You guys! You guys! I'm totally a Jedi now!

That same cynic highly suspects that one of the first goals for Dark Forces II was handed down by Sales and Marketing: “Put some fucking lightsabers on that cover.” It’s Star Wars after all! And so, faster than you can say “but this doesn’t make any damned sense!”, the sequel has Kyle Katarn discovering his father’s secret past as a Jedi, his own latent Force powers, and his never-before-even-hinted-at destiny to defeat some dark Jedi before they can tap into the power of an ancient Jedi burial ground. Furthermore, this all takes place in the post-films “Expanded Universe,” so unknown chief villain Jerec somehow has access to a ship bigger than Vader’s, battalions of stormtroopers, and a corps of engineers that can build an elaborate facility around the Valley of the Jedi in just days of finding it. I guess there was a lot of military surplus just lying around after the Emperor died.

Fortunately, the series’ transition to full 3D is a little smoother. The core ideas in level design and mission structure that were so successful in Dark Forces are back here in full regalia. Rather than the frequently bland dungeons and mazes of Quake, significant effort has been put into making Jedi Knight’s levels represent functional places. Rivers have sources, machines have moving parts and purposes, and lifts occupy real space (hint: send them ahead and check under them).

You’ll see this most clearly when redirecting fuel lines to board a starship, moving a large crate in place as an impromptu bridge, or activating a series of cargo lifts to enter new areas. Many a puzzle is based around logical manipulation of working machines, so you’ll need to drain the right amount of fuel from a tank to cross through it (with computer displays helpfully tracking your progress), move a bridge around a central core, or shut down a series of fans at the right times to proceed safely. It feels like you’re actually manipulating some believable tech, and poking around inside dangerous mechanical guts that you shouldn’t be in.

Kyle just pooped his space pants.

Levels are also dramatically vertical, and you’ll get plenty of tense moments where you’re required to hop between beams on an elevated bridge, jump between lifts inside an elevator shaft, or even time a jump to enter the air stream of a massive fan at the peak of its cycle, so that it will blow you across a large gap. Low gravity areas appear as well, along with a particularly neat level where you have three minutes to escape a tilting starship while avoiding explosions and shifting cargo containers. The engine and design are both perfectly capable of playing with ideas of gravity and perspective.

Overall, there’s a great sense of both logic and thrills. Puzzles just simply make sense. You certainly have some key hunts, and a few hidden-but-necessary areas, but most are solved just by doing what you would expect to do in reality. For thrills, there’s plenty of moments of vertigo, seemingly impossible paths (never tell me the odds!), and “I barely made it!” jumps and timing challenges to keep you on edge. The new ability to quicksave helps immensely here, and reduces potential frustration to practically zero. The game won’t automatically save at the start of a new level though, so don’t forget to plant one before leaving the game.

These design points make Jedi Knight very much a true sequel to Dark Forces in a new 3D world. If that’s what you’re looking for, signing up is an easy choice. And while a new DF campaign is worth the journey on its own, it is a little disappointing that the new additions in the sequel aren’t as refined.

First, the lightsaber. You’ll earn your laser blade after the third level, and it will indeed kill most any enemy in one hit – sometimes hacking off limbs in the process. You also quietly get more skilled at deflecting shots as the levels go on, so charging enemies with guns becomes a more viable option. Simply aim in their direction, and Kyle will automatically adjust the saber to reflect some bolts back. You’re still vulnerable from the sides though, and the aspect of random chance never makes this a foolproof replacement for the standard shield/health pickups.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are strictly optional.

Also, it’s a melee weapon in a laser gun world, and sticking relentlessly to it will get you into trouble more often than not.  The saber does nothing against rocket launching foes, and you’ll need explosive weapons against the turrets or walkers you’ll sometimes encounter. It is infinitely fun to use Force Pull to yank guns out of troopers’ hands, then slash them as they run around helplessly, but overall, you don’t get enough Force powers to make up for your weakness at range. Not to mention, the saber itself is fairly inelegant, and not much different in practice than the traditional FPS “no ammo” punch or knife. While you might get lucky and sweep two enemies at once, it’s mostly a lot of rushing up and flailing around until something falls.

Once you get your saber, you also start earning Force points at the end of each level. Here, you can spend them ranking up powers that unlock as you go. Force Speed, Jump, Sight, and Pull are always available, and become increasingly useful in navigating the levels. One point in Sight will also help you spot a particularly annoying cloaking boss. From there, you also have an expanding selection of Light and Dark side powers to choose from. Choose wisely though, as exactly three levels in, you’ll be locked to one path and no longer able to use the powers from the other side.

True to the rules laid out in Empire Strikes Back, Light side powers are strictly defensive, while Dark side powers include such aggressive crowd-pleasers as Grip and Lightning. Force power recharges slowly on its own, and you gain a larger pool as the game goes on. If you have time and safety to recharge, you’ll never be without your powers. The downside here is that few powers are terribly effective. Healing on the Light side tree is by far the most useful in single player, but the rest of the Light tree are blind spells and defense to Force attacks that end up being strictly situational (and rarely at that).

Force Energy Tickle just doesn't carry the same gravitas.

Meanwhile, Dark side powers feel needlessly weak. Throw only works when certain objects are nearby, Grip chokes one guy while leaving you vulnerable to the rest, and Lightning uses up a lot of Force charge but doesn’t stun the enemies being shocked (leaving them free to shoot you). The highest Dark power is to literally kill someone with the evil eye, but again, it takes a long time to finally wear them down. Not to mention, you will have to work hard to stay Dark side. Your final alignment is based on your actions and otherwise out of your direct control. These actions are making sure to kill every unarmed civilian you see, and to never put points in Healing – which, as we established, is the most useful Force power there is.

When I first played Jedi Knight in 1997, I felt like I was “supposed” to use the lightsaber at the expense of everything else. Not so, and luckily, the saber is strictly optional. Nearly all the guns from Dark Forces return, and you can blast troopers merrily without receiving disapproving grunts from Yoda. The stormtrooper rifle and energy repeater continue to be as useful as they were in the first, your pistol returns for accuracy at a distance, and you can still huck grenades to clear rooms or set off mine traps. You are supposed to use the saber during boss fights, as the Dark Jedi will reflect all your shots – however, they can’t deflect the splash damage from weapons like the concussion rifle or new rail launcher. Nothing beats a good blaster at your side!

