Star Wars: Dark Forces Remastered Impressions

 

Here's my Dark Forces walkthrough, which is still a work in progress.

Star Wars: Dark Forces was one the essential games of my childhood. Originally played on a hand-me-down 486 (I think), I remember struggling to get the sound working, as well as frequently getting lost for hours in the game's labyrinthine levels. Having just completed the fourth mission of Nightdive's excellent remaster, I've found that Dark Forces' levels aren't as bad as I remember; however, I have a good twenty plus years of video games experience on my younger self, and I've also learned how to play attention to details, which was an ability I struggled with during my youth (I may have had ADHD symptoms as a kid). Anyways, Dark Forces holds up really well as long as you approach it in the right mindset. Video games from the nineties often treated level navigation as a puzzle, and if you play Dark Forces while constantly paying attention to every nook and cranny, then I don't think you'll find it as frustrating as if you just turned your brain off and raced through to an inevitable dead-end. Nightdive have cleaned up Lucasart's classic, giving it achivements, support for modern resolutions and framerates, as well as improving the textures and sprite-based models of enemies. The result is a remaster that feels and looks great to play on modern systems. Somehow, there's never been a Star Wars shooter that surpassed Dark Forces. The weapons are fun to use, with the iconic E11 stormtrooper rifle being an inaccurate, fast-firing staple that you'll frequently rely upon. Dark Forces really nails the look and sound of Star Wars. The sprawling military installations with questionable safety standards; bottomless abysses and slimy sewers full of garbage monsters. It's still the closest movie approximation to feeling like Luke in A New Hope, racing down the halls of Death Star, blasting stormtroopers. My only complaint is that I feel as though the remaster might be a tad expensive at 30 bucks (I picked it up for 26 on Steam), considering that this is a really old game that will stump many. But then again, I really enjoy playing these updated games, and I know that Nightdive needs to make a profit. Let's hope they remaster every game in the series.