Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza

A Blast from the Past Review

Is FBT just another cowboy?

The Past

Die Hard is my all-time fave action movie so I originally approached DHNP like walking across glass barefoot. How could it possibly be any good, even if the movie’s plot is basically a FPS? But in my memory, DHNP trod a fine line; referencing the movie yet sneaking in levels like protecting Argyle and filling out the bit between ‘shoot the glass’ and John in the bathroom. There are two things I remember most clearly about DHNP; it tried very hard to respect the first film and it was as hard to finish as the fifth film.

The game took no prisoners – shooter experience was not part of the equation this time, you realised that. God knows how Hans got all those terrorists in one van – they were everywhere. One wrong move and you’re down before you had a chance to say Ho-Ho-Ho. Still, I recall it as a cracking shooter that let you live out an against-the-odds action movie.

But considering its lacklustre reviews and that it’s not even reappeared on Steam or GOG makes me wonder if my DH love overshadowed the game itself. Was it Yippie Ki-yay or just Motherfucker? I remember a great, if unforgiving game and it can’t be worse than Die Hard 5. Even if it doesn’t run it can’t be worse than Die Hard 5.

Still a Blast?

I’m alone, tired and seeing diddly squat from Windows10. I just couldn’t get past the welcome screen, like John looking for Holly McClane. I lost myself in patches and dead links trying to find a way to make it work, but nothing. I had to find out if DHNP really was a lost classic and not a Die Hard In A Building rip-off. McClane wouldn’t give up; neither will I.

A week later I was staring at that Windows XP wallpaper courtesy of a battered Dell computer off eBay. I get deafened by the start-up tone and begin installing DHNP. It’s good to be back. And it’s even better when DHNP loads up like a boss.

Although it looks pretty dated now, DHNP is really trying. The opening sequence, while truncated is faithful and there’s detail only a Die Hard geek would spot – when you walk to the elevator the second security guard is idly picking at his nails. A major difference is how everyone looks; Holly has the same perm (no one’s gonna trademark that) but Ellis now looks like an 80s porn star. Karl doesn’t look anywhere near as menacing and has his hair in a little ponytail, but the biggest change is John McClane. Because he’s not in it.

Die Hard’s strength as a high-concept movie wasn’t the shooting, it was who’s doing the shooting. John McClane was, as the trailers said, an easy guy to like. You wanted to see him succeed; he wasn’t Arnie shrugging off bullets, he was a regular Joe caught in a situation he had to face. But in DHNP we never see JM’s face, only hear him, even in cut-scenes which is distracting given how much of this is about him; and JM doesn’t always act like JM – at one point, while stalking through Nakatomi’s R&D department, he has the option to gas several terrorists just to clear a fairly easy path. What raised Die Hard above other actioners was that JM was fundamentally decent; he never kills anyone who doesn’t shoot first, yet here, you can kill Tony with the buzzsaw. DHNP’s John is more Doomguy than nice-guy.

As it progresses, DHNP seems to be unsure if it’s for fans of the film or a standalone shooter; I couldn’t proceed until I looked at Tony’s shoes which would make no sense to those who hadn’t seen the movie (since we can’t see JM’s feet) yet Hans is hidden for half the game. I couldn’t work out why until I met Bill Clay – ahh I thought, if I get taken in by that fuckin’ TV accent I’m going to get shot, but Hans doesn’t get the drop on JM this time either, so keeping him hidden makes no sense to a gamer who never saw the movie.

One minute it’s relying on you knowing what’s happening then it’s acting like we’ve never been here before; John finds C4 on a seat next to an elevator shaft which seems fairly obvious, but still needs Al to prompt him before you can use it. By picking and choosing what to reference, DHNP creates huge plot holes; Thornberg is completely absent so how did Hans know to kidnap Holly?

But the biggest ‘huh?’ is Karl, who has his Tony-tantrum then all but disappears, so when he rocks up and says “we’re both professional, this personal” it doesn’t have the same resonance – we don’t even get the “that man is pissed” moment. Plus, he runs off and gets reinforcements! The hell? It also messes with the structure of the film; SWAT enters the building despite the RPG attack occurring and Al mentions they’re sending in Paramedics; it undermines JM’s isolation if folks are coming and going freely – he visits every floor, even going for a swim in the sewers for no good reason, yet never opens an outside door to get help.

So, if it’s not the Die Hard experience I remember, how does it hold up as a shooter? Frantic and frustrating. The AI of the terrorists (who all sound like Arnie) is basic, and there’s hundreds of them. There’s a nice touch in the way they switch to sidearms if you get too close and do lots of duck and rolls, but it’s insanely difficult due to their numbers and accuracy. Even in the finale Hans needs seven or eight shots to the head just to send him out the window. While Holly is doing everything she can to get shot herself.

There is a lot of care here though; the ‘don’t hesitate’ guy pops up – then down onto Al’s car, the receptionist that looks like Huey Lewis is there and others from the movie too, and it’s got the look and feel of the Plaza down perfectly, meanwhile some extensions work really well, such as trying to outfox the terrorists tracking your blood-soaked footprints, reworking the giant fan scene or saving Argyle. Sometimes it does go left-field, most notably in a sequence where John discovers C4 counting down (doesn’t that go against Hans’ plan?) and has to disarm it in a time-sensitive rush.

So did DHNP live up to the memories? I can see why DHNP faded away. It’s just an Okay Shooter, given a pass by its inspiration. It tries, but relies on your awareness of the movie to fill gaps in its logic, then asks you to ignore the logic where it suits. Can’t have it both ways, and instead of enjoying it I just wish Hans would open the front door for me.

Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza might not have been what I remembered, but the saddest part is what I had to go through to relive it. I now have an obsolete PC lying around. It’s a shame that older games are left to die-hard as the tech marches on; we’re even seeing it in mobile platforms now which were once the last chance saloon for older games – Monkey Island no longer works in iOS 64-bit, which sucks. It’s frustrating when you can’t enjoy something anymore just because the industry decided not to carry the past into the future, worried it would look dated. So maybe that XP rig isn’t obsolete after all; I have a ton of old discs W10 turns its nose up at. XP, come up to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs.

2002 | Developer; Piranha Games | Publisher; Sierra Entertainment

Platforms; Win XP

Aliens: Colonial Marines

a second wind review

“Marines! We. Are. Leaving!” What about FBT? “Leave him, he likes Aliens Colonial Marines”

There’s few recent games with such a bad reputation as Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines. Except Gearbox’s Duke Nukem Forever. Some games fail because they don’t live up to the hype, some are mauled for being dated or half-finished and some are rightly slated for being shit, but A:CM was like a GOTY disaster; all fails included. Announced in 2008 and released in 2013, it was hammered by critics as an unfinished, generic FPS that skated by on the good will of its inspiration, it looked bad and it played worse; a buggy, glitchy CoD-wannabe wrapped in a hasty, nonsensical story – the whole thing stank. Then it got worse.

Those involved protested their innocence even though they looked more guilty than Burke holding a Facehugger over a sleeping Ripley; stories of a tortured production involving multiple developers and a Borderlands-distracted Gearbox there were recriminations, lawsuits and insider-leaks that made A:CM less a game and more an exposé of game production processes; developer hyperbole, publisher pressure and sly marketing culminated in a class-action that saw Sega paying a $1.25 million settlement to customers who bought it in good faith.

But, despite all that, I was curious about the Howard The Duck of gaming. Finding it on Steam for a fiver with all the DLC, I decided to try it for a laugh; expecting a quick Rage Quit, I was all set to ask “How do I get out of this chickenshit game”. And then …

Set as a sequel to Aliens, we open on a garbled distress call from Hicks, explaining the Aliens backstory. Several months later, a Colonial Marines rescue ship, the Sephora finds Sulaco, mysteriously back in orbit around LV-426. All right sweethearts, what are you waiting for, breakfast in bed?

To look at, you can see why folks back in 2013 were a bit disappointed. It does look very 2005. Even though it was built on Unreal 3 – the graphical marvel that powered worlds like Bioshock Infinite – this is a bit rough (one of the biggest criticisms; the trailers looked next-gen). But while it’s not breath-taking it’s not bland either. There’s references to Aliens’ Art Design, the layouts are nice and not too linear, there’s good light effects and detail. I do feel like I’m in Aliens. I’m Corporal Winter, just a grunt. No offence.