The final new additions are live-action cutscenes, and I really don’t feel the need to talk about them. They are as low budget and cheesy as you can imagine, and shot entirely in front of a green screen to save money on building sets – a fitting preview of the official prequels’ later process. They also underscore the generally weaker plot of this entry. I loved the mystery you unraveled in Dark Forces, and how one clue lead directly to the next. This is strictly a chase story. Kyle chases after his father’s map for a few levels, then chases after a cheaply-animated CG droid, then chases after an actor practically devouring the scenery while doing his best Brad Dourif impression.

Graphically, it’s better than Quake, and less impressive than Quake II (released a few months later). Both levels and characters are fairly boxy, and wimpy sprite explosions and primitive particle effects look a little silly. Still, the job gets done, levels are absolutely huge and generally active, and a solid framerate is maintained throughout. Static lighting is used, but shadows are smartly placed and look often atmospheric. The biggest disappointment is a very aggressive level of detail system that has low res textures rendered at even the other end of the room, with sharp pop-in for both textures and character models. I also don’t think it’s as pretty as Dark Forces – a trade-off for the bleeding-edge nature of polygon game engines. There’s some elaborate and beautiful design here, but limited tech to execute it.

Jedi Knight also features some basic arena multiplayer modes. While your initial thought may be “so what?” consider this – online multiplayer lightsaber duels. The very thought was enough to get excitement steamrolling, though the final delivery is a bit “meh.” Lightsaber battles work exactly like the boss fights in single player – a player not attacking will automatically deflect strikes, but is always vulnerable from the back or sides. Thus, it’s a matter of incessant circle strafing and nicking away at any exposed moment you can get. When that gets boring, unblockable Force powers and rail charges are standing by to ruin everyone’s fun.

If you can take one thing away from this review, it’s that I really liked Dark Forces. Nearly all the parts I enjoyed about that game carry over to the sequel, with an upgraded 3D engine to boot. The things that were not present – live action cutscenes, lightsabers, Force powers – don’t feel executed well, and later games certainly do a much better job of letting you play as a Jedi. At least you can stow that lightsaber, and rip through the levels with a blaster in your hand, just like my version of Kyle does. He also shaved, and he skips the cutscenes.

The Good

Excellent level design with a focus on functioning locations. Smart puzzles. Fun action moments. Great sound, as you would expect. Force powers and lightsabers are neat to play with, but also not required.

The Bad

Story is bland. Cutscenes add nothing but B-movie cheese (maybe a “Good”, depending on your mood). Feels like they were afraid to let Force powers be too powerful, and so backed their effectiveness down considerably.

Let him go! ....Oh, wait! No! Wait!

The original Defender was Williams’ (up to then known for their pinball tables) first video game success. It’s been loosely described as a side-scrolling take on Space Invaders; you control a spaceship flying over a planet besieged by waves of alien attackers. On the surface, helpless colonists are being picked up by enemy harvesters and flown to the top of the screen. Your job is to destroy the harvesters and then catch the now-falling colonists before they fatally hit the surface. Meanwhile, other alien types chase you, fire laser mines, and just generally make your life miserable.

Defender’s main selling point is its side-scrolling playing field. The planet stretches out beyond the edges of the screen, and you can fly freely in either direction (eventually wrapping back to where you started). A radar monitor at the top of the screen helps you keep track of incoming enemies and endangered colonists, and your ability to instantly switch directions helps you quickly respond to threats as you detect them. Some vector-like line graphics provide the visuals, and a neat particle system sends blasted aliens exploding in all directions.

A faithful recreation of the arcade game is this cart’s first mode, listed, appropriately, as “Classic Defender.” The 1980s line art returns with different colors for different levels, sound effects are appropriately bleepy and bloopy, and controls are tight and responsive. Button assignment is straightforward – forward thrust, fire lasers, and a screen-clearing bomb. The original arcade release had a fourth button to switch direction, and this option is included if you have a six button Jaguar Pro pad. The standard 3-button pad combines the buttons for throttle and direction.

You’ll need to find and destroy all the enemies in a wave to proceed. I found myself neutralizing the harvesters first (probably because I was focused on them), but still had to fly around a bit to find the stray UFO or segmenting energy ball. Once you clear a wave, the surviving colonists are tallied up and added as a score bonus. This repeats, forever, with cycles of tougher enemies as you go along. It’s truly just a high score challenge.

Defender Plus' warp gates are large and easy to fly into accidentally.

Like Minter’s previous remake, Tempest 2000, the cart contains two additional “modern” modes – Defender Plus, and the titular Defender 2000. These modes progressively alter Classic gameplay while retaining the basic concept.

Defender Plus is pretty much Defender Classic with revised graphics and a new control scheme. The stand-alone button to switch direction has been dropped, and is now handled with left and right on the D-pad. This made more natural sense to me, and streamlines the controls for the better, though momentum is now a greater concern. Graphically, the ship is now a 2D bitmap, and the surface of the planet is rendered in oscillating, psychedelic waves of color. Aliens are also animated images, now look like tiny mushrooms, and use darker colors that make them harder to see.

On the gameplay side, Plus speeds things up considerably. Your laser attack is now very rapid fire, and you can rocket across the landscape so quickly that you’re apt to crash into aliens. This mode also introduces optional AI drones that fly alongside your ship, destroy aliens, and catch falling civilians. They do this quite well, and I was able to get pretty far in Plus just by holding the direction to accelerate and the trigger. Your speedy lasers plow an effecient path. A few levels in, you start to encounter new miniboss ships (large turrety things with shields) that require a little more caution to avoid and destroy. Warp gates also bounce you instantly across the landscape, and sometimes right into an enemy swarm.

Defender 2000 iterates even further, and is where the concept starts to fly off the rails. In theory, it’s a stark graphical update to the original – much like the frequent HD remakes of today. The rather blank starfield is replaced by independently scrolling layers of background canyons, cities, or mountains. Every object is now a sprite, a thumping techno mix plays in the background, and various powerups are now added (such as the AI drone from Plus). Speed is quick and smooth, gameplay basics are unchanged. Artistically, I think it’s a bit of a bland flop, but it certainly shows how far gaming graphics have come along.

