Quoting: CheesenessThose are fair feelings, I suppose. Dark Forces is hard to come back to if you're used to games that let you save mid-level. It was my first FPS game and I didn't come at it with any expectations or baggage, so it's easier for me to overlook that sort of thing. That said, I'm super looking forward to Dark XL's Linux release!

And in my case Dark Forces is one of the few FPS games of that era I have not played, having grown up on Doom and Duke Nukem 3D and then later falling in love with Blood, and I am not even that huge a Star Wars fan to begin with, so it is harder for me to approach it with the same mindset. As I said though I did play Dark Forces II a lot when I was younger as we got it for Christmas one year, so that one does curry special favour with me.

Quoting: CheesenessElite Force was a pretty good, but distractingly Quake3-ish for me. I think there's just something about controls built for an arena shooter that make it harder to appreciate a flowing first person narrative - at the very least though, it wouldn't have been the right choice for Jedi Outcast, which was a sequel to an existing franchise with its own sensibilities and identity.

Granted I also love Quake III to death which might make me biased here, but I do recall often getting frustrated while playing Jedi Outcast, and would have liked something as solid as Quake III's controls. Smooth navigation and solid gunplay have always been very important to me, and for whatever reason they did not really click with me in Jedi Outcast. But again, any analysis on my part is hampered by my not fully remembering what it was about the game that bothered me.

Quoting: CheesenessSo far as story goes, Jedi Outcast feels a lot more solid to me than Jedi Academy (which I thought was kinda weak and plodding). I'm not really a fan of the whole artificial-force-user thing as I mentioned in my article, and there's a lot about all four of the Jedi-oriented installments of the series that fall into the trap of the kind of stuff which eventually lead to the kind of nonsense that is The Force Unleashed.

Academy's plot was nothing special, but I did like the branching mission structure it had. I do agree with you about the Reborn though, and I recall they were a lot of the reason why I did not like the plot. In Dark Forces II the powers of the Valley of the Jedi were left vague enough that you could read what you liked into them, while in Jedi Outcast it is shown creating a bunch of force wielding doofuses that can be killed by falling off a ledge. Defeating Jerec seemed important, while I just could never take Desaan seriously. I also found myself cringing at the Luke and Lando fan service in the game at the time. Of course Katarn would be good friends with both of them...

Quoting: CheesenessWould be super interested to hear your thoughts on Jedi Outcast after a re-play!

Well, I am sure I will come back to it one day, if only to keep myself from talking through my hat about it like I have been doing here. ;)

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Quoting: CheesenessJedi Outcast uses id Software's id Tech 3 engine, but manages to escape some of the Quake 3-esque feel that is present in Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force (Raven's previous game made with the same engine) and many other id Tech 3 games.

You make that sound like it is a good thing. :P

I recall disliking a lot about Jedi Outcast when I first played it following the source code release in 2013, and actually enjoying Jedi Academy more than it, but I am having trouble remembering what my specific complaints were other than taking exception to a lot of the game's story elements. I guess I would need to play it again to see what exactly got my blood boiling the first time around.

That said, in my mind Elite Force still holds up as the best franchise game I have ever played period, and I also grew up playing Dark Forces II, so a lot of my coldness to Jedi Outcast could just have been due to it wilting under the pressure of being compared to those two games.

As for the original Dark Forces though, talk to me again if or when the XL Engine comes out. Not being able to save within levels is simply unreasonable, and was so even at the time of the game's release.

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Quoting: NanobangIn fact it was Hamish's excellence that made it so difficult

Yeah, it can be such a burden. I think I will try being mediocre now instead. ;)

Cheers though.

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Quoting: lucifertdarkAnyone remember the game Mad Dog McCree?

I can't say that I remember it, but apparently my brother found a copy of it while thrifting:

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I am sure that play style matters in this case - in Shadowrun I would fortify myself and lob grenades and the like from a safe vantage while in Hard West you have to keep moving and get as close to an enemy as possible before you can get a hit, which is often difficult due to the enemy reaction shots. You have to be a lot more aggressive and confident, not least because the luck system also favours the bold by penalizing you for missed shots while rewarding you for being fired upon.

I should also point out that I have never actually played X-COM.

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Just got both endings achieved in Hard West as well as completing the DLC. Just had to focus on it.

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So I just finished all of the Hard West scenarios, though I am going to replay the last one again so that I can take a look at one of the different endings. Then there's the DLC.

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I should really finish Hard West - I got to one of the endings of the main campaign, but I still have to complete the side story and the DLC. I keep getting distracted though, sometimes by old favourites - I am also two chapters into Blood II: The Chosen through WINE at the moment. :whistle:

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Quoting: GuestAfter watching parts of the video Rea987 linked I want to play Strife… But just to be sure, does it block alt-tab? And is it possible to remap the keys and play with a non-qwerty keyboard layout?

Alt-tab does not seem to work in the Veteran Edition due to it still being on SDL 1.2 but you can rebind keys as much as you like. As as has been mentioned on GOL before though you could just use the WAD data to play in one of the Strife supporting source ports that use SDL 2.

Still while it is nice to have and there really is no good reason why the Veteran Edition can not be upgraded to use SDL 2, not having proper Alt-Tab support has never been a game breaker for me.

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Quoting: no_information_hereNice article with interesting observations, Hamish. I enjoy your writing!

Cheers! ^_^

Quoting: rea987Strife: Quest for the Sigil is an interesting title which was introduced me by Ross's Game Dungeon. It was an abandonware back then; so I have a shot with GZDoom and it worked flawlessly. When the game was released on Steam as The Original Strife: Veteran Edition, I was quite shocked to see a publisher remembers its existence.

Yeah, that video comes up a lot when people talk about Strife, and probably did have a lot to do with the Veteran Edition being made due to the increased interest it generated for the game. I can't say I quite get the appeal of it myself though - I got really tired of his delivery really damn fast.

In my case I was introduced to Strife the exact same way I was introduced to Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Blood, and so many others by use of the venerable dosgames.com:
http://dosgames.com/g_3d.php [External Link]

It is remarkable that website is still going actually, considering I have been going there since I was seven.

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