Expecting a bug-hunt, aboard the Sulaco we’re in a stand-up fight. Xeno’s come running, leaping and scratching consistently; it almost reaches Serious Sam levels of hissy mayhem. Don’t get attached to the armour you find, it lasts for seconds and health even less. Not sure if it’s the game being unbalanced or I’ve just gone full Gorman but I die a lot. We’re equipped with a motion sensor, but there’s so many aliens you rarely need to use it. Instead, it’s a handy mission marker as we scramble our way through a completely FUBAR’ed mission. Let’s just bug out and call it even.

As if dozens of Xenos weren’t enough, Weyland-Yutani got to the Sulaco first, diverted it from Fiorina and returned to LV-426, using it as a self-contained research base for Xenomorphs. Do they ever learn? The outbreak is one thing, but WY are more concerned with Public Relations. They don’t want news of this getting out, and the Sulaco begins firing on the Sephora. Winter, along with Hudson-a-like O’Neal, Vasquez-a-like Bella, Apone-a-like Cruz and Bishop-a-like Bishop escape as both warships explode, stranding the Marines in the ruins of Hadley’s Hope. Which has become prime Xeno real estate.

I keep expecting this to get really awful or just really crappy but it’s not. It’s not without it’s fair share of ‘quirks’; the Aliens tend to target you over any other marine – who don’t even block their path; the Aliens just pass right through them. Maybe because Marines haven’t fully woken from cryo-sleep. Often they stand placidly as Aliens pass by or fire at a distant Xeno while one slashes away right in front of them. There’s times where Aliens just pop into existence if I get past a trigger point before the game is ready, and I lost a lot of ammo firing at my own troops when they’d suddenly transport in in-front of me. This isn’t Star Trek. Stuff sinks into the floor, NCPs get stuck, ammo is unreachable and once I passed through a doorway only to see my team running against thin air, unable to catch up – it wasn’t a door, I’d walked through an unbreakable window. It is buggy but this is Aliens where it counts; Hadley’s Hope is a murky, rainy, muddy place full of tension and the Xenos are unforgiving foes – they seem to come from everywhere; indoors they’re bursting out of the vents and from the shadows, while outdoors you spot them clambering over rocks and walls, leaping across buildings; there’s enough to keep both your inner grunt and geek happy; we visit Bishop’s lab, spot the open floor Hudson got pulled through and even find Casey’s head. It’s not exactly taxing to add those iconic elements, but when you consider most game/movie tie-ins, A:CM is trying. At least this isn’t Starship Troopers the game. There’s even Prometheus references, thankfully subtle enough that you might miss them.

Structurally the game is broken into levels with performance results, book-ended by cut-scenes. How retro. The levels always work well though, be it the close-quarters of Sulaco or Hadley’s Hope (check those corners), or the open-space of LV-426. The Aliens always have the upper hand, but even when it falls into ‘watch my back’ waves to fight off, it’s still freaking Aliens and there’s some great cinematics including kills if you melee just at the right moment, and some nice scripted events too, like when an errant grenade in an umbilical tunnel causes it to ripple while you’re trying to run through it. Each level includes a legendary weapon like Hudson’s Pulse rifle that fires in short controlled bursts while DLC also gives us Ripley’s Pulse/Flamethrower combo, the phased plasma rifle (not sure if it’s within the 40-watt range), and the best backup weapon in the game, the ‘SHARP’ Rifle (aka “sharp sticks”) which fires explosive bolts; Alien Goo a-plenty (which of course, burns your armour). Although Winter can only carry two main weapons the entire loadout is available throughout, and level-ups allow attachments like grenade launchers or a shotgun under the rifle for close encounters.

There are some new encounters too, courtesy of WY’s labs. There’s the Spitter alien who snipes you with acid, and the insane Crusher alien, a huge bull that charges – the one time I was thankful for a glitch, it got stuck in the scenery letting me circle around and sharp stick it from behind. A standout moment is a sewer level that features husks of long-dead aliens. Except not all of the husks are quite dead. Movement causes some to shamble around looking for the source of the noise; if they get too excited they explode. It’s a really good level that starts with an unkillable alpha Alien known as the Raven – avoiding it isn’t exactly the stuff of Alien Isolation but there’s some hairy moments as you desperately cut open/weld shut doors as it chases; that’s after a Newt reference where you scuttle through under-floor tunnels while Raven rips open the vents; it culminates in a mano-a-mano with you in a power-loader. You can take those references as derivative or a homage but either way, you can’t deny how much you wanted to experience Aliens as a kid; that’s what A:CM is, wish fulfilment. I LOVE the Corps!

Occasionally we get a break from the Aliens, only to have them replaced with WY Mercs. Then we’re into standard CoD fare with missions like take out AA Guns; certain levels are generic but the WY shenanigans turn the final quarter into a great little actioner. Turns out WY captured a survivor from Sulaco’s crew and we’re tasked with recovering them for their intel. The Aliens are also headed into the complex, creating some fun cross-fire battles between them and WY as it turns out our target is not the only prisoner WY has; there’s a new Queen on the block.

While the gameplay isn’t new it is an effective shooter, and as a continuation of the Aliens narrative, anything is better than Alien 3. While the new Queen reveal isn’t so much a shock as it is expected, the prisoner we free is a huge surprise. Because they’re very dead. It’s made worse by the game papering over the huge continuity hole it’s just created with ‘that’s a long story … anyway,’. As it happens it’s not a long story, it’s a DLC; ‘Status Interrupted’ where you play three different (and tragic) characters caught in events that led up to the Sephora’s arrival – it is a brave bit of retcon but it must have really pissed off the reviewers and fans who played the game on day one. Being expected to buy the Season Pass to find out how this reveal makes sense is not how you win back fans.

Our new friend explains our only chance is a supply ship that services the research base, which of course is next door to none other than the Engineers’ space craft. It’s is a great mash-up between Kane’s tense walk through the egg-filled mist and “they’re coming out the goddamn walls!” panic. This game is like an Aliens Greatest Hits Compilation. It might be the source material triggering the thrills, but A:CM never feels lazy and the final is a hectic chase to stop WY’s plans; it’s no spoiler to say it comes down to Winter vs the Queen – how could it not be? It’s a well-done boss battle (except if I get far enough away she uses the Marine’s teleporter …). As the credits roll I’m still waiting for A:CM to suck. This was worth waking up to Drake’s face for.

This doesn’t feel like the thrown-together cash-in originally reported. Perhaps the stories of its tortured development coloured the early reviews, but five years on, A:CM seems to have been unfairly judged. Its heart is in the right place even if it’s a little buggy and under developed in places, especially the storyline; having one of our team slowly succumbing to an alien embryo doesn’t land quite as emotionally as it should, and the prisoner recovery falls flat narratively (they just become a follower and an exposition expert) and the reveal takes you the gamer completely out of the moment because you’re going ‘wait, what?!’ While it’s a welcome return from the dead, there were other Aliens characters that would have made things more interesting when considering the WY element.

Based on the extended WY Merc scenes (and the open ending), clearly Sega wanted a CoD franchise; they also invested heavily in multiplayer (most of the DLC was MP levels including recreations of the movie locations) but we’re just here for the Aliens and it does succeed at putting you right in that hectic Hive scene. You’re never safe, never on top of things and almost everything goes wrong; A:CM takes the scene where Hudson says they won’t last 17 hours and makes a game of that panicked thought. I lasted 10 hours, and I had fun start to end. Get on this express elevator to Hell.

2013 | Developer Gearbox Software / TimeGate Studios | Publisher Sega

Platforms; Win (Steam), PS3, X360

Star Wars Republic Commando

A Blast from the Past review

FBT goes back to a more civilised time

The Past

Funny how things come full circle. Dark Forces was Star Wars’ answer to Doom, and the most common complaint was it lacked Lightsabers and force powers. A decade on, Dark Forces’ Lightsaber and Force-heavy sequels had run their course. What followed was Republic Commando, a run n’ gun FPS aiming to join the ranks of Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.

There’s only two things I can remember about Republic Commando; Droids and those crappy Aphids from Attack of the Clones. I do remember it was interesting playing a Clonetrooper and then being disappointed when I realised it was pre-Order 66, so I was a good guy. But I do recall liking it. Time to get my Clone on.

Still a Blast?

The mid-noughties were a more elegant, civilised time. 2004 had been a watershed in gaming – Far Cry, GTA SA, World of Warcraft, Manhunt, Doom 3 and of course, Half-Life 2. They set a very high bar but 2005 met the challenge with FEAR, Gun, Battlefield 2, Quake 4, two Brothers in Arms and Call of Duty 2; I guess it’s easy to understand why I can barely remember anything about Republic Commando in amongst all that lot. But then again, it’s Star Wars, and it’s from LucasArts. You’d think some of it would stick. But I don’t really recall any of it.