Not only is the view tighter, but your ship floats to the center at high speed. Good luck seeing anything coming.

Where 2000 fumbles is with its display. The view is too narrow. I’ve read complaints that 2000′s ship sprite is too large, but I think it’s more as if the camera was zoomed in too far. You can’t see what’s coming very well, and the speed gives you less time to react. One of the premises of Defender is that if a civilian gets carried off, they’ll turn into a fast homing alien that hunts you – you’ll never see these dudes coming. You also can’t fire into infinity here like you can in Plus, so you can’t use the radar to clear ahead of you. Basically, it’s a widescreen game confined to a tight 4:3 view.

I think it’s telling then, that many of the powerups seem designed to offset this. You earn an energy shield that protects you from a few hits, that AI drone to scoop up falling civilians you missed, and even a second drone that zaps lightning out at nearby enemies. These powerups come pretty quickly into a wave, as does an abundance of extra lives, so the game’s more than manageable through most levels. That never stops it from being confusing though, with far too much happening on screen in later levels, and a limited window through which to view it all. I felt I was getting by more on the virtues of my auto-attacking powerup drones than any skill or reaction on my part.

What have I taken away from this? First, original Defender is a pretty solid arcade game. It’s strictly a high score challenge – not my favorite style, but that’s okay – and does a fine job at combining reflexes and strategy. Plus is a decent upgrade. The AI drones help newcomers along, the faster pace and new enemy types are somewhat more exciting, but it does feel easier overall. A common Defender complaint is that it can be played simply by watching the radar screen, and Plus’ ungodly rapid fire lasers make this more true than ever.

Defender 2000, however, is a step backward. Its new bitmap world is more technically impressive than artistically, and terrible framing makes it a burden to play. At least you get three versions for the price of one cart, and Plus and Classic are strong editions that fans will enjoy. 2000 mode, however, isn’t the showcase you would hope for.

The Good

Graphics in all modes are crisp and fluid.  Tremendous speed; maybe a bit too much for its own good.  Plus adds some interesting changes to the formula.  Cool easter eggs.

The Bad

Defender 2K is the anchor dragging this score down.  The version that’s supposed to amaze the most amazes the least, and its restrictive view makes it very difficult to play.  While it’s true you get the luxury of three games in one with this cart, it’s really two good versions of Defender, and one that’s not.

*thhhhrrrrrrrppppp*

What you can expect from this game is right there in the title, up to and including the “badical” 80′s font.  You’ll take either a skiing or snowboarding racer downhill in one of three different challenge types.  Further game options let you customize your experience.  Freestyle mode lets you soar down the slopes and pass checkpoint gates to add to your time limit.  Training lets you pick and run particular courses to learn their layout and improve your time.  Compete mode randomizes the track selection and puts you in a bracket against other AI players.  This bracket shrinks as poor performers get culled, and if you fail to qualify in any track, you use up one of your lives (you start with two) to replay it.

Each of these three modes is paired with one of the three challenges – Downhill, Slalom, and Giant Slalom.  Let me preface the following by saying that I know diddly dick about skiing, so if you do, you’re best to ignore the rest of this paragraph.  All three modes are about moving through gates defined by two flags.  If you miss a gate, a penalty is added to your final time.  The difference between each mode appears to be based on the distance and “size” of the gates.  Downhill has nice, big gates that are spaced far apart and fairly easy to clear.  Slalom has short gates that come at you in a very rapid zig-zag pattern – you have to build up a consistent left/right cadence and maintain it through the course.

All this skiing takes place in a faux-3D corridor built with scaling sprites – think OutRun.  You view your skier from a locked third person view, and move them within their lane.  Meanwhile, that lane shifts around beneath your feet as the game auto-steers around corners.  I always found this system confusing.  Its engine style was never ideal, and once polygons came around, you no longer needed to fake 3D environments.  It’s also at its worst here for two simple reasons: lack of track delineation, and the judicious use of hills.

I don't think this is the cooooooourse!!

On the first point, let’s look at Atari’s Pole Position.  Same basic technology, similar gameplay.  In Pole Position, your valid strip of road is always colored gray with out-of-bounds areas colored green (for surrounding grass).  It’s very easy to tell when you’re moving your car off the road, even without the markers on the roadside.  Here, everything is blue and white.  A lighter shade of blue seems intended to mark the trail, but it’s tough to make out at high speed.  The edge of the course is further marked sporadically, and usually simply with trees – which is where I would frequently find myself when the track suddenly shifts on a curve.

On the second point, despite the fact that you’re going downhill, there are bumps and ridges along the track that obscure your view.  I guess unleveled tracks are a part of skiing, (though I think the groundskeeper would be fired for all the speed-slowing bare patches that appear for an additional challenge) and you can do some tricks if you press Up and just the right time.  Still, it seems extreme here while artificially blocking your view of the next set of flags.  I suppose the idea here is to shake up the execution of this tech – previous racers haven’t had hills so severe – but it doesn’t “look” right and introduces very practical gameplay problems.

The result is that you’re just going to have to learn the tracks – certainly not the worst requirement, but something that does get in the way of some casual pick-up-and-play fun.  I was never driven by high scores or perfecting times – even in 1994 I’d be thinking about the next game to rent from the video store – but if you’re competitive and like dedicating time and effort to one particular game at a time, you’ll be able to build some skill here (even if that skill is mostly rote memorization).

Graphically, it’s fast and responsive.  The track scales and zips by as quickly and smoothly as if it were arcade hardware, and it’s nice to see the Jaguar showing off some of its abilities.  The frequent twisting and dipping gives an almost roller coaster effect that’s fun to watch and fairly exciting to play.  My only complaint is that the speed sometimes gets away from you, and the track changes become difficult to follow.

