Star Wars: Dark Forces The Force Engine Source Port Mission 4: Research Facility Coming from DOOM, it takes me by surprise how just a year later a game like Dark Forces was doing Room-over-Room and true 3D level design that interweaves within itself and even loops. A looker too.

lol, have you not seen the updated one :D

I've seen it, but while I'm interested, that Unreal Remake is more of a different game altogether (I'll get to that sequel eventually). Will try it after playing Dark Forces 2 with OpenJKDF2 Mod first. Just to compare "fairly".

I don't know it seems to be a one-to-one recreation

It changed how I played games because you couldn't save during missions. Before that i was constantly saving in games to the point were it became a chore. In Doom I reloaded a room when I used too much ammo. With Dark Forces i realised that it is much more fun to just play. 💙

Theres a guy doing 3d vr with it

thats one of the first things i noticed too playing the remaster, holy shit this game had ROR and it could move too!

LucasArts made the best games back then. True master pieces

Lowkey they were in another level for western developers. You had adventure games that were basically their bread and butter and then you had the SNES Indiana Jones + Star Wars. On PC they also were kings with X-Wing/TIE Fighter and this game (plus all the games that came afte)

The atmosphere was out of this world. Remember we weren‘t as saturated with SW games back then. There really only was X-Wing/TF snd Rebell Assault. Puzzles are Hexen level awful, though. Never managed to finish it.

Damn, I probably haven't played this since 1996. But that's the Coruscant level right? I may have played it a few times as a kid.

I remember that puzzle. It was awesome to work it out.

Back then, tech moved very quickly. We'd get these "generational leaps" in games. Wolfenstein 3-D to Doom was a big jump. Doom got a great PS1 port but Dark Forces didn't get quite the same 1 to 1 port, thus showing how much DF had advanced this burgeoning genre. DF is great!

That MIDI music though...

I liked this one best out of the two options fwiw.

It’s coming back to me now. The force had levels up to four I think, and you had to earn a limited number of upgrades. It really helped to have the full force jump to navigate all the obstacles. There was a player versus player mode, and Darth Vader was a destructible, but Luke could be invisible and heal himself to go on and on. There was a big freaking gun that would splash damage and wipe people out, way overpowered.

I really want to play some of those dark forces games, but even watching this video for 30 seconds makes me feel sick. Some graphic styles just don't agree with me.

That's fair enough, perhaps take a look at the fan made UE5 remake of Dark Forces 2, or play Dark Forces 2 with OpenJKDF2 mod.

I’ll take a look because I don’t think that game engine will make me sick after 20 minutes.

Very nice game. The sense of scale in this and the sequel are great. Kyle Katarn is canon.

I want to see an animation of a person moving this fast through these corridors with all the correct anatomy and structure of the character. How would that look? Bet it would be funny. Remember Redneck Rampage? That was a fun shooter.

I’d really love to play DF2: Jedi Knight. I loved that game but it seems like it’s just become lost.

first time I see this. why was this game not popular?

It was popular, but it was sandwiched in between DOOM I&II (94-95) & Duke3D+Quake (96). A lot of the innovations the game had (RoR, true 3D, the gadgets, the objective based missions, the voiced cutscenes, etc) were quickly forgotten as the industry was moving at breakneck speed.

Did it had LAN mode? Because DukeNukem3D and Quake I know mainly for the LAN in clubs.

That's the other reason it is not as well-known or remembered. It was a single player game through and through.

Got this set up. Excited to play thru it

great game

I remember when I played the demo (first level), I was amazed at the green Deathstar model and the whole room-over-room thing. Felt like a leap forward.

Mazes on this were a bitch.

It's definitely got the worst sewer level I've played in an FPS. The level design is quite labyrinthine, but at least it's manageable, usually circling back into itself.

There was one level I remember as being a death star type thing and the button to bridge to a control room was camouflaged into the wall art so well, it took six hours to find it.

It’s probably the only memory I have of the game. Maybe I wouldn’t remember if I didn’t have to go to bed and sleep and come fresh to the game to find that freaking button. Found it right away after a night’s sleep. Or day of sleep actually.

Whennnn did this get put on Source?! 😱

It wasn’t, a source port is a port made with the original source code. Older games usually get one an it makes playing DOS games in particular a much better experience. This source port makes the game almost modern and beautiful while still faithful. No relation to Valve’s Source

Genuinely thank you for the real answer. Nice refresh for this site lol. Source has been stolen in my brain by Valve forever 😂🤦‍♂️

You're welcome! Yeah, I try to be what I'd like to see. Besides, I'm fairly new to the whole mods/source ports/enhancements scene myself so I like being able to help others too.

I thought it was called the Jedi engine not the force engine? Or am I confusing them.

@FightClubHuBBs The engine used for Dark Forces is the Jedi engine. The Force Engine is a source port (a port made with the original source code, built over the remnants of the older DarkXL source port). It's a fantastic way to play this game.

Thank you for the clarification.

@howieeday That looks like everyone’s favorite level in Marathon; “Colony Ship for Sale, Cheap!”

But to be fair, these older engines didn't play as nicely with looking up and down, also with the big verticality, even if it was technically very cool. I play Doom without mouse look, it is just fun as it is an very well balanced. But for Dark Forces, it makes it much more fun.

I also play DOOM vanilla, no mouse look or anything. As you say, it’s both fun and balanced. Added mouse look is something I do for other games of the era or mods. This game improves a lot with it due to the exploration needed and the obtuse level design puzzles at times.

No slopes, thoughbeit.