Beginning on Geonosis at the start of the Clone Wars, I’m clone ‘1138’, aka Boss, assigned to command Delta group – ‘Scorch’, the wiseacre, ‘Fixer’ the quiet one and ‘Sev’, who loves his job a bit too much. This group, by virtue of their additional training, aren’t just mindless clones. They’re exceptional soldiers but also individuals, having personal opinions and unique markings on their uniforms (Sev has a bloody hand-print on his helmet, pre-dating Finn’s image at the start of Force Awakens). As the Boss, I can control Delta with the standard commands, but there’s also specialist elements like hacking, while actions like breaching doors can be done stealthily or explosively. I still don’t remember any of this. I didn’t get my memory wiped at the end to preserve hokey continuity did I?

It’s odd I wouldn’t have a better memory of RC, simply via repetitive training. Spanning three deployments, each is a never-changing environment and Delta trudging along a strictly linear path; mindless it becomes. There’s no great game-changer or thrill, no standouts or changes in approach; it’s purely clear the same room, complete an objective, loading screen, repeat and the only thing between you and those objectives is endless Geonosians and those grasshopper-looking droids from the prequels. It’s hard to take them seriously as combatants and you’re only in danger because of their huge numbers, not threat – completely un-intimidating, the droids mutter in that high-pitched gabble, run around after their heads have been shot off or just do the robot before exploding, while the Geonosians are annoying bugs flapping about. The larger Battle droids get a look in (referencing their behaviour in Phantom Menace, shoving aside the wimpy droids to get a better shot) and those roller-droids, but you just whittle them down, and when you combine the forgettable firefights with the same location, look and level design it’s no wonder the game starts to slip your mind. Even while you’re playing it. I’ve not had to remind myself of mission objectives this often since Skyrim.

Your camaraderie with the Deltas is minimal too so they don’t even stand out; their AI is passable although it’s not uncommon to see one staring at a wall, miles away as a dozen droids run around behind him; guess he forgot why he’s here too – Although once I caught Sev teabagging a Droid. Although you can direct them you rarely do because it’s so linear there’s nowhere to send them apart from highlighted cover spots which they use automatically anyway. You do have to wonder what they think of Boss; they all sensibly take up defendable positions and I run in blindly into everything. The good thing is if Boss or another clone dies they can be revived, which keeps the pressure on rather than a checkpoint system (although I did get caught in an infinite loop of me and Sev reviving each other then getting killed by the same Battle Droid over and over) and for once, having replacements drop in would underline the disposable nature of the clones. If you can’t be reached it’s reload time though and there were a few times where I watched each Clone try to revive me only to go down before I could get up, until all four of us were lying in a heap.

In later levels there’s equally annoying, chubby little slavers to deal with and Bossk’s species the Trandoshans, but they don’t last – soon you’re literally fighting vending machines as they spit out those bloody droids until you shut them down. In the final mission, we’re on Chewie’s homeworld of Kashyyk; aside from a few amusing Wookie moments, it’s the same environment and the same fights again; Trandoshans, Slavers and droids – Most shooters stick to two or three adversaries to be fair, but this was prime military/tactical FPS era, which RC is trying to emulate, where a combo of clever AI scripting and inspired level design kept you on edge and in the game no matter how many times you seemed to shoot the same bad guy – RC doesn’t have either, and it exposes how plain a shooter can be without some flair; it’s literally and figuratively flat and just isn’t up there with the heavy hitters – it’s more 1995 than 2005. When you consider something like FEAR or Max Payne and how they kept the same environment/baddies interesting, RC really starts to drag.

The biggest problem though is the universe it’s set in; no matter how many hands get cut off, Star Wars just isn’t brutal; there’s some attempts – blood splatters on your visor trigger a great little laser window-wiper across your screen, Boss is indifferent to the deaths of standard Clones betraying his completely compliant nature, and the Deltas all have cool little finishing moves but it’s still a Star Wars game and by not replicating the realism, the harshness that other military shooters dealt out, it feels a little like a kid’s game. Especially with those clown droids for opponents. Even the Trandoshans are a bit boo-hiss panto, only the Wookies show any characterisation; when a sidekick has more personality than your lead, it’s a worry.

For a while I thought the reason I forgot RC wasn’t bigger, better shooters, but bigger, better Star Wars games – Knights of the Old Republic II was released Dec 2004 and Battlefront II in Dec 2005; maybe it was just too much Star Wars for one year. But really, it’s just not a very memorable game. And of course, there’s Order 66; or rather, no Order 66 – throughout, we get our orders from a bland clonetrooper via a hologram – if instead we’d been a detachment assigned to a Jedi on the ground, worked with them, built up a relationship with them (as the TV series explored), then one Order 66 later RC might have become something – or maybe Boss didn’t turn on them, depending on moral choices; a key element in Star Wars as a whole. Imagine choosing to disobey and being turned on by the Deltas, whom you’d grown fond of as pals. Boss becomes part of the Rebellion! Becomes a tragic character, or just a straight baddie, it could have gone so many ways. Without anything to set it apart, RC is just a clone. Amongst the many Easter Eggs, Boss finds a Lightsaber and it’s a nice, ominous reference that should have been the coda to the entire game, not an in-joke – I am the bad guy, I just don’t know it yet. That would have been memorable.

2005 Developer LucasArts | Publisher LucasArts/Activison

Platforms; Win | Xbox

Mad Max

A SECOND WIND REVIEW

In this extended playthrough review, FBT tucks into some Dinki Di and revs his way through Mad Max. One man enters, one man auto saves.

Games based on films usually fall into two groups; the first, ‘tie-in’ games supporting a movie release – cheap, quick and nasty, there’s a special hell is reserved for them alongside child molesters and those who talk at the theatre (When is that Firefly game coming out?) The second, games based on past movies fare better but generally we get less The Warriors, more Jaws Unleashed and middling exceptions such as Enter the Matrix, Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza and Avatar; you had to really love the film to forgive those. There is a third way, games acting as spin-offs, but The Thing, Stranglehold, Butcher Bay etc. worked only because they reference the original then do their own thing; but again, for every Alien Isolation there’s an Aliens Colonial Marines. And don’t get me started on TV-series tie-ins; 24, X-Files, CSI even The Shield and Sopranos have been digitally ruined. Movies based on games don’t fare much better and there’s a reason both fail to emulate the other; the experience. Games can be cinematic but they’re not cinema. Films can be involving but you’re not involved. They should just leave each other alone.

If the game-based-on-a-movie tag wasn’t enough reason to avoid Mad Max the video game, the bigger problem is we’ve already played it – not the 1990 NES game, that was Max in name only, but we’ve gamed as Max-by-proxy for years; any apocalyptic wasteland game is Max-inspired the same way a rain-soaked neon future is Bladerunner (which had two games). We’ve never gotten to be Max, never driven the Pursuit Special while acting out Fifi’s immortal line ‘People don’t believe in heroes anymore? Well damn them! You and me Max, we’re gonna give ‘em back their heroes!’

Plus, do we want to play Max? He’s not exactly the kind of character you want to inhabit. He’s too complex -for all his simplicity- to be reduced to a game perspective, and even the movies played fast and loose with the continuity and motivations, which makes a game adaption tougher; what kind of game is it? It can’t be a driving game, it can’t be FPS, that only leaves RPG – Which makes sense in that Max lives in a wasteland, but still, he’s the very definition of linear; he drives in a straight line, always away from his past – he doesn’t make a home, he doesn’t join guilds and he’s not the kind of guy given to helping Randoms. Max on a side mission? Sacrilege! Yet that’s exactly the genre that developers Avalanche decided on. And the bad omens continued; it was delayed for nearly a year then a teaser revealed Max with an American accent. Later trailers announced in full-screen text ‘you are Max’ – If a trailer for Mad Max has to spell out you’re Mad Max, it’s in trouble and the gameplay looked like it was Fury Road based but they couldn’t afford Tom Hardy. This is a tie-in isn’t it. Shit. Looks like we’re headed for another Rambo The Video Game.

But the thing is, while Max never thrives, he does survive; survived Toecutter, Immortan Joe, Lord Humungus and even Tina Turner. Can he survive a Tie-In?