While technically impressive, the artwork lacks variety. What’s here is great – it’s colorful and looks the part.  A nice digitized photo of what I presume is the actual surrounding mountains makes up the background, and the passing trees and pedestrians look suitably sharp.  There’s just not enough of them.  This resort is the only location in the game, so the background never changes, the courses all use identical assets, and the only differences between them become the placement of their turns and bumps.  I don’t feel like I can complain too much because, ultimately, you’re skiing down a snowy mountain – it’s going to be white.  But still, without track ribbons, boards, crowds, or different times of day, it falls again on learning the layout of each track to find any long-term fun here.

There are also no characters to choose from and no high score memory.  Also, there’s no direct compete option.  You won’t be racing another player (real or AI) live on a run, you’ll simply be chasing their time on a board.  Two player mode similarly hot swaps between the current racer.  All somewhat standard for the time though.

This game and Super Burnout both show that scaling 2-D racers were one of the Jaguar hardware’s strengths.  Val d’Isère screams on the console, but also dips and auto-steers a bit too much for its own good.  The samey tracks and handful of reused assets don’t differentiate the tracks enough, and the pace means your best times are going to come from memorizing the tracks, not from responding to the changes you see coming.  Good showcase for the Jag, but an average title in gameplay respects.

The Good

I’d put this up with Kasumi Ninja as supporting Atari’s claims of arcade-quality graphics in your home.  Responsive controls.  Speed and framerate never seem to hitch, and make each course a wild – if somewhat difficult to follow – ride.

The Bad

I’ve always hated these scaling racers for taking control away from you on turns – this one does it frequently, and throws in hills and jumps to boot.  Makes it almost impossible to do well playing a reactionary game.  Over 12 tracks, but no much art to make them different.

Tanks eject minions while they try to escape the level.

Unfortunately, this game hails from the first two seasons, where cussin’ fourth graders, Kenny’s myriad deaths, and Cartman’s fat ass were the jokes.  I can’t really blame the game for being stale on those points – it’s only as good as its source material, after all – but it does mean you’re going to have nothing to do beyond fighting off waves of mutant turkeys, Mephesto’s clones, and alien visitors because Chef says so.

Gameplay is straightforward FPS, and each level has the same goal.  “Tank” enemies spawn throughout the level and create “minion” enemies – minions go after you, while tanks try to make it to a spinning South Park sign at the start of the level.  Any tanks that you let slip by must be faced in a penalty round at the end of the level.  Here, all the escaped tanks are merrily thrashing on a small section of a South Park neighborhood, and it’s your job to kill them before they can destroy every building.  The exception is the last level of each chapter (5 chapters in all), where you will face a boss with a unique weakness you must maneuver around to exploit.

The tank/minion gameplay means there’s a bit more to it than just moving from the level start to the level end, but the gameplay itself is repetition personified.  Levels are vast, and you’ll face only one enemy type per chapter, so topping the hill to find another batch of swarming cows starts to induce more sighs and eye-rolling than pulse-pounding excitement.  This is especially true considering that only the tanks count – minions are simply in the way, and dropping them does no more than add to an end-of-level tally.  Furthermore, nearly all of your foes have only melee attacks and simple “close the distance” AI, so encounters never get more involved than running backwards and unloading your limited arsenal (more on that in a bit).  The few ranged enemies can be bested with some fancy sidestepping.

If you find Mr. Hanky, he'll bounce around you like a shield (and also get in the way of platform jumps).

The main draw is playing as the show’s four kids, but the game’s handling of this feels lacking.  You start by picking which kid you want to play as, then spend the first level of each chapter collecting the other three.  You cannot switch between the kids at will, so you’ll only see them when you switch to new weapons.  It seems like the first two weapons you collect go to your default kid, then the next get assigned to a random one.  This way you do at least get the chance to spend time playing as everyone.

There’s not much point to it though.  The kids share one life pool, and each controls and functions absolutely identically.  The only change you get is in their voiced quips and reactions, but even these are disappointing.  The kids speak only in catchphrases from the show, and their lines are so few and so frequently repeated that I legitimately wonder if any new VO was recorded for the game.  Issac Hayes as Chef is the only one who seems to talk directly about what’s happening, while the kids just spout off clips that could have come from previous episodes, like “cool, dude!” and “respect mah authoritah!”  Any of the show’s other notable characters are restricted to background cameos (like the Big Gay Al clone type, or Officer Barbrady in an alien stasis tank), and don’t even speak or appear in cutscenes.  It really feels like the bare minimum of interaction with the show.

Since the kids aren’t making the game worthwhile, it falls on the absurd situations to bring any humor.  These aren’t funny either.  It’s not a matter of taste to me, it’s that you’re simply presented with illogical enemies without context or commentary.  It’s weird and “zany” for the sake of it, as if that should automatically count.  The voices and writing are what make things like Mecha-Striessand sacking the town work on the show, and you get none of that in the game.  Gameplay is entirely about attacking quirky (but endlessly repeated) enemies until you reach the level end.  If you can laugh heartily at shooting aliens with eggs squirted out of a squirming chicken, or at short-circuiting robots with a noxious fart cloud from a Terrance and Philip novelty doll, then that’s great – but those pieces alone are all you’re going to get.  Again, it feels like the bare minimum.

So we’ve covered that the game doesn’t even bother to tell jokes and lacks even the basic presentation value of the show.  The only thing left for an FPS to offer is some inventive weapons, and as you can guess, the delivery falls short here as well. Weapons are repurposed playground equipment; rubber dodge balls, a toy dart gun, and a homemade toilet plunger launcher are the order of the day.  Crazier weapons, like a cow launcher or “alien dancing gizmo” appear only in the final levels.

Each gun features a secondary attack to slightly change its situational usefulness, and some of them end up being quite effective (that dart gun!).  However, ammo for all of these weapons is confusingly limited, and you’ll spend everything you’ve got on trying to stop the tanks.  Your default attack is to launch infinite snowballs at a blazing speed, and its what I found myself stuck with for the majority of the game.  The snowballs wear minions down eventually, but will probably wear you down with boredom first.

I should stop here and point out that this could entirely be the fault of the PC port – having only played this version, I’m not sure.  The PC version features difficulty levels where the N64 original doesn’t appear to.  Aside from randomly inserting enemies from other chapters, these difficulties seem to simply increase every enemy’s resistance without also increasing stashes of ammo.  It’s entirely possible I continually ran out of supplies because these new difficulties weren’t balanced, and so “easy” is actually the intended mode.  Approach with caution.

