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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 24 KB, 280x357, Dark_Forces_box_cover.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8107284 No.8107284 [Reply] [Original]

why doesn't it get the attention of other 90s shooters? It is so fantastic, I recently played and it feels very advanced, Y axiz movement, interesting story, cutscenes, and music, good enemy design. Overall super fun

>> No.8107287

It's mediocre. Aiming uo and down is a slog, the ice level is a slog, and the mines on Jabba's level are a slog.

>> No.8107289

It doesn't play particularly well compared to the FPSs that do get a lot of attention.

>> No.8107312

Uh, this game had like 3 sequels, and the series sold millions.

If we're judging this game in FPS history we can note that it's an early (possibly first?) example of mission objectives, cutscenes, and polygons in the FPS genre.

>> No.8107329

>>8107284
Level design is a bunch of shitty interchangeable mazelike complexes versus feeling like real in-universe locations like what we get with every other game in the series. The huge bait and switch from ultra fast paced gameplay in the first couple of levels to spamming lethal mines around blind corners or hidden under powerups alongside concussion rifle aoe spamming hitscanners isn't fun in the slightest. There's also the infinite respawning enemies in later levels is just straight up garbage game design.

It's crazy how much better Dark Forces 2 is.

>> No.8107338

>>8107284
Overshadowed by its sequels, no proper source port.

>> No.8107342

itll get more recognition when the new source port gets released.

4K, 16:9, 60+fps all that good shit

>> No.8107443

Big confusing level bad.

>> No.8107470

>>8107287
ur a slog

>> No.8107516

>>8107470
ur mom sure isn't

>> No.8107529

Zoomers haven't been told to like it yet.

>> No.8107565

>>8107284
Fuck mines and trandoshans and the way the level design fucks you over with them, but other than that it's great. It has a bunch of really cool and varied levels, fighting stormtroopers is fun as fuck, the guns are fun, it looks like Star Wars, and it doesn't have a lightsaber in sight.

>> No.8107572

>>8107565
>trandoshans
Introduce them to the concussion gun. IIRC you can get one relatively early, probably in some secret.

>> No.8107586
File: 219 KB, 1024x1216, Kyle Holleeder.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8107586

>> No.8107675

i think dark forces gets a fair bit of attention, it's better known than, say, Marathon. DF2 is the most underrated one in my opinion

>> No.8107757

>>8107284
dunno.
i played it back in the day and the thing about it was that it was the first truly-real star wars fps.
also, star wars didn't have a lot of new canon material at the time and so the new "dark trooper" were poured over by star wars geeks, knowing that george lucas had a considerable hand in the game's plot.
i will say that, although it was a "pre-quake" engine, shooting a real stormtrooper for the first time felt very satisfying.

>> No.8108984

>>8107312
>If we're judging this game in FPS history we can note that it's an early (possibly first?) example of mission objectives, cutscenes, and polygons in the FPS genre.

it also had floors over fllors before Build engines did; though I think Witchaven was released shortly after

I think Dark Forces had a huge influence on Duke Nukem 3D, there are many similarities, like the focus on sectors effectors also

>> No.8108998
File: 26 KB, 320x200, dark_046.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8108998

>>8108984
and not just floors over floors but also the possibility to see both floors at the same time. Also, the geometry flying on think air is amazing and those are stuff Build engine games did not do before 1997

>> No.8109009

>>8107529
they will once the game gets cucked, I mean kex'd

>> No.8109043

What everyone else said plus it only had like 12(?) levels that felt kinda like dioramas with little subtext aside from >muh EU

>> No.8109081

>>8107675
>DF2
As in Jedi Knight? I wouldn't call that underrated

>> No.8109153

>>8109043
"only" 12 levels but they're all longer than most of your traditional FPS levels at the time.

>> No.8109221

>>8108998
>but also the possibility to see both floors at the same time.
I'm not sure this is true. I can't think offhand any map sectors in DF1 where you can actually see a floor that's above another floor. There's the balcony in the beginning of Talay with the dark rooms underneath it, but is the outside door actually under the balcony?

>> No.8109226

>>8109081
yeah. idk i hear people bring up dark forces much more frequently. but i'm biased because jedi knight is one of my favorite games of all time

>> No.8109242
File: 2.53 MB, 960x600, df1.webm [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8109242

>8109221
followup:
I don't think you can see the above and below sectors in the same angle simultaneously, at least in this instance. Looks like the level designers went out of their way to prevent such viewing angle here.

>> No.8109246

>>8109081
It's always Jedi Outcast or Jedi Academy though.
DF2:JK and MotS are nearly always forgotten.

>> No.8109249

>>8109242
It could've been a measure for not having FPS drops or something.
I wonder if any of the custom maps got that.

>> No.8109256

>>8109249
No, I suspect that just like Build, this engine literally can't render two sectors above one another and I can't think of any map where you could see such a thing.

>> No.8109259
File: 19 KB, 320x200, dark_024.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8109259

>>8109256
>>8109242
It's not like Build. Here you go can in the building, on its rooftop, but also see the whole building from below in a way you couldn't achieve in Build. There are other examples, like the one I posted just above >>8108998

>> No.8109273

>>8109259
>in a way you couldn't achieve in Build
Pretty sure that it's possible in Blood and Shadow Warrior.

>> No.8109310

>>8107284
Sure, but level layout and design sucks ass. One of the first levels is a sewer, and while there is nothing wrong with that in theory, the corridors are as small as it can get and it's a fucking maze as well.
And after that pretty much every level is a dull maze.