Fittingly, we first find Max behind the wheel of the V8 PS Interceptor. Eyes locked on the horizon. Like Fury Road’s opening, Max is ambushed by Warboys – but this time led by a giant called Scrotus, who wants a V8. Left for dead and without his Interceptor, Max inherits a dog, thrown from Scrotus’ War Rig for failing to tear Max’s throat out. The two scavenge along until meeting a deformed and clearly unstable mechanic named Chumbucket; Chum has been designing the ultimate wasteland car, his Magnum Opus, and after seeing the fight with Scrotus, believes that Max is a Saint sent by the Angel of Combustion to make Opus soar. Okay then. We can go along with that if it means getting a new car.

Problem is, not only is the Opus unfinished, she’s not a V8. Chum explains there’s various local strongholds under threat from Scrotus and they will have the tools he needs to finish the Opus; and we’ll need the Opus battle-ready to reach Gastown, the only place we’ll find a V8. It’s standard RPG to create a situation where various hoops must be jumped through to gain the final prize, but those hoops, this prize works for Max. It’s minimalist, there’s no distractions and it justifies tearing about in the Opus. We slide behind the wheel. Cue engine roar. Cue shiver-down-back as I, Mad Max, drive into the wasteland.

A Fury Road prequel of sorts, we’re in what’s left of a world ravaged by a resource war, that triggered an environmental collapse, which lead to a worldwide plague, resulting in a societal breakdown. Now that’s an apocalypse. Huge rusted ship hulls litter the land as we drive through bleached coral, dusty seaweed and the occasional whale skeleton – we’re in a dry ocean bed; the Grand Canyon meets the Great Barrier Reef, and it has a sickly sense of death to it; whereas Fallout suggested humanity was at least surviving, rebuilding, all we find here are bodies; things are not going to get better. This is the end. But the end looks great, it’s a detailed, believable-looking game.

And as a game, MM is as stripped back as it’s possible to make an RPG. Max travels light. There’s no backpack full of junk to sell, no wardrobe choices beyond upgrades; he takes only what he needs and gets it by scavenging derelict camps – but stepping outside the safety of the Opus comes at a cost. The wasteland of Max is incredibly dangerous; not Borderlands gimme-a-break dangerous but you’re never going to just wander like Elder Scrolls. Factions run rampant in the wasteland and will come running when they hear the Opus pull up; leaping, punching and kicking at Max, throwing stones or worse. Others burst out of the sand in sneak attacks or wait in the shadows; expect to fight for that tin of Dinki-Di.

Strictly speaking, MM is a brawler game; he does have a rudimentary shotgun with a few shells and a couple of one-stab shivs but he’s mostly a fist man. He can also momentarily arm himself with a melee weapon, including the ‘Thunderpoon’, a type of bang-stick that can be thrown or melee’d with awesome and messy results and uses gas-cans as explosives but most of the time Max is battering heads into walls or the Opus’ hood if not throwing some mean WWE moves; the fights are desperate scraps but it’s not a button-mashing scrum. Reminiscent of WB’s Arkham City (Okay it’s not reminiscent, it’s blatantly the same mechanic and Max has a ‘fury mode’ to unlock quick finishes ending in slow-mo take-downs – I’m Batmad), it’s more of a ballet than a brawl; it’s all about anticipating and timing the beatings you throw down.

Besides the two-legged risks in the wasteland, there’s obviously the four-wheeled ones. The Opus isn’t invincible, but this is where MM becomes something really special. There’s raiding parties patrolling and they don’t just ram, they work together, clamber out of their cars to leap onto yours or lob things to make you crash. It is the most thrilling drive experience in an age, better than any 5-star wanted moment in GTA. It’s terrifying, exciting and random; you get that panic as cars appear on the horizon while you’re scavenging. You race back to the Opus and they give chase; suddenly the Opus is damaged, you’re out of shells, you’re trying to ram one into a cliff-face while avoiding another adorned with spikes, there’s a raider on the hood and you’re running out of road. The Opus bursts into flames and you’re rolling in the dirt trying to avoid them making you their hood ornament, then they pull up, jump out and mob you as the commotion attracts yet more. It’s fantastic.

Each faction has a different style of car, attack and attitude but they’re all insane. Sometimes you’ll find them parked up and catching some rays. Run them over. Sometimes you’ll run them over and then realise they weren’t Warboys but Wanderers desperate for water. Sorry. Destroying cars also yields precious scrap – everything is a commodity in the wasteland. Driving around you’ll come across oil-stained paths criss-crossing the sand. Follow it and you’ll find a truck ferrying Gas to the nearby outposts. Taking on the convoy is just a huge, breathless, desperate fight-on-wheels as you whittle down the convoy to just the Gas rig. Besting it nets you a hood ornament which gives mini power-ups. You’ll need it.

The Opus is just great fun to drive, easily one of the best in-game vehicles gaming has produced. It’s so compelling you often get yourself into trouble just to push its limits. The Opus is your home, a Sacred Place as Chum calls it, and as level-ups unlock it’s potential, you tinker with it as much as Chum does to get it just right for your style. It can be a bullet or a bomb and Avalanche have put a huge amount of work into making sure we love it as much as Chum does. Everything from the muscle-car feel, the growl, the fire it’s exhausts spit, just the feel and thrill of throwing it around; perfect. Max however stays stoically silent on the subject. He’s not a silent hero but he is taciturn and minimalist, only saying what’s necessary, only doing what’s needed. Sticking to the attitude we know from the movies, you’re an MFP Officer, the road warrior, the raggedy man. My name is Max.

Despite Max’s focus, we’ve got some exploring to do. Tethered hot-air balloons let you pinpoint what needs doing to lower the Scrotus threat such as giant flaming scarecrows with bodies flayed on them that need to be pulled down, and for that we get a Harpoon gun that can also be used on the cars, or the occupants of cars, gates outside enemy camps, pretty much anything destructible. It’s great fun. There’s sniper posts as well, but Max gets his own car-mounted ‘lead slinger’ as Chum calls it; I’d assumed Chum would take on the role of mission-giver but he rides with Max, hanging on for dear life. Chum isn’t nearly as annoying as I first imagined; he gets nervous around camps and concerned if we’re not tending to the Opus’ needs. He’s chatty, pointing out locations or dangers (he’s a big fan of the ‘mighty duster’ sandstorms) and he’s also cheeky, asking why you got in the Opus on the wrong side and he’s geeky; when a wanderer marvels at some event saying “Surely that wasn’t you?” Chum pipes up with “It was, and don’t call him Shirley!” – he even quotes Aliens.

Chum will help fight off faction interlopers when they climb aboard and repair the Opus when you exit, meaning you’re not forced to limp to a garage after every battle; you’re often exiting the flaming Opus though, then distracting the factions long enough for Chum to repair her. Hurry up! You control the Opus’ Harpoon gun via Chum and he’ll drive while you snipe which is a nice touch, he really grows on you but he’s not Max’s only companion; if you take Chum’s buggy into the wasteland, Dog will come along to sniff out locations and mine fields. Disarming them will lower Scrotus’ threat level as will accidentally driving into them (irritating Chum as he repairs the flaming Opus). Best way to deal with mines is luring in a Warboy then watch him become a Was-boy.

They have missed a trick with choosing your companion though. Waiting for Dog to sniff out a mine is laborious and he never leaves the buggy, and without Chum to repair the car it’s dangerous too. I know Max is a lone hero n’all and doesn’t have the best history with doggos but if they can’t both fit in the Opus it could have been interesting to at least position it as choosing a defensive or offensive pal when you roll out into the wilderness; Chum can repair the Opus but can’t fight while Dog can’t hold a wrench but he’ll come along and chew through Warboys.

When we’re not thinning out his troops, we’re ruining Scrotus’ businesses. In each area there’s refineries, oil dumps and re-enforcement camps. They can be entered by using their own vehicles, but we’re not gonna do that. Once the Opus has weakened the camp enough to enter, Max is on his own and they know you’re coming; Prepare for some serious Batmaning. Most camps will have a War Crier, a lookout suspended from a crane who also beats a drum to Buff up the Warboys like Max’s Fury Mode. Great. If you take everyone out before him, he’ll drop the bluster and half-heartedly suggest you don’t kill him too. On occasion Criers can be reached from outside with the harpoon/sniper, which is very satisfying. Each region always has the same requirements – scarecrows, minefields, snipers, and Camps have the same ‘ruin this’, ‘blow up that’ parameters, but they’re all laid out differently and never a push over; and then there’s the Top Dog camps. Mini bosses. Taking out their mega-camps is a painful process but a good challenge and it’s only the Top Dogs themselves that are disappointing; they all follow a variation on the same fight technique and it’s a shame they’re not as unique an experience as their bases.

