For a long time I couldn’t get it to work on Steam, but I tried it today on a lark and it ran like a dream. A June 2017 patch ‘addressing Windows 10 compatibility issues’ might have had something to do with it. My PC is Windows 8, but whatever.
Just ran through the first level and found it as fun as ever. The gloriously blocky textures, the transplendently godawful character models, the vertiginous spaces that still pack a punch, the straight-from-the-movies John Williams cues, the secrets tucked away here and there, and that totally inaccurate blaster. Plus the FMV cutscenes. Good lord, the cutscenes.
The first level is far from the best Jedi Knight has to offer but it already reminded me why this is one of my favorite shooters. What is it about '90s Star Wars games, anyway? They just feel especially… Star Warsy.
I mean they haven’t made a Star Wars video game that was as good since the 90’s. Dark Forces, XvT, Rogue Squadron, even the Podracer video game were all released in the 90’s.
Ain’t ever gonna top that decade in both breadth and quality of laser sword space monks in rocket ships.
KotOR is the only Star Wars game I’ll ever need and I’m still unreasonably pissed that they fucking ruined the series by turning it into a goddamn mmo instead of giving us a proper conclusion to the trilogy.
Yeah, the Jedi Knight sequel was the worst. After X: Wing Alliance, there were no good space Star Wars games. The last really good Star Wars game was Pod Racer, and even that came out in either 1999 or 2000, along with Phantom Menace.
However, we did get the excellent KOTOR games after that, but I’m not sure if those really count as Star Wars games per se. They’re their own unique thing. So much better written than even the Star Wars movies, I never really put them in the same bucket as Star Wars.
Podracer came out in '99. I know, I checked before making my best decade declaration.
@ArmandoPenblade ok, KotOR is a good pull, and the only game from the '00s worthy of including in those lofty games of the prior decade. It was also, notably, not a Lucasarts game. Whatever magic Lucasarts had seems to have died off around that time.
Wait, does this mean the 2nd disc of just music now works with the Steam version? The Steam version used to not have the music when it first launched a number of years ago.
I will confess that it was the 90s Star Wars games that truly made me appreciate the John Williams music from the movies. I knew the Imperial March and all the big famous pieces that stick in people’s heads, but the games really made me appreciate all the quiet moments of the sound track, as well as faster moments when they kick in with those poundy drums. Oh man, so good.
You’re much better than I at figuring out where to go next despite their repeated obfuscated level design.
Or, you didn’t mind being stuck on where to go next every five minutes, and didn’t mind at the time that it was impossible to Alt-Tab out without breaking the game, so you also didn’t mind sitting through another 5 minutes of loading times after quitting out and looking up where to go next.
Heh. I screwed myself over in that regard. Since I had such a tough time at the start of the game because of not being able to force jump to the right spots, I restarted the game on Easy difficulty.
Of course, Easy difficulty didn’t help AT ALL in making navigation any easier. But it did have the double benefit of making the combat in the game completely meaningless. So the force powers were all meaningless too on Easy.
Just thinking about Jedi Outcast gets me so mad. I should calm down and think about something else. I just hated that game so much. I’ve never hated any other game as much. Not even Baldur’s Gate and it’s constant “stare at this hand as it turns to dust because you die and have to reload again”.
Thinking of the original Jedi Knight helps. I still love that game. I originally played it late, right before Phantom Menace came out. It really made me appreciate the force powers like never before. I never thought about Force Speed, Force Jump, etc. before. I never really appreciated the music as much before. I never really grasped the brilliance of putting your heroes right next to bottomless pits and the excitement that adds, until I played Jedi Knight. What an amazing game.
OK so now I’m kind of doubting my memory, at least as far as what happens in each game and what you can do and use. I think there are four of these, right?
Dark Forces - basically a Star Wars themed FPS, no lightsaber, no Force powers
Jedi Knight - I remember lots of FMV. You get a lightsaber and Force powers a few levels in? I remember getting frustrated with how long it took
Outcast comes next and - I got nothin’. I know I played it but it’s a big blank. Was this the one with a Sith dinosaur as the last boss? Or the ghost? I remember this and Jedi Academy has silly bosses but I mixed them up
Jedi Academy - I loved how you could create your own character, though I always ended up with a female alien with the head tentacles. And you could choose you saber type and stance. And the duels were such fun! Oh man now I want to play it again.
