Star Wars Retro games: Dark Forces
With the release of DOOM in 1993, the gaming industry went into overdrive in coming up with similar games using the first-person perspective. Some games, such as Heretic and Hexen, simply licensed id Software’s game engine. Others choose to build their own 3-D first-person shooters from the ground up. LucasArts Entertainment was one of the latter companies, and Star Wars: Dark Forces was their first stab at the genre. Released in 1995, Dark Forces was the first Jedi Knight game, though the original release did not use the “Jedi Knight: Dark Forces” tagline. Later re-releases would, however. The story revolves around a mercenary called Kyle Katarn, an ex-soldier of the Empire who now works freelance for the Rebel Alliance. After a minor interlude wherein Kyle steals the plans for some obscure new Imperial weapon called the “Death Star”, our hero is tasked with investigating General Rom Mohc and his plans…