As Max barters for Opus tech by doing Stronghold missions that aid whatever ails them, he can also help make them better – but they always benefit him. Finding the plans for a water-catcher, oil containers etc. mean Max gets refilled upon re-entering a stronghold, making them invaluable upgrades. They’ll also collect stray scrap for Max, saving you constantly exiting the car to pick up materials. Stronghold missions revolve around typical RPG ‘go somewhere really dangerous to get something’ missions, but they’re always fun and often reference key points from the movies. About the only truly RPG side mission is one where Max performs legendary leaps to inspire the locals and he does come across races but they’re optional – although racing allows you to return for a free gas top up. The races will have set criteria and some require different cars entirely. Throughout the wasteland Max can find high-value cars and add them to a garage; it’s the only element that doesn’t feel right. Why does he care, where’s he storing them, why isn’t Chum stripping them for the Opus? Taking a faction’s car does mean driving without drawing that factions’ attention but it’s hardly worth it and even ‘legendary’ cars are no match for the Opus. That the locals would deify cars and oil makes sense, but not Max.

No RPG would be complete without Levelling Up. When Max reaches a Legendary reputation level (from Road Kill to – of course – Road Warrior) a mysterious drifter called Griffa appears to give you a headache. He reflects incomprehensibly on the past and seems to know Max and his pain in intimate detail. It’s implied he might be a figment of Max’s, his conscience trying to let go of the past; or he might be some drifter who had a similar experience, helping Max take on Scrotus. Either way, Max gets upgrade options – nothing new to RPG but we also get to upgrade the Opus. Now this is fun. Everything you need to turn the Opus into a monstrous demon car that actually intimidates factions. A lot of the upgrades are related to the main missions so you feel like you’re preparing for the Gastown showdown, not gadding about gaining xp. It helps that you become invested in the Opus, feeling that while once it was little more than a frame on wheels, now it’s something special.

Eventually, by way of a launchable Thunderpoon (which is even more fun than it sounds) Max and Chum make it inland and Max’s world changes. A bit. It’s still a sand-soaked, rotten world but there’s roads, or at least broken asphalt snaking through ruins, broken bridges, dry river beds, gas stations and so on, but the further inland you go, the more the desert has encroached until it’s all you see. Mostly we see more Scarecrows, Snipers, Encampments and Top Dogs. And bloody land mines. It’s a bit of a stumble on the game’s part; after all that work in the Ocean, the build up to reaching ‘land’, it’s the same challenges on the other side give or take. Still, off to Gastown, right? Nope, there’s another stronghold, a junkyard that surrounds Gastown that we need passage through.

By now, I’m the Road Warrior, ready for anything but the junkyard is something else. After flinging the Opus around all that open space, I’m trapped in close-quarter alleyways, car-catching trash and dead-ends and constantly reduce the Opus to a burning wreck. Well, I wanted a change. Chum, fix up the Opus. We’re going to Gastown.

Naturally there’s a few more hoops between Max and the V8, and one is the best mission in the game; recover something from a buried Airport. The Opus crawls through the tomb-like airport interior as sand slips and we catch shadows. Chum is not happy and neither am I. It’s unnerving, then scary, then scary-fast as the Opus drives for its life, terrorised all the way back to Gastown. It’s a great mission just as our madness is starting to slip after one too many scarecrows. That it’s for a completely trivial reason adds to the mayhem of Max’s mad world too.

It’s an incredible moment when the V8 is revealed – Max is utterly captivated by it and so are we, seeing what the V8 means to him; he’s staring so hard he barely registers the other prize, a concubine in the shapely shape of Hope, a woman we helped (a bit) a while back. She’s owned by the maniac Stank Gum – who we have to beat to win the engine. Hope also had a daughter, Glory, now nowhere to be seen which is troubling. Max doesn’t seem to notice though because V8. That’s my V8.

After everything, it’s no spoiler to say the V8 is a bit disappointing. I’m sure it’s just my uneducated ears, but once Chum has it installed, it’s nowhere near as dirty, guttural; I miss the bang when Max turns the V6’s key. It hums rather than spits. It’s also a let-down that the V8 has a load of upgrades. We just went through all that for something that can be better? It should have been Get The V8, Angels sing, Opus soars, Chum cheers, end credits. But it’s not over yet. After a Thunderdome fight that left me exhausted, we’re thrown into a monumental brawl so epic and unfair that even Borderlands would have said ‘calm down mate’, what could possibly be next? Another exceptional mission to begrudgingly help Hope find her Glory of course, and it feels right that Max would eventually agree to do one thing for someone other than himself – that’s a constant in every Mad Max movie since Road Warrior; someone gets under his madness and briefly reaches the man beneath.

So we’re good to go, yeah? Not quite. It’s a desperately sad moment when Max takes off rather than stays with Hope and Glory. Glory gets in the car only to be lifted out like Feral Kid. Max barely glances in his mirror before taking off. But then, absolutely everything spirals faster than a V8; An insane sequence of events unfold, sending Max so far into the Madness that it’s hard to watch let alone play – and it couldn’t have ended any other way. We’ll ignore a completely ridiculous final twist/fight tacked on to spoil it. It’s that good a game that even a logic-breaking boss fight can be forgiven. Max drives, always away from his past; except now he has even more past to drive away from. Including me. It’s been a ride being Max. And surprisingly, it’s been emotional being Max.

With the Opus purring like a hybrid, I reflect on how well Mad Max the films were woven into the game. And it’s not just fan-service. There’s ‘two men enter, one man leaves’, Max eats Dinki-Di dogfood, the Lost Tribe is referenced, Max is called Raggedy Man and so much more; it might be a prequel to Fury Road (might be) with the Warboys, the huge storms and general look and feel, but the entire series’ DNA is woven in without turning the game into some sycophant greatest-hits tour. This Max can stand proudly alongside it’s cinematic bros – and manages the impossible; a brilliant tie-in. I would love to be Max again and it’s a shame WB didn’t throw enough support behind this game to warrant a sequel; well damn them. Avalanche gave us back our hero.

2015 | Developer Avalanche Studios | Publisher WB Interactive Entertainment

Platforms; Win, XO, PS4

Dark Forces Jedi Knight

A Blast from the Past review

FBT remembers playing on the carpet with plastic toys.

The Past

The Star Wars Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series might be my favourite franchise of all time. Unlike most series’, JK just got better as it went; Dark Forces might have been just a Doom clone and Jedi Knight a serviceable shooter with some cringey FMV, but Jedi Outcast was a tour-de-force; a solid FPS with a brilliant story, great villain (a T-Rex with a lightsaber, come on!), lightsaber battles and force-powers turned up to 11. I recall realising I’d largely stopped using blasters and thermal detonators and was prancing about like a fully-fledged Jedi. The final entry, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy was a little more uneven, dropping series regular Kyle Katarn for a Padawan sent on milk-runs, but the Lightsaber had been perfected. DF/JK knew what SW meant to you as a kid, playing as either Luke or Han – the series let you be both, it was childhood re-enactments come to digital life (dictated by which toys you got for Christmas. Still waiting on that Death Star with working trash compactor, Santa).

The JK series also pioneered moral choices; it was up to you how light or dark you became but it wasn’t sign-posted. You only found out after each level how light or dark you’d been, and each game refreshed and refined your descent or ascent. I always wound up being a goody goody, but Emperor Katarn had a ring to it … even if the next game always assumed you’d followed the Light path. Going back to replay them all has Blast(er) written all over it. May the fond memories be with us.

Still a Blast?

The rumour was that Dark Forces began when Lucas heard about the Doom mod StarDoom, and saw a chance at even more of our pocket-money. Lucasarts were ordered to reverse-engineer Doom and the result was Star Wars Dark Forces (1995).

Kyle Katarn, an ex-Empire officer turned Han Solo stan, is hired to recover the Death Star plans then discover the truth behind the rumours of ‘Dark Troopers’, shooting his way through various movie and extended universe (sorry, Legends) locations. It’s a standard Doom era experience, and while there’s some improvements over Doom that’s not what we want. I don’t care I can look up or down, I care that I’m not terrified, exhilarated. I do feel Star Wars-ey but I’m jonesing for Doom or Duke – it feels like a kid’s game; Doom was shared around the playground like rumours about the Faces of Death video – Dark Forces is clean, safe and your parents would approve; no demons or bleeding Imp anuses in sight.