Visible seams, blatant 2D cliffs, reused textures. This is the majority of the game.

The graphics are another good reason to stick to the N64 original.  This port is locked to 640×480, but the textures appear to have been created for a resolution even lower than that.  Environments look fairly smeared and heavily aliased – any hardware filtering done by the N64 doesn’t get a comparable version here.  The artwork is minimalist by design, to match the cardboard cutout style of the show. It generally works and translates to 3D well, but does also create bland areas such as the endless caves and canyons.  All textures are also a single shade of color and rely on the lighting engine for any shifts, which it does through clunky bands of sharp gradients.

The PC version is also just generally a stumbling port.  All environments display visible texture seams.  Background music streams off the CD but only plays once per level before stopping – no more music until the next level.  Your view infrequently auto-snaps to center, possibly an artifact from its original analog stick control scheme.  There’s also no quicksaves, and a reworked, Internet-enabled multiplayer mode that I doubt anyone was playing even when the game was released.  The only reason to get the PC version is a nearly tripled draw distance over the N64, but that’s not much of an incentive.  Even mouse and keyboard accuracy seems unnecessary here.

I’m not going to lie, the most fun I had with South Park was when I slapped on some cheat codes and blasted through enemies without thought.  I take this as a further suggestion that the PC port’s added difficulty levels were a haphazard afterthought, and “Easy” (or just the N64 original) is the way to play.  Even still, this isn’t a game meant to last, and the basic FPS format doesn’t even try to be as funny as the show.  Whapping clones with an infinite supply of snowballs to brief, recycled voice clips from the show isn’t something that even fans can embrace. Nothing that made the show worth watching is here.

The Good

Tank and minion system gives you something to consider beyond racing to the level exit.  Artwork (except the lighting) is true to the show and translates to 3D well.  I had some good chuckles pelting Cartman in the face with snowballs while he called me a “hippie son of a bitch.”

The Bad

Clunky PC port.  Endless repetition in both environments and enemies.  Recycled voice clips.  Cutscenes are limited to Chef talking to the kids – no use of the many other South Park characters (No Mr. Hat?  Well fuck you then.) In short, it’s dull and it isn’t funny, but it barely even tries anyway.

“That’s for sticking stuff up my ass.” – Cartman

You can even ask questions during each briefing.

You play as a male or female cadet (doesn’t matter) new to Starfleet Academy’s command school.  The game is divided into four years, with a new ship granted at the start of each year.  There are 21 missions total, and each takes the form of a day at the Academy.  Using a row of icons along the bottom of a shot of lovely future San Francisco, you can attend class, chat with your crew before or after a mission, or take an exam within the school’s bridge simulator.  The classes (simply one or two text screens) explain a bit about what Starfleet expects while offering some hints for the coming mission – which also means encyclopedic Trek knowledge isn’t required to play.  The simulator is where the action takes place.

You pilot the virtual ship from her command chair, directly controlling steering, speed, and weapons.  A first person view from the nose of the craft lets you navigate.  Pressing the Select button brings up a menu of bridge commands.  Here, you can order your crew to engage the tractor beam, warp to a new system, hail nearby ships, perform a sensor sweep, get advice from your science officer, and so on.  Your crew all have names and personalities (some carried over from Starfleet Academy on the PC), but this matters most in the post-mission lounge chats, and rarely even there.  Their performance in the simulator will never change, and there are no side stories or mysteries of theirs to uncover.  They basically exist to shout situational dramatic lines as your ship is getting virtually torpedoed.

The difference in this title, as stated, is the comparative lack of combat.  Classes reinforce that Starfleet is about peacekeeping and exploration, with use of weapons as a last resort.  The missions will readily test this.  More than a few missions try to trick you into fighting.  You’ll come across an alien race that looks set up to be an aggressor, but an itchy torpedo trigger will net you a failing grade.  You can (and often should) avoid fighting as well – some missions allow you to pop in and complete your objective, then pop out before enemies can respond.  Some give you a proper “out” – you’ll encounter groups of hostile pirates, but one of them will be willing to talk.  Fighting at all is almost flatly discouraged at higher difficulty levels, as your ships will be unable to take on more than one enemy at a time.  NPC conversations and reactions to you even change based on your ship’s current status – green, yellow (shields up), or red (weapons armed).

Missions grade you on a scale of 100, with 75 or above considered a passing grade.  Your instructor will brief and debrief you, and always explains your score and where you failed within a mission.  It could come down to picking the wrong dialog choice during a hail, or showing hostile intent when it wasn’t warranted, but the point of the test will always be conveyed in the debrief.  You also don’t get another shot at the mission (unless you reload a password), so enough failing grades will boot you out of the Academy.

The big question, then, is if it’s boring.  That depends on what you’re expecting out of the experience.  This version of Academy is definitely the most true-to-the-shows game that I’ve played.  You’ll be using the equipment on your ship to solve mysteries, rescue other ships, save planets from radioactive debris, and other Trek-ian staples.  Unfortunately, none of these activities are particularly involved or complicated.  One early mission has you respond to a distress call, but when you arrive, the aggressors have already retreated.  Seems ominous, and warrants further investigation.  But since the tools on your ship are so limited, “further investigation” breaks down to “try all four options without consequence” before moving on to the next system.  You don’t even get to select what you scan or who you hail; it’s handled automatically.  You’ll only have to put thought into the multiple-choice dialogue sections, and beyond that, it’s mostly just a matter of being thorough.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t ship battles, because there are, and a few that you can’t even weasel your way out of.  But there’s a reason they’re not the focus.  This is an SNES game that tries to push polygons without the Super FX chip, and the performance suffers greatly for it.  The game will always crawl around at a 10-15 frame rate, with heavier slowdown if multiple polygonal objects are moving around the screen at once.  Accelerating the ship also drags the framerate noticeably.  Distant objects are impossible to make out, and other than the mission objects, your surroundings are nothing but a barren field of moving stars.  Flat-shaded, untextured polygons, single-color planets, and wimpy sprite explosions also mean they’ll be no effects to impress the graphically inclined.

