Good things: (1) First and foremost, as with Dark Forces, there is an actual STORY with mission objectives that tie in to a larger purpose. Unlike most FPS's, where you just kill everything in sight and push whatever buttons present themselves, there is a plot here that makes sense. (2) The settings are terrific -- 24 levels that take place on ships, planets, city streets, the Jedi Academy, swamps and more -- filled with lovely graphics and extraordinary detail. (3) Humor. One reason I can't wait to play again is that I was so anxious to get through the game the first time that I sometimes didn't wait to hear the often funny conversations between Storm Troopers or their dressing down by officers. (4) The weapons and tools are great, with primary and secondary functions that have you changing tactics just for the joy of trying different modes of attack. Seeker drones and assault sentries are fun to use, but they are nothing compared to the great Force powers, which have three levels of power that are upped as you make progress through the levels -- Force Push, Pull, Grip, Lightning, Speed and Mind Trick are a blast to use, and add dimension to your strategy. The light sabre is great fun and you can become as adept as you want to with the magnificent number of moves and saber styles available. (5) Many of the same bad guys as in Dark Forces, but in better graphics and with more challenging moves. Great new villains include the camouflaged Swamp Troopers and Admiral Fyyar. (6) The ability to choose between first- or third-person perspective is awesome. (7) The game is very stable. Running on a PowerMac G4, I never had one crash. (8) The cut scenes added dimension and moved the story along, and they integrated seamlessly with gameplay. (9) John Williams music makes you feel like you're in the Star Wars universe, and sounds in general are used to good effect. (10) Billy Dee Williams voicing Lando Calrissian! (11) Enemy death throes.

Bad things: (1) Unlike Dark Forces, there is no map function, and I found I really missed that. Levels are sometimes HUGE, and I'd have liked to have had some reference. (2) The secret areas were not very exciting, usually just containing a few supplies. (3) Sometimes voices were garbled or masked by the music and there was no way to hear what Kyle was muttering to himself or repeat what message had come over an intercom, for example. Unlike cutscene dialogues they were not subtitled. (4) The climactic battle with Evil Lord Dessan was less interesting than an earlier encounter with Fyyar. (5) I found it was difficult to maneuver when I used Force Speed.

But these are minor quibbles. The game is wonderful. I'm ecstatic that it was ported to Macintosh. I've made it through one time and look forward to playing it again. And again .... and again ....

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:


A couple of shortcomings, but very worth it  Dec 01, 2002 By T. Milke "tmilke1"
There are several things that grabbed me about this game. First was the demo. Without it, I would probably not have considered buying this game. I remember not liking the original Dark Forces. Running around hacking Stormtroopers to bits with a lightsaber was very enjoyable, so the purchase was made. (By the way, the Demo is a level not in the game itself)

After playing around with the demo and the lightsaber, I got annoyed at the switch from third person to first person when changing to a blaster. This can be easily rectified using the 'p' key. There are some really neat acrobatics that look like they can only be done in 3rd person. Aiming with a blaster in 3rd person can be a bit of a pain, so the ability to switch gets a major thumbs up.
Those acrobatic jumps have to be done 'just right'. It's far too easy to try to jump to a ledge and bounce off a wall, or skid too far and plunge to your death.
Many of the 'secret' areas are accessable only though these jumps. The only thing you get at these areas are some shields, or ammo, so if you're stocked up, it's not worth going to them. There are no 'hey, cool!' aspects to them. I guess I expected more after the Marathon days when secrets meant more story depth.

The 'auto block' feature of the lightsaber was great, as far less time is spent dodging blaster fire, and you can concentrate more on wasting some enemies.

As far as bugs go, I've only noticed two. Loading a checkpoint will sometimes crash the game. This can be annoying when you die, and then go back to reload, only to have to load a save farther back than a checkpoint. The other is minor, as the load dialogue has a limit and doesn't list all of your saves. Deleting an old save will show your new saves.

The force powers are really neat. Push, Pull, Mind Trick. Push is great when you see enemies standing on a ledge (hee, hee). When I saw the force lightning pop up on my powers list I thought "Oh yeah!" I spent far too much time choking and force lightning stormtroopers once those abilities got to level 3.

Voice acting is reasonable. Billy Dee Williams does the voice of Lando! The voice of Luke bothered me, but I'm not exactly sure why. I noticed a few times in the game where the soft voice of Kyle didn't carry well, or didn't seem to fit the mood.

Sure there are a few shortcomings, but you get to play with a lightsaber. You get to kill Stormtroopers, You get to play with a lightsaber! (did I mention the lightsaber yet?)

2 of 2 found the following review helpful:


Great game, check your hardware.....  Jan 17, 2003
this game is great but be careful on the system specs for the game, it sas you need a radion graphics card but i have a ATI Rage 128 and it works fine with some glitches. If you have a system with a radion or better go for it the game is great.

6 of 8 found the following review helpful:


Dittos to the Above  Oct 22, 2002 By R. Schneblin
I too had great fun with the PC version. The only low-score I give it is in the cut-scenes, they are very poor. However, I hear they improved it on the Mac version.
The reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is I wish I could have stolen a TIE fighter or do some kind of piloting. I also wish that I could have gone through the game with 2 or 3 other players-- Minor qualms.
You will find yourself spending more time just looking around at all the beautiful "Star Wars-esque" locations. All levels are excellent, except for the mining area, which is very poor.
I cannot say enough how fun the game becomes once you get your lightsaber, that is the most excellent weapon in your arsenal!

10 of 14 found the following review helpful:


AWESOME GAME!!  Jul 04, 2002
I have played this game many times, and I just love it! Of course, I have only played the PC version, but I heard this Mac OS X version will be even better! You are given an arsenal of blasters, laser rifles, grenade launchers, and of course, your ol' reliable lightsaber. A variety of force powers are presented, such as pushing away enemies with the flick of the wrist, lightning that comes from your fingertips, "force choking", and of course, jedi mind tricks! (messing with people's minds is fun, remember?!) Many familiar areas from the Star Wars universe are scattered throughout the game, and there are hundreds of stormtroopers, Imperial officers, and Sith Lords (just to name a few) that are just asking for a lightsaber whuppin'! The only reason why I gave this game a four-star rating was because of some difficulties like cheap deaths and some hard-to-do techniques with your lightsaber, but that is the only thing! (and it only relates to my skill at games, anyway) When this game is released, BUY IT! It's the coolest Star Wars action/shooter experience!

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