Besides the blandness in attitude, DF is a bland game to look at for the most part. It’s very muted, claustrophobic and blocky as hell. Whereas Doom, Blood or Duke work well enough to see past the bad graphics and basic controls, DF isn’t Star Wars enough or Doom enough to get past how bloodlessly derivative it is. It tries to be Star Wars, giving us digitised clips from the movies, but once we’re past the kind of cut scenes that make you want to replay Monkey Island, its back to FPS-lite; it feels designed by someone who’s played Doom, but didn’t get Doom. By not being SW or Doom, it winds up being a bit nothing, trading on my memories of Star Wars as a kid – if it had set on a 1970s carpet it would have been a classic.

The series isn’t off to the best start and while I wasn’t expecting much, I expected more than this. Up next though is where things got real. Like FMV real.

Thankfully, DF was a huge success and Lucasarts listened to the fan feedback, dumping the Doom-cloning and let the series find its own voice. Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (1997) gave us what we wanted and FMV, which we didn’t. Fantastic in principle, Full Motion Video was intended to side-step the still basic graphics of the era, replace them with real actors. It was shocking, like 80s 3D bad and the problems weren’t just down to how they worked within video games – the budget, acting and scenes were classic Acorn Antiques; nowadays actors are used to being convincing during a greenscreen scene but back then, their lack of faith was disturbing. No even Lucasarts could crack it and it drains most of the drama when you’re watching actors looking slightly off-centre.

Our villain, Dark Jedi Jerec (who would be chewing scenery if there were any) murdered Kyle’s Pa while searching for the lost Valley of the Jedi, hoping it’ll imbue him with enough force power to kickstart the Empire (while Dark Forces was pre-Star Wars, the Jedi Knight series was Post-Jedi, no idea what Kyle got up to during those years). Kyle discovers he has force powers and must balance his new-found abilities with his desire for revenge.

JK is actually a cracking FPS. Way better than I remembered. I’d avoided it in favour of Jedi Outcast on replays, but I missed out. The first third is largely battling the extras from the Mos Eisley cantina, and no longer constrained by DF’s flat maze-runs, the levels are complex, with a huge amount of height and depth – scum and villainy are everywhere, alongside peaceful NCPs. We’re running through cities, cantinas, space-ports, warehouses; then later racing across parapets while tie-bombers take off, dealing with Stormtroopers, Officers, Interrogation and Probe droids in Imperial Bases with patrolling AT-ST. Some areas do drag, like Kyle’s family home which is largely platforming while being harassed by giant mozzies, and later levels aboard a Star Destroyer fall into linear run n’ gun, but for the most part, JKDFII is exactly what we want from a SW shooter – it’s perfectly balanced, ramping up the difficultly yet maintains the sheer fun of being in Star Wars. It’s great how purely exciting a twenty-year-old game can still be; CoD WWII takes up an eye-watering 90gb of disk space; JK is … 730mb and it’s 100 times a more enthralling, involving experience; volumetric dynamic shading whatevers don’t matter when you have a trusty blaster at your side, kid. And we had more than that this time.

The biggest change is the lightsaber. While it makes short work of the stormtroopers you are leaving yourself open; Kyle can deflect the occasional laser bolt but getting close enough to a Stormtrooper to cut him down usually means sacrificing your shield and since they’re rarely alone, it’s a dangerous tactic. Realistically, the saber is only for Jerec’s mini bosses and you’ll need more than a Lightsaber to take them out. You need the patience of a Yoda.

After a FMV cutscene hyping the mini-boss, we’re into a stand-off; who can button-mash the most. It’s not quite the balletic parry-riposte you’d hope for, besting the Dark Jedi is luck – but in my experience there’s no such thing as luck. Just a lot of reloading. But they’re all pretty cool opponents, using force powers as well as sabers and a standout is a MasterBlaster-like duo that’s harder than fighting with the blast shield down. Alongside the lightsaber, the force powers are also a little clunky; you have to chose to use force jump for example, but it’s not long before you’re force choking Stormtroopers, pulling their weapons away or shoving them about. Of course, all the fun stuff comes at a price.

Using dark Jedi powers increases your leaning toward the Dark side while not attacking NCPs and using light side powers keeps things Light. It’s a well done dynamic and the dark side is indeed quicker, easier. It’s inevitable that the more destructive powers are the ones you use the most, this is a shooter after all – no one’s going to use the Jedi mindtrick when you have force lightning at your fingertips and to be fair, the game focuses more on the consciously good/bad things Kyle does to decide if you’re Luke or Anakin. A meter at the end of each level tells you which way Kyle is leaning but no hint what caused it; it a really nice way of leaving it up to you to figure out.

For all its the distracting FMV panto, basic force use, wonky Lightsaber and age, you’re completely swept up in Kyle’s vengeance vs becoming a Jedi. When his choice comes, it’s Kyle’s not yours and the repercussions are pretty extreme; it’s worth a replay just to see how good/bad Kyle gets. It may look old and creaky, but all this bickering is pointless; JKDFII is a classic, and even better than I remembered.

Not long after JK, Lucasarts released Mysteries of the Sith (1998). The first quarter follows Kyle, now training fan favourite Mara Jade. When Kyle disappears while investigating a new Dark Side threat, Mara abandons her Jedi chores and sets out to discover her teacher’s fate.

I only played MotS once, having nicked it off a mate who nicked it back. But now I realise I should have bought it (Or hidden my mate’s copy better); MotS is a great, tightly-wound little Add-On and as much fun as JKDFII. It’s the same build and look but the best thing is what’s missing – no FMV this time. Instead, Kyle and co are animated and while it really shows the game’s age, MotS is cleaner and more detailed than JKDFII.

Mara gains additional weapons, including one that fires Carbonite with mixed results and a sniper scope, and she faces off against more nerfherders than Kyle did, including a Rancor. She has essentially the same Lightsaber and Force abilities and they’re more critical this time, but not a light vs dark path which is a shame; Mara originated in the Zahn series as an Empire Spec Ops looking to avenge the Emperor so she’d have been perfect for Dark side swaying.

One random thing that stops MotS being brilliant is the feet-tapping. It wasn’t this noticeable in JKDFII but it seems Kyle and Mara have a one-foot stride and wear tap-shoes. All you can hear is ‘tippy tappy tippy tappy’ and it’s so distracting I constantly jumped to avoid their feet on the floor – but instead you get ‘guh, huh, gah’ every leap; even when drowning they’re being dramatic, choking is a gurgle mixed with swallowing followed by throat clearing. Audio annoyances aside, MotS is a solid if dated game and there’s more than a few well-pitched levels – including a series-standout where Mara faces herself in a Dagobah-style greatest fear test. MotS can sit comfortably alongside the main games, not just as an Add-On. I’m really happy to honestly own MotS, it’s a great little game.

Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002)

The gloves were off with Outcast. Before I even load it up I’m excited, refusing to even consider it might not have aged well or not be as good as I remember. This is one of my all-time greats. Come on Kyle old buddy, don’t let me down.

Kyle has renounced the Jedi way and returned to his Han Solo cosplaying, doing Senate odd-jobs with pilot-pal Jan. They uncover a new Empire-like force, the Remnant led by an ex-Empire General, Fyyar and a very evil Dark Jedi called Desann – a huge Komodo dragon looking dude who was a student of Luke’s before he turned to the Dark side. Desann and Fyyar have amassed an army but it’s not just the usual Stormtroopers and folks who like to party at Jabbas. Desann found a way to infuse people with the force, turning them into Dark Jedi – as well as force and saber-resistant Troopers. Great. Picked a hell of a day to give up Jedi-ing Kyle. Somewhat repeating JKDFII’s plot, Desann’s acts force Kyle to rediscover his Jedi faith and set him off on a personal mission to take the lizard down.

JO is one of the best FPS, best Star Wars adventures, one of the best games of all time. And that’s not just the force talking. Once Kyle’s force powers are high enough he auto-deflects basic attacks, and there’s just something so cool about swaggering along flinging laser bolts back at hapless Stormtroopers like it’s nothing. The force powers are refined and intuitive, and Kyle quickly becomes an absolute badass Jedi Knight, to the point you barely use your blaster. Using force grip, pushing stormtroopers off cliffs, directing your Lightsaber, flinging force-lightning about, it’s great. Stormtroopers are quick off the draw and they’re coming at you from all angles, keeping you on your now quiet toes, and when a Dark Jedi gets thrown into the mix, it’s a furious battle. You can pull weapons away from Troopers but whereas in JKDFII they would stand around, in JO they either surrender or take off running; they’ll even recover fallen weapons.