>> No.8109332

>>8109273
technically it is, in Redneck Rampage series as well, but only thanks to hacks, and Blood and SW would never have done it because in such open areas because it would be a framerate killer. Redneck Rampage Rides Again has one instance of open area but the higher level isn't playable area, and being released in 1998 they could afford to demand higher minimum specs

>> No.8109565

>>8109259
>Here you go can in the building, on its rooftop, but also see the whole building from below in a way you couldn't achieve in Build.
Can you find any place where that can be demonstrated in a screenshot? I can't think of any place in DF where you can look at the level geometry from a perspective that shows two rooms above one another. Are you sure you're understanding the subject correctly? There is absolutely no difficulty in being able to stand on the roof of a building and looking down, while having multiple floors with rooms in that building underneath you, in a Build Engine game. Those rooms do not exist under you while you're on that roof. They're in different coordinates in the map, and you seamlessly transition to those coordinates in a pseudo-non-euclidean manner. But you cannot view the interior for a first floor and second floor above it in the same view. The renderer doesn't even know what that is. The second floor is not actually above the first so it can't be visible there.

>> No.8109628
File: 18 KB, 320x200, dark_055.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8109628

>>8109565
>There is absolutely no difficulty in being able to stand on the roof of a building and looking down, while having multiple floors with rooms in that building underneath you, in a Build Engine game

Yes, the can be, in that screenshot I posted parts of the rooftop would have to blocked off for the equivalent to work in Build

>Those rooms do not exist under you while you're on that roof. They're in different coordinates in the map

Yes they do and yes they are, well not always but the point is they can be. Teleportation is not what we're talking about here. Build is capable to having as many rooms as you like on the same X/Y coordinates, and Build does handle the Z axis as well so the rooms can be on top of another.

All you'd need to do to verify all that is to know Duke's first level, which you don't. The Jedi engine does share similar limits as Build in that the description I just gave above applies to it also and you can't see two overlapping sectors at the same time, however sectors and rendering are handled totally differently which allows Dark Forces to do things you can't in Duke. I already posted two and this bridge is a third one. In Duke you can't just build the sectors however the fuck you want as long as the player can't see both at the same time, there are other things to consider, and those limits are lesser in Dark Forces

>> No.8109662

>>8109628
>Yes they do and yes they are, well not always but the point is they can be.
I distinctly remember rooms in Blood and Redneck Rampage physically existing in completely different coordinates because of the fact that they were rooms above rooms, but I guess that's the exception then.
The screenshot you posted is interesting, because those tall walls around the bridge make it so that at no point of the screen are the underside and the top of the bridge visible in the same horizontal space. As you can see going from left to right, the stairs go up, disappear behind the wall, and then the underside of the bridge begins. There is still no multiple vertically coinciding spaces being rendered. I assume the walls around the bridge exist precisely for that reason.

>> No.8109673

>>8107329
>interchangeable mazelike complexes versus feeling like real in-universe locations

DF's environements are more grounded in reality and more believable than in previous games of the genre. It's the bridge between Doom and Duke 3D

>>8109662
>I distinctly remember rooms in Blood and Redneck Rampage physically existing in completely different coordinates because of the fact that they were rooms above rooms, but I guess that's the exception then.

room over room as used in SW and Blood is a completely different thing from sector over sector, the later is a feature inherent to the engine due to how rendering works, while the former is a hack added by each games' coders in order to go around -some- of the limits of sector over sector

and while with room over room the rooms don't have to be on the same X-Y coordinates, in most cases they are. In Shadow Warrior even if the top room is built in another area, it's moved so that it overlaps with the other floor while in game for gameplay conveniency

>> No.8109678

>>8109153
>>8109043
it's 14 levels

>> No.8110224

>>8107287
aiming up and down a slog? why is that

>> No.8110230

>>8110224
Have you seen how slow it is?

>> No.8110240

>>8110230
If you use the pageup/down keys, sure
But i just use freelook with mouse

>> No.8110246

>>8110240
It still moves slower than horizontal mouselook. Also you were not meant to use vertical freelook at all, cheater.

>> No.8110248

>>8107284
Its fine, but it doesn't have the lasting appeal of Doom, hence why no one talks about it anymore.

>> No.8110250

>>8110246
It's pretty close to 1:1 if you tweak the dark forces dehacker a bit. Not vanilla indeed but i make up for it by removing auto aim, still easy without it though. If it came out 1 year later it would have full mouselook by default desu, titles likeQuakr and Future Shock popularized it

>> No.8110252

>>8107284
I first played this as a small child on a computer at Costco. I remember playing the level with the destroyed civilian area or whatever and seeing a corpse and having my mind blown. So sick.

Only played up to the 2nd game but that was such a fun ride as far as Star Wars games at the time went.

>> No.8112324

>>8110246
>Also you were not meant to use vertical freelook at all, cheater.

You can have freelook and autorun by binding those keys to capslock, numlock or scrollock; and it was a common trick with those kind of games a lot of people knew about even then

>> No.8112912

>>8109673
>DF's environements are more grounded in reality and more believable than in previous games of the genre.
If we're comparing it to doom, I suppose, but then I don't give doom a pass for that either. They're all sorely lacking compared to the level design we got with build engine games.

>> No.8112924

>>8109246
DF2:JK is the best movie IP game ever made.

>> No.8112943

>>8112912
Eh, I feel like Dark Forces convey typical Star Wars locations just fine. I don't see how any Jedi Knight game is that much more believable.

>> No.8112952

>>8112943
I played through them back to back a couple of months ago, and DF level design is usually silly, illogical mazes. I would say that DF2 has even better grounded level design than half life.

>> No.8113752

Was Dark Forces the first FPS with crouching?