I was a huge Star Wars fan as a teenager. I spent years playing Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, which was the first Star Wars game that let you swing a lightsaber and use force powers in a three dimensional environment. It's sequel, which ditched the Dark Forces moniker, didn't quite have the awesome expansive level design as its predecessor, but Jedi Knight 2 had a great lightsaber system, and remained the best jedi simulator around, despite being released in 2002. Fallen Order, in my mind, has supplanted Ravensoft's classic on that front. This is the first game in which you really feel like you're engaging in a saber duel, due to the combat being based on From titles like Dark Souls. Fallen Order certainly wears its influences on its sleeve; in addition to the Dark Souls influence (the bonfire mechanic is nonsensically ripped straight from that game), it seems heavily indebted to the newer Tomb Raider titles with its mix of scripted sequences, light puzzle solving, and exploration. The levels are vast and well-designed, full of various enemies taken from the Star Wars universe, although there are perhaps too many generic monsters such as giant spiders and rats (really, developers, you could leave those two overused beasties on the table). The story is somewhat nonsensical but the motioncapture looks great, and the performances are good (a weird thing to comment on in a video game). Basically, this is the Star Wars single player game you've been looking for. Jedi Master difficulty will give you an experience similar to the easier areas of Dark Souls, so be prepared to be occasionally frustrated. I've been stuck on the Ninth Sister saber duel for about an hour, but when she finally bites the dust, the feeling will be oh so sweet. Once last comment: this game runs well on Medium settings and 1080p on my ancient PC, and it's frequently stunning.
I was the target group for the Outer Worlds. A Bethesda-style RPG with the RPG elements added back in? Sign me up! Unfortunately, I'm a little disappointed. Most of the quests are lazily designed and taken from other games. The ridiculous amount of loot you end up hauling is useless. The combat is so brain-dead that weapon hunting has no meaning. Sure, Pavarti is a cool character (a charmingly awkward engineer that needs your help on a somewhat memorable dating quest), but the corporate satire is somewhat wanting. Usually I wait until I've finished a game until I purchase another, but after 18 hours in the Outer Worlds, I bought Jedi Fallen Order after reading several positive reviews, and I haven't really thought about going back. Rather, I think I'll return to Divinity Original Sin 2, in which I've clocked 78 hours, and finally finish that superior RPG.
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