The level design is detailed and complex, and on occasion we’re helped by Luke and Lando in extended cameos, plus we even get to stomp troopers with an AT-ST. It really is thrilling stuff, but it’s not all fanboy beauty; battling the Dark Jedi and the Dark Troopers is more of a bind that I recall, and my Jedi training still seems to consist of frantic mashing. But it’s worth it with the Dark Jedi, who are all arrogant and excited about killing a Jedi; their slow-mo death scenes are very satisfying as is pushing them off a cliff mid-taunt.

The biggest surprise is the lack of light-dark options. I thought that was a constant, but like MotS, Kyle is a straight-shooter throughout. While Luke bangs on about Kyle being driven by hate (and he cheated by stopping by JK’s Valley of the Jedi to superpower his force ability), as well as Kyle’s acts being deliberately manipulated by Desann, there’s no slow lean toward the Light or Dark. Other disappointments include the story starting to fall into fairly standard Star Wars sequel territory (ex-military/sith looking to restart the Empire; the bread-and-butter of all post Return of the Jedi stories) and it’s very similar to MotS but still, JO is an absolute joy to play, one of those great early to mid-Noughties games like Max Payne 2, FEAR and NOLF that got everything right. I actually preferred JK for the story, but JO has the Jedi stuff down perfect. JO isn’t just a great Star Wars game, it’s a great game period. I am a Jedi.

Star Wars Jedi Academy (2003)

Jedi Academy is perhaps the bravest of the Dark Forces series. It relegated Kyle to sidekick NCP and sent us all the way back to the beginning, as a Padawan learner.

Enroute to Luke’s Jedi Academy, we pick our gender and species, what they look like, even what kind of Saber they have. The only thing you can’t change is the name – I’m a unisex Jaden. There’s no back story to Jaden, and although she’s the first Padawan to have built her own Lightsaber, it’s all left unspoken. Given the light/dark moral choice is sort-of back, guess this is to let you decide on her background, and what kind of Jedi she’ll grow up to be.

How we reach that moment is a departure too. Rather than a constant story, we’re given a choice of self-contained Jedi odd-jobs – do enough and you unlock a story mission, like a fenced in free-roamer. This time, the Dark side is The Disciples of Ragnos, a dark Jedi cult somehow draining power from Force-sensitive places (maybe they got the idea from JK and JO …) The chores are a Star Wars geek’s bucket list; helping Chewie escape a lockdown on Tatooine, exploring Hoth while battling Wampas and riding Tauntauns, investigating a Sand Crawler (including Jawas; utinni! Which means Wow, I just found out. Thanks Wookieepedia), helping Wedge take out a Bespin-like gas mine, a speeder-bike run, face off Boba Fett, distracting a Rancor so it’s ‘game’ can escape, repairing your ship while avoiding a Graboid, and a standout mission where you battle on top of an out-of-control train rocketing through skyscrapers. There’s even a mission to Vader’s weekend retreat; an acid-rain hellhole where Darth stewed in peace. He even had a statue of himself in the lounge, the narcissistic emo.

If there’s a downside, JA is JO reskinned. The story is starting to feel very reheated while the look and level layout is the same. Force powers are roughly the same too, but they’re a lot more powerful; fully powering up lightning can clear an entire room while grip means Dark Jedi are flung willy-nilly. Enemies are largely the same as in JO, but there’s some Super-Jedi that take a beating and they’re all good fun to battle with.

The biggest and best change though is Jaden herself; wickedly acrobatic, she leaps, somersaults and backflips through fights; I force jumped across an exploding bridge then electrocuted two dark Jedi off a cliff; ran up a wall, backflipped over a stormtrooper then cut him to pieces in slo-mo; I roll and stab, do leaping swings down on villains, sliding sabre tackles cutting them off at the knees (and hands, in a nice little movie nod) – JA is pure Jedi wish-fulfilment and the saber is equally awesome to use. You have three different attack styles and they do seem to make a difference; best thing though, Jaden has three types of sabers to pick from – the standard single sabre which maximises ability, two sabres which looks incredibly cool and the Darth Maul staff. The Dark Jedi have the same abilities, and use them effectively; choking is a favourite of theirs, but they never fling you off a cliff. That’s unsportsmanlike even for a Sith.

Although we’ve been nagged at by both Luke and Kyle for favouring the Dark side (again, I’m not going to use Mind Trick when I can force choke a Dark Jedi and drop him off a bridge), the Light vs Dark path hasn’t really shown itself during the game; instead, after a sudden but inevitable betrayal we’re given a moral choice. Unlike JK where my acts dictate if I fall to the Dark side, I just have the choice to calm my anger or let rip. It’s a bit of a letdown, but you barely have time to grumble because the final quarter is a near-endless battle with Dark Jedi and a huge, bordering on unfair final boss. Two bosses, if the betraying NCP pissed you off and you went Dark side on their ass.

JK is another classic. The short missions do make it feel a bit less epic and the main mission is too familiar, but JK is even more of a fanboy game than JO and all the better for it. If JO made me feel like a Jedi, then like Yoda JA makes me feel.

It’s time for the Jedi to end. Just like Jedi Knight span off from Dark Forces, Jedi Academy could have span off into a whole another series of Padawns being sent on adventures, but it was not to be. But at least the series ended on a high note. Kyle is one of those Legend characters that fans adore – there was outrage he didn’t appear in Rogue One and that says a lot about how much those games mean to the Star Wars fans.

The Dark Forces series still stands as one of my faves – it may have begun as a clone but it carved its own path and each is worth a replay; despite the wobbly FMV, Jedi Knight wins it, as it’s closer to Star Wars than the others, especially with the light vs dark plot. But Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy are the adventures we imagined while lying on the carpet surrounded by toys; you can’t play them and not feel like you’re IN Star Wars. Even if the reheated storyline makes you feel like you’re in VII-VIII. Maybe pass on Dark Forces, but the force is strong with the Jedi series still. Those are the games you’re looking for.

Dark Forces (1995) | Jedi Knight Dark Forces II (1997) | Mysteries of the Sith (1998)

Developer, LucasArts | Publisher, LucasArts

Platforms; Win, PS

Jedi Knight II Jedi Outcast (2002) | Jedi Knight Jedi Academy (2003)

Developer, Raven Software | Publisher LucasArts/Activision

Platforms; Win, XBox

Batman Arkham Knight

A Rage Quit review

Batman Arkham City was one of FBT’s favourite games. Will the Knight ruin it for him?

Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum finally allowed us to say ‘I’m Batman’ and mean it. Bats was largely grounded and faced appalling boss battles but AA was brilliant – gaming’s Batman Begins. And then Rocksteady gave us The Dark Knight as a follow up; Arkham City. Freed of the boxed-in Asylum, it was Escape from New York and you were Snake in a Cape. With the exception of yet more infuriating watch-and-learn-with-Bats boss battles, AC was one of the best games of all time, a towering achievement of gaming and story-telling worthy of any graphic novel. And now, Arkham Knight – Dark Knight Rises or Batman and Robin? I’ll give you a clue; Robin’s in it. Oh yeah. I’ll give you another clue – this review is filed under Rage Quit.

After the ending of AC, Gotham is bracing itself after the power-vacuum left by Bats and Joker’s epic battle. This time it’s Scarecrow, who was roundly beaten by Bats in the previous games – well, beaten, inhaled his own fear toxin and chewed on by Killer-Croc – Understandably pissed off, Scares unleashes a toxin causing Gothamites to go murderously insane. Everyone except the law-breakers scarper. And Bats.

The city is extraordinary to look at, like it was designed by a fan of The Crow having a fever-dream after reading a book about Art Deco while watching Metropolis and listening to the Bladerunner soundtrack. Its twisting labyrinth streets, uneven rooftops, modern-on-gothic look makes for a rainy, gritty, dirty maze of crime and grime. It’s perfect. It’s perhaps the most beautiful and detailed game world I’ve ever seen, decay and misery included. Never mind you had to own a Sunway to run it (Ok Google, what’s the world’s most powerful supercomputer?) – this is worth upgrading for. Gothman is sheer rotting beauty.

From a lithe and leafy Poison Ivy, Bats learns that Scares’ toxin is only the start; he clubbed the Rogues Gallery together to support him in destroying Gotham. Before Bats can even grimace at the idea of Gotham dying, a militia force rolls in, tanks and tech’ed to the teeth and starts pulling the town apart looking for him, commanded by the mysterious Arkham Knight, who has the kind of hatred for Bats that borders on the fanatical, becoming fantastical, eventually farcical. Time and time again he has the chance to kill Bats but doesn’t take it, conveniently says it’s not time for him to die, or leaves him alone to escape; “I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death” – Arkham Knight is Dr Evil. But for now, we’re only concerned about the tanks rolling in. Of course, this Bat doesn’t take things lying upside down.

Bats in AC was fear gliding over the city. In AK he’s a bus driver with a grudge, the one that waits till you nearly reach it then shuts the doors. Once you get control of the beast-like Batmobile, it’s the only way to travel. It’s a monster and better than the Tumbler – It is. It’s a terrifying joy just to look at, Bats’ mood rendered in cold dead steel. It looks like the kind of thing Death would drive – talking of Death, there’s no way Bats’ no-kill policy extends to the Batmobile, without doubt that thing kills people. Aside from that, the sheer destruction you cause just turning a corner is doing Scarecrow’s work for him. It has two settings, pursuit and battle mode. Battle mode works yet doesn’t. The BM basically becomes a crab, able to sidle side to side, spin around, but why turn into a merry-go-round when under attack? Bats has always been about Arrive, Express how much he hates crime, Leave. Why is stationary is the best defence? Is it because the tanks stay still once they see the BM? That’s lucky. The pursuit mode lets you fire disabling rockets at vehicles but it handles like a caravan and goes like a rocket so it’s all so fraught and crashy until you activate battle-mode and it turns into a ballerina. It’s just not the assured, dominant pose you expect from Bats; the thugs are more scared of Bats behind the wheel than the wheel itself.

It’s great to drive once you get used to it, assuming you have enough fingers to operate all the options, but within the game it’s a gimmick. Rather than a complement to his crime-fighting ways there’s convoluted reasons to use it, and everything is solved by either gliding or driving – not both, you don’t get to choose how to approach a problem. You’re also confined to close-quarter chases when it should be GTA Gotham; you never really open it up, let lose. You can remote control it too, but that’s irritatingly underused or forced in as a problem-solver.

So, apart from Knight and his boo-hissing, Scarecrow’s open-season means we also tangle with Azrael, who’s interesting appearances in AC are completely undermined, mockney Penguin doing something or other, Two-Face for padding, and then there’s helium-voiced Harley Quinn; she should be a loose-cannon threat given Mr J’s fate but she’s got nothing to do and only there because we’d complain if she wasn’t. There’s a ton of filler-villains too; zeroes like Man-Bat, Professor Pyg and Firefly are crammed in (Can’t we find something better to do than chase a fly? You don’t even get to smoosh him on the BM’s grill). But the real rager is Riddler. Taking convenient advantage of the Batmobile, he sets a route of time-based chases around Gotham’s sewer system for Bats to conquer. There’s a city filling with poison, do you really have time to play Mario Kart, Bats? Yes, because Riddler has kidnapped Catwoman. She’s not key to the poison plot or anything, but we’re all a sucker for Rocksteady’s Catwoman. The issue is though, Bats always out-thinks his opponents – sure he’s got the gadgets, the cash and the bod, but his mind was his super-power. Yet in AK he just goes along with Riddler’s demands, jumps through his hoops to save Catwoman. He doesn’t outwit him, figure ways around the problems, he just solves them. Boring. And reducing Catwoman to a damsel in distress is a huge disservice to one of the more interesting female characters in Batman. In AC she was hot and formidable, Bats’ equal. Riddler may be helping Scarecrow to distract Bats, but he would have known that – plus Catwoman is imprisoned, not in danger so from our perspective it’s filler and annoying for it. I get so bored with Rids’ games I leave Catwoman chained up.

While the thugs are largely the same, the Knight’s men are anti-Bat trained; electrified fields, the ability to revive fallen comrades, armed with mini-guns, tasers, blades, they can also counter Bats’ moves and scan to spot where he is. The best thing about AC brawling was Bats had the tactical and technical superiority; they just had numbers. Now they have both and the fights turn into button-mashing scraps. It was fun to fight in AC, test Bats’ mettle; now it’s an annoyance. I once played AC for so long the entire city was silenced. I’d offed every thug in Arkham. There’s so much locked down arena fighting in AK it’s more Tekken than Taken; Bats should be brutal and efficient, not hopping around in the background like Pumaman. Bats can be accompanied by Catwoman, Robin or Nightwing and reaching a certain streak-count allows you to body swap; sounds cool but it’s a bit gimmicky and who cares, I’m Batman; just make fighting more satisfying.

We’re also supported by Gordon and his daughter Oracle as well as the occasional dry comment from Alfred. We even get to use the police precinct to doss about in, pick up crimes in progress and drop off the side-villains we take down. AK has some RPG DNA in it, and you wish Knight and Scarecrow would naff off and let us tidy up the city in the Batmobile instead of all this ominous stuff. There is one ominous element that almost saves AK though.

Bats has another side-kick … The Joker. This is a brilliant dynamic. Bats and Joker have always had a complicated relationship, so to have Joker in his mind, reminding him of his failures and his guilt is proper stuff. It’s the best thing in the game as Joker corrodes Bats’ mind and looks set to take over completely, intertwining with the main plot (until Knight’s histrionics make everything daft again) and its really good when Bats conveniently needs to get a little crazy (It’s a shame it’s scripted though, would have been great to get Joker-time as an option like bullet-time). They have some great moments together.

The plot of AK is huge, epic and a fitting end to the trilogy; everything that is happening is Bats’ fault – Scarecrow’s revenge has been a thread throughout the series and more and more people get pulled into – or pay for – Scarecrow’s obsession and Bat’s actions. The game asks if Bats is really doing the right thing, or just making things worse. And it’s played out in the most beautiful environment, by a Bats at his most grizzled and agitated, with all the usual suspects, and the Batmobile – and we’ve even got the Joker doing a Tyler Durden. AK is pure class, and I’m still giving up on this gem? Hell yes.

AK has a lot of annoyances – the fights aren’t fun, the Batmobile has a puncture, Riddler is an idiot and Knight is Widow Twanky with a painfully obvious secret identity. But the real rage-quit is AK’s habit of rug-pulling. The plotting is like one of those old 30’s serials where each episode ends with certain death then the next tells us Rocketman or Flash actually escaped in time. There’s some real mouth-hits-the-floor, eyes-wide, ‘holy shit’ moments where you really think Bats can’t come back from this. Game-changing, narrative-impacting, how-you-play and how you feel moments. And … then it undoes the moment. This happens at least three times – as far as I got anyway, who knows if there’s more.

At the risk of a spoiler, a perfect example is the fate of the Batmobile. After a huge (and daft) fight with Knight in the sewers the Batmobile is destroyed. DESTROYED?! No! OMB. Now what? I feel naked, worried about how I’ll get about town, the toxin everywhere, the tanks, this is real hell-no, game-changing stuff. I’m terrified and excited, and we’re stuck trying to rescue someone, surrounded by tanks and … wait, Bats isn’t worried … oh yeah, just call Alfred and get Batmobile Mk2 delivered. Which is actually a meatier and better version. What?! Fine that Bats has a spare, but games always put you in extreme situations and you go along with it because that’s the world you’ve been told exists – it was Bats, trapped in the city, alone. If Bats can just call in backup, if Alfred can pilot a replacement then the world changes; roll everything out – get the Batwing to take out the militia, have Nightwing rescue Catwoman, Robin can chase Firefly; let me and Joker go get a beer. It sounds like a whinge but it changes the reality we trusted the game to maintain. The other twists are even more of a betrayal because they undercut emotional reactions. They’re soap-opera twists. In AK it turns out J.R shot himself.

Another example of the game’s treachery; when the militia’s commander-in-chief is run off, what happens? Another Merc rocks up and takes over. Where did he come from, why didn’t he get involved earlier? What, he was just sitting in the super-villain waiting room?! You kept a spare henchman, Scarecrow? It’s exactly the same, just different voice goading you. The game can’t let things change too much because there’s so much non-linear stuff going on it would impact – Bats needs the BM outside the main mission, so it has to reappear and that’s a cheat, like Skyrim had Dragons that don’t damage anything and a civil war you never see, AK gives you show-stoppers then restarts the show rather than having the guts to let it stay changed. Each time you think this is the boldest, bleakest, bravest Bats ever and then it double-crosses you. I can’t believe AK became a let-down, especially after how AC played out. That game stuck to its shocks. I’ve had enough. To the Bat-Exit.

Arkham Knight opens with the line ‘this is how the Batman died’. This game pranked me so many times I suspect Bats doesn’t die either. AK gets so much right; it can make you gasp in shock, at it’s beauty, the story, but eventually you’re gasping in annoyance.

2015 | Developer Rocksteady Studios | Publisher WB Interactive

platforms; Win | PS4 | XO