The choppy processing also makes ship to ship combat feels sluggish, while the ships themselves still curiously handle like fighter jets.  Your ships have forward mass but can turn instantly, which, coupled with the frame rate lag, can make precise aiming a bear.  It seems outright impossible to dodge enemy fire, and your ship is covered with a single universal shield, so there’s no strategy available to minimize the damage you’re taking.  The radar isn’t much help either – even on the shortest-range “combat mode” – so you’ll spin your ship around just in time to take a torpedo and watch your foe swoop away, or watch them ram right into you for extreme damage.  The combat is still playable, especially at the easiest difficulty, but not particularly enjoyable or ideal.

A local battle mode is available, and gives you the chance to pilot enemy ships against another player.  There are also a series of historical missions which recreate two of the movies and an episode of the original show (Balance of Terror).  These are a treat for fans, and also give you a few minor ways to change the events around (usually for the worse).  Beyond that, there’s nothing else to the package, and limited reasons to replay.  You can run through the Academy at a higher difficulty, but the missions obviously aren’t engaging once you already know the twist.

The shoddy, lumbering battle system is almost certainly why Starfleet Academy got tagged as a bad game.  If that’s what you’ve shown up for, then you’re right to criticize.  My real disappointment is that they didn’t fuse a decent combat/flight engine (like the PC version of Academy) with the adventure-like mysteries and diplomacy seen here.  Overall, it’s a series of generally well-written missions that nails the tone of the show, hampered by a choppy engine running on (arguably) the wrong platform altogether.

The Good

Practically the only Star Trek game that doesn’t ask you to blow up Romulans and Klingons every mission.  Most missions feature investigation, diplomacy, rescues, and other Starfleet peace-keepery things.

The Bad

Engine chugs along on the SNES.  Navigating is okay, but battles, when they happen, are more difficult than they need to be.  Only two tracks of very repetitious music, but this at least can be disabled.

Many players cite Halo as their introduction to the FPS genre – a concept which makes plenty of PC die hards gnash their teeth in frustration.  But to be fair, it’s really not a bad entry.  While the XBox version (along with GoldenEye on the N64) proved the ability to do an FPS on a console, the game itself also made notable contributions to the genre – and no, not just with the overused recharging health system and two gun limit seen in every modern shooter.  Let’s also be honest, launching alongside the XBox gave it notoriety it otherwise would have missed.  If Halo had stayed on the Mac, it would be a cult favorite, but otherwise obscure.

This first title, before prequels and sequels really fleshed out its universe, is cliched sci-fi.  Humanity is at war with a technologically-superior alien empire known as The Covenant.  After a crippling defeat, the frigate Pillar of Autumn makes a blind hyperspace jump and ends up around a mysterious mechanical ring with an Earth-like atmosphere.  The decision is made to thaw you out – the helmeted, jade-armored super-soldier known only as the Master Chief – and try to race the pursuing Covenant forces into discovering the purpose of Halo.  There’s not much depth here (yet), and it does awkwardly try to mimic moments from Aliens and Starship Troopers, but the plot generally keeps you interested.  There’s also a pretty decent twist that’s surprising and executed well.  The plot’s not as clever or cerebral as Bungie’s previous work, but it’s certainly more accessible.

Hands down, it’s the depth of the combat that makes this game.  It’s as accessible as any other FPS (aim, shoot), but supported with many small nuances that, at higher difficulty levels, force players to think about each engagement.  First and foremost is your own energy shield.  It will absorb a few hits, but then recharge if you stay behind cover.  When your shield is down, your precious health starts taking the hits – and that can only be replenished through limited medic kits found in the levels.  Right away, you’re encouraged to be cautious in your approach, but also aren’t left completely without options if things go poorly.

Elites dodge many of your initial attacks.

From there, you have various enemy types to consider, each with different advantages and disadvantages.  The impish Grunts offer comic relief and cannon fodder, but can still be dangerous in groups or at the end of tight hallways.  Jackals carry energy shields, but can handily be sniped from afar, or overwhelmed with a combo of sustained fire and a melee strike.  Elites have heavy weapons and the same energy shields as you, forcing you to think about how to approach them.  If they get to cover, their shields will regenerate and your attacks up to that point will be for naught.  Chase them, though, and they stand a good chance of putting you down as you round the corner.

The AI supports these differences brilliantly, and got much praise for it.  It goes beyond tactics and teamwork (a la Half-Life) and into really making each alien type its own character.  The AI knows its own role and that alien’s limitations – it knows when to retreat and when to press an attack.  Many a time the AI knew I was weakened and correctly rushed my cover to knock me out before my shields recharged.  The AI can be caught unaware and hit with a surprise attack (such as a sticky plasma grenade), but also responds to gunfire and the shouts of other aliens.  They have great situational awareness without psychically knowing where you are - they’ll shoot through windows to hit you, or wait at the corner you disappeared around, rather than blindly following you.  They’re a tough, maddeningly patient, and worthy opponent – and extremely hard to trick or exploit (which, admittedly, is half of beating any FPS at the highest difficulty).

The nuances don’t end there.  Human weapons can be reloaded, but Covenant weapons (in the plot, still a mystery to scientists) can only be dropped or replaced when their charge runs out.  Low level grunts shout their states (“Coming!”  “He’s here!”) and panic easily when their leaders are killed.  Elites, however, are quiet, stealthy and communicate in alien gibberish so you don’t know their next move.  Covenant weapons are great at dropping shields, while human guns nicely shred armor or alien hides.  An advanced tactic involves dropping shields with a Covenant gun and finishing them off with a bullet weapon.  This is also the game where the toughest brutes can be killed in one shot with a pistol, simply by knowing where and when to hit them.  There really is a lot of depth to the mechanics, and a lot to discover.

This room. Forever.

Which brings us to the complaints you’ve surely heard before – level design and the Flood.  Saying that sections of Halo are some of the worst-designed levels in modern FPS history is not hyperbole.  “Assault on the Control Room” and the infamous “Library” feature levels literally made up of copy/pasted rooms.  You should know by now that I don’t exaggerate, so when I endorse every complaint you’ve ever heard in this department as absolutely true, I hope you know it’s not unwarranted E-Rage.  These levels are terrible, monotonous, and tedious to the extreme.  They are only made manageable through the thoughtful combat.  Each level becomes something like a challenge room, with a different twist through enemy makeup, pillar placement, or available weapons.  Even that stretches out far past its welcome, and navigating these rooms is both confusing and dreary.  It’s like Bungie learned nothing about level design and decoration since Marathon.

As for the Flood, they are a parasitic race introduced about halfway into the story.  They take all of the amazing advancements to AI and combat and pitch them in the bin.  The Flood reanimates dead soldiers and sends them sprinting right at you, flailing appendages or spastically firing weapons.  It brings all the joy of running backward whilst firing your gun back into an FPS that didn’t remotely need it.  Perhaps the intent was to bring in some “classic” gameplay as a break from all the tactics, but these engagements sit somewhere between “a waste of time” and “a pain in the ass.”  The Flood is crucial to the story, so Bungie painted themselves a bit into a corner, but it’s telling that they appear less frequently in the sequels.

While every level is padded out by some bland corridors and blatantly repeated rooms, only a few use these as the majority of the map.  Most levels have unique rooms or centerpieces (like the hangar bay on the alien cruiser), or lovely outdoor areas and structures between more generic hallways.  There’s no slouching here, and the outdoor areas are all lovingly crafted highlights.  There are installations built up in icy cliffs, sunny beaches to storm, hills with defensive emplacements, foggy jungles, and a mountain path to assault at night.  Levels are all fairly linear, but these outdoor sections are wide and expansive, with plenty of opportunities to hop into a nimble Warthog four-wheeler, or tear apart enemy positions in the beastly tank.  All vehicles are satisfying to drive, and integrated into the game well (that ending!!).

At least there's plenty of shiny textures and sparkly particles.

Which brings us specifically to the PC port.  Gameplay between the two versions is identical (including checkpoints but no quicksaves and no sprint option), with a possible edge given to mouse and keyboard controls.  Graphics, unfortunately, are pretty identical as well.  The console’s lower resolution textures don’t look too impressive blown up to 1280×1024, and no attempt seems to have been made to tweak them for the PC release.  Flat textures, very limited bump mapping, and a ridiculous amount of jaggies (with no AA option !?) seem to suggest that Bungie made their assets to the limitations of the XBox, with no consideration of future ports.  Fair enough, I suppose, but the bane of a good PC port.  At least the audio and orchestral soundtrack still sounds excellent, and all weapons are particularly punchy.

The other PC feature is online multiplayer.  Halo was pretty much the console multiplayer experience, both in campaign co-op and LAN-based deathmatch/flag capture arenas.  However, it was all local – good for university dorms, bad for everyone else.  The PC port brought the action online, and in line with other options on the platform.  However, Half-Life was just too well-established for this to make much of a difference, and that’s before we consider PC snobbery.  This is mostly a historical point though, as I have no expectations anyone will be playing this online today.

If you’re a fan of first person shooters, Halo is certainly worth a play.  If you have no other options, the PC version of Halo is tolerably worth a play.  Keep in mind that this port is essentially just emulating the console experience (perhaps on purpose?), and certainly won’t hold up to PC FPS stalwarts.  Don’t expect it to have the visual quality, or even the standard features (again, quicksaves) of its PC competition.  Still, that AI is sharp, combat requires some real thought, and you’re in for a satisfying challenge at harder difficulty levels.

The Good

Smart AI, nuanced mechanics, and a two weapon limit really does… dare I say… evolve combat.  The PC port matches the gameplay introduced on the consoles, and it’s still a challenging fight if you set the difficulty high enough.

The Bad

The PC port looks a little too similar to the console original.  No bump in graphical fidelity for playing it on the PC.  No improvements like quicksaves.  Online multiplayer was a nice exclusive, but irrelevant now.  Features sections of truly uninspired, blatantly cloned levels that artificially pad them out.

Men, here is where we show those split-chin squid-headed sons-of-bitches that they could not have picked a worse enemy than the human race!  We are going to blow the hell out of those dumb bugs until we don’t have anything left to shoot ‘em with!  And then we are going to strangle them with their own living guts!   — Sgt. Avery Johnson

Here’s one game that I owned at the time (actually, its identical version on the Game Boy).  The concept is pretty straightforward.  You take on the role of the Captain of the Enterprise – through some kind of holodeck training course, I believe – and carry out randomized missions picked from a pool of variables.  The game never actually ends, though successful missions boost your rank through six levels.  Higher ranks give more difficult missions, and if you fail enough, you’re busted back down to a previous rank.  Aside from this promotion system, the game keeps trucking along, oblivious, for long as you’re willing to play it.

Missions are knocked together like some kind of Star Trek mad libs:

“Pick up (ambassador, cargo) from (one of fifteen planets) and take it to (a different planet).  Watch out for (shifty alien race) along the way.  You have (short amount of time) to complete this task.” 

Aside from cargo delivery, you’ll also need to rescue civilians from a disintegrating planet or ship, blast a ship long enough to weaken it and grab its stolen cargo, or have one of a handful of reasons to show up at a system and kill every enemy there.  You are indeed given a time limit to finish the task, but pulling it off in time is rarely an issue.

The heart of your command lies with your bridge crew.  A row of five comm badges runs along the bottom of the screen.  Each badge is selected to get reports from each officer’s station.  Worf is used to raise/lower the shields or bring the weapons online.  Data warps the ship to new systems, displays the sensor map, or orbits a planet.  LaForge can boost power to systems or prioritize combat repairs.  O’Brien transports things up, down, or intruders off the ship.  Riker reminds you of your mission, the current stardate, and how much time you have remaining.

Space engineering!

If the option is not a simple toggle, you’ll handle the action through a brief minigame.  To orbit a planet, you must navigate the ship (in first person) through a series of square gates.  To boost power to a system, you must route power sparks through maze gates in real time.  To beam survivors off a planet, you’ll have to find them by using a tracking bar that fills as you get close, then hold a steady lock long enough for them to be captured – often, they’re running around like assholes to make this more difficult.  I’m assuming they’re actually on fire as you’re trying to rescue them.

This system is actually pretty interesting, and none of the minigames are overly complicated or terribly frustrating.  It’s certainly more exciting that just ordering your bridge crew around, and ensures that every mission – even the “boring” cargo courier ones – will give you something to actively do.  Some of these minigames are also adapted to randomized emergency scenarios.  Your life support may fail, and you’ll need to play a variant of Geordi’s maze game to fix it.  Intruders may beam on board, and you’ll use O’Brien’s console to locate and beam them off.  You may get caught in a temporal rift, and have one chance to orbit the nearest star to survive.  Again, all necessary excitement.

The rest of the time, you’ll directly steer the ship.  By default, left and right on the D-pad cycle through the officer comm badges, while up and down move from stop, half, and full speeds.  Pressing Start puts you into steering mode, with the D-pad moving the bow of the ship in first person.  You’ll need to use Data’s sensor display to locate your objective, then steer toward it accordingly.  You’ll also use steering mode when the inevitable combat rolls around.

Not every mission has battles, but for those that do, a quick trip to Worf’s station brings the ship up to fighting shape.  With the weapons armed and steering mode on, A and B fire phasers and torpedoes.  Phasers converge into a continuous beam – like the show – so it’s easy to “paint” an enemy ship with them.  Torpedoes are unguided, but cause plenty of damage if you can properly lead an enemy, or catch him charging at you.  Meanwhile, your shields are absorbing any damage thrown at you, and LaForge is working hard at repairing one subsystem at a time (usually those shields).

Unfortunately, combat isn’t too exciting.  You’ll certainly need to fly to wherever the enemies are, but after that, it’s best to park the ship and simply scroll left or right.  The engagement takes place in 3D space, but your enemies don’t seem to know that. Ships are represented as 2D sprites with a handful of perspectives (like in Wing Commander), further limiting what moves they’re able to make.  Different enemies have different tactics; Ferengi are content to simply run circles around your ship, while Romulans like to weave in and out of range.  In any situation, it’s easy enough to park, track them left or right, and trade the shots necessary to bring them down.  You don’t appear to gain any defensive bonus by staying on the move.

Understanding the limitations of the Nintendo and what they’re trying to do here, it’s probably best that they kept combat simple.  It’s still one of the weakest parts of the game, but you shouldn’t be looking into this title if you want real action.

Worf's grumpiness is expertly rendered.

Graphically, it’s an impressive title.  Digitized photos were clearly used as reference, and squeezing them onto the NES has been accomplished without much fuss.  This isn’t just the obvious actor photos either; there’s a surprising amount of detail in the consoles themselves and the various activation animations (like watching the shields raise).  Enemies and starbases also got the photo treatment, so Romulan warbirds and Ferengi cruisers will all look the part.  Navigation in general in easy, there’s a real sense of speed, and objects cycle through a few sets of scale as you get close.  There’s equally good work on the audio side, with a faithful chiptune version of the TNG theme, and a selection of comparable sound effects.

If I had any single complaint, it would be that the entire game lacks consequence.  There’s never a question of who your enemy is, and never a reason to hold back from firing.  Time restrictions seem arbitrary when you can simply travel at the fastest warp speed everywhere, all the time.  There’s no drawback, except, possibly, an undocumented increase in the chance of emergency minigames.  And even though you appear to be halfway de-molecularizing fleeing refugees when you move the transporter cursor over them (ow!) you can never lose someone during transport or otherwise flub a mission.

That’s the game.  The randomized missions start off engaging and then exponentially decay – you’ll soon spot the template each mission is designed around.  Tighter time windows and smaller margins of error at higher ranks don’t really do enough to change things, so it’s really still the same game at the end as it was when you started.  It’s an excellent and smart recreation of the show, but as a whole, the game really does just roll along until you’re sick of it.

The Good

Minigames let you try your hand at activities from the show.  Random missions keep the game going forever.  Some challenge to work your way up to Captain rank.  Not exclusively focused on combat like most other Trek sims.

The Bad

Random missions keep the game going forever… without structure.  Pools of variables aren’t large enough not to notice the same handful of templates, and no new missions appear with higher ranks.  Ranking up to Captain is the only goal – after that, you play until you’re done with it… which likely won’t be much longer.

Blow away German scientists... IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM!

To properly set this game’s debut in perspective, we need to consider two things:  GoldenEye on the N64, and Saving Private Ryan in the theaters.  Ryan was Spielberg’s ode to the World War II films of his youth, and its incredible visuals and gritty realism somehow ended up glorifying warfare far more than any John Wayne WWII flick ever did.  Gamers who clearly missed the point of the film wanted to recreate these grisly action scenes, they just needed a game to give them that opportunity.

As for GoldenEye, well, it set the new standard for console first person shooters back in 1997, and people simply would not shut up about it, even for years after.   Its N64 exclusivity was a thorn in many a gamer’s side, and an equivalent experience on the PlayStation would help all who placed their bets on the gray console breathe a little easier.  PS owners were still waiting for this in 1999 – and starting to go a little stir crazy.

Enter Medal of Honor – a Dreamworks-funded title using some of the research and connections from Private Ryan, with enough money and prestige behind it to try and take on the reigning console champ.  If the PlayStation could finally host an exclusive, knockout FPS – not a stripped version ported from the PC – it would finally have all the bases covered.  Whether they succeeded is probably best up to interpretation.  The gaming press at the time certainly felt they did, and it was indeed the closest to GoldenEye the PSX had, but it’s hardly a flawless product.

As the silent American ace, Lt. Jimmy Patterson, you’re drafted into the ranks of the Office of Strategic Services and given daring sabotage missions across the Reich.  These range from scuttling a U-boat, to infiltrating a fort on the Siegfried line, to blowing a V2 production factory.  All your missions are done solo, and all are accomplished with a mix of guns and cosplay.  Jimmy, you see, is a master of disguise.  Stuff him into a German officer’s uniform, and he’s so convincing that he merely needs to shove the proper identification booklet into a guard’s face to cow them into instant submission.

Much like Bond’s exploits on the N64, Patterson has a laundry list of objectives to complete in every mission.  Controls will be smashed, explosive charges will be planted