This was, the first FPS to have hand grenades (in the form of the thermal detonators)... you can make life much easier by using the secondary fire mode to bounce them off of walls to kill enemies without exposing yourself to them, that was mind blowing back then. 4) X-Wing and TIE Fighter also had a dynamic music system (iMuse, IIRC) before Dark Forces came out (though some of the music is certainly borrowed from the movies). 5) The 3d ships in levels were amazing at the time and actually helped set me on my path to my current job as a creative director. Even though you can't get inside it, the Moldy Crow and 3d TIE fighters also added a lot to the immersion. I actually brought this up with the lead engineer of a later game (Ghost Recon) because people were asking for helicopter insertions for the 2nd expansion of that game (Island Thunder) and the team determined it was technically infeasible with Ghost Recon's game engine. I mentioned the Moldy Crow in Dark Forces, told him to put some ropes on the ground and show a helicopter flying away. His response was, "We can do that." They did, and it seemed to please a lot of the people who were requesting that feature. One of my favorite techniques in game design is when you can't technically do/show something that would be really cool, then imply it... and just maybe you'll trick people's subconscious minds into thinking that you did! Ironically, things have come full circle, and now I have had a couple people working for me that used to work for Lucasfilm before it was bought by Disney, and one of them used to report directly to George Lucas! 😅
As a kid, I found the game at goodwill. I didn't know anything about computers, but I got the game running. The sound never worked. I'd play the first two levels so much, but the dark sewer level and sewer monsters scared me so much, that I just stuck to those first two levels until I got much older. Never got to finish it, so I'm excited for the night dive remaster to finally give it the full attention it deserves.
It's not older than Windows. Early versions existed during the 1980s and early 90s. Dark Forces is only older than Windows 95.
Yeah realized that post video release haha
@@evprince Also, regarding the music commentary at the end. At the time (1995), Star Wars games mostly didn't really play the classic John Williams scores. Other than the 16-bit SNES renditions on the Super Star Wars trilogy, that is. CD-ROM was still new technology at the time, and most home computers didn't have advanced sound cards. Since games were made with DOS in mind, LucasArts created original music through its proprietary iMUSE technology. Both X-Wing and TIE Fighter were also comprised of mostly original music. The first SW game to fully embrace the John Williams movie score was Rebel Assault.
Ah man, this game was something. I played it back in the day. Couldn’t last longer than an hour because I got motion sickness every time. But man, did I love it. I must have played that Death Star level a hundred times at least. There’s were all these fun hidden sections that you could find by running along each wall and spamming the action key until something happened. Good times.
Excellent video, such nostalgia. Wishing your channel much success!
Dude all your vids are bangers!!! Thank you for making such dope Indepth reviews of what was truly one of the best parts of my childhood! Long live the old EU!! I can only imagine you've read the old EU books, I'd be very interested in watching any content you did breaking down those as well!
I've thought about it!
Great video!
Dark Forces was such an amazing game when it came out. The graphics, sound and feel were so far above other FPS or "Doom clone" games at the time. Absolute classic!
It also had a proper story that made you actually feel you are doing something instead of just completing levels.
Thank you for the trip through game I had played so many many years ago!
Another awesome vid, man!
I remember playing this on my dads computer on Dos when I was like 6 in the 90s. It was the only thing I knew how to launch on Dos, my dad got tired of launching it for me so he showed me how to use Dos...at age 6
I couldn't beat the first level. I just skipped ahead to Dark Forces 2. There I made it to the 3rd level.
41:14 “One thing’s for sure: they’ll never see me coming.”
Chapter IV: They See Me Coming
They saw me coming.
This was one of the first PC games I ever owned. Learned how to make boot disks so I could go straight to the game. Ah, memories.
Dark Forces = JaN ORS
Rogue One = JyN eRSO
Always felt like that was a nice nod. Great video!
Please tell me your going to do one of these videos on the sequel, Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight?
That's the best game ever. Right there.
Great video, it brought back a lot of memories. I'll have to get the force engine installed and give it another go for old times sake.
I'd love to see you cover it's sequel Jedi Knight in the future
This was one of my favourite game of the '90s and I still play it on my tablet Dos emulator! It's long overdue for a total remake the way System Shock is being done.
Great late night find to watch. TH-cam algo delivers.
50:40 Yeahaha dude :D
Great video by the way, I just found your channel :)
I was 24 when dark forces came out, and I played it on an IBM aptiva. I just remember at the time it looked amazing
Great, great video! Just some obs:
00:36 - It's not older than Windows OS. Actually, Windows 95 has already been released, and before that everyone was using Windows 3.1. Very few games could run on Windows platforms because of memory allocation, so generally all of them were released on DOS back then. This changed a bit after W95 was released.
01:35 - The development of Dark Forces was already going on when the mods for Doom started to popularize. The thing is that Doom was a huge, huge success in 1993, and Lucasarts knew that a Star Wars game in the same genre would also be, so they began to work on it.
02:30 - The Jedi Engine was built from scratch but using some BSP insights from Carmack, I believe. It uses the same principles.
07:20 - It's not as small as it seems. There is a huge secret area in this level.
17:04 - That's actually from New Hope
49:00 - Clint Bajakian is amazing. The reason they decided to put his compositions in MIDI format is because they had already created the iMuse system for their point and click games. iMuse is a music engine that is reactive with the gameplay and can make transitions between tracks in a "natural" manner. This game was also sold as floppy disks back then, what would need a MIDI soundtrack anyways. They would later try to use iMuse with recorded tracks in X-Wing Alliance in 98, but it was a mess.
I enjoy Kyle's voice actor in this, I actually find him very fitting. He really does sound like a storm trooper
Another awesome star wars video Evan!! I really hope you get around to the knights of the old Republic or the Jedi outcast and academy games. Would love to see those.
Then you're gonna love the upcoming line-up.
Hell yeah! Can't wait!
The Dark Troopers in this game was more powerful and menacing. They were really nerfed down on The Mandalorian, since the ones in the game are suppose to be resistant to lightsabers since they’re made of Phrik.
Love this game. Had it on white label pc as a kid. I remember being stuck on the rescue krix madine from prison level for days. Took me ages for figuring out you had to use the lifts. Fave level was the vault mission with boba fett. And i hated the ice level with a passion
Please, PLEASE do a breakdown of Dark Forces II!!!
Next month
Great video! I hope you do the other games in the series :) One small nitpick: Vader's ship the Executor is pronounced as the legal term, like it is the "executor of Vader's will", not like executioner. Again: small nitpick :P I did legitimately enjoy your video though!
Thanks! Trust me more jedi games are coming.
I remember Dark Forces coming out (have got a big box version of it) and it was so weird to read magazine articles saying that it "wasn't very Star Wars" - when it very much was.
Loved the game, played it many, many times over the years.
One thing: The PS1 version of this (bought by my brother in law) was one of the few game who's fisheye effect & frame rate made me physically ill.
Concerning the platforming. I think your smooth experience is because of the Force Engine and a modern mouse. I played this back in 95 and the platforming was very difficult as the controls were not so responsive. You have to remember that we didn't have laser mice then. We had that rubber ball in the middle of the mouse and dust would roll around the the directional wheels causing the mouse to jump. But, even if you cleaned it, they were not as accurate as the mice we have today. That said, I can't wait to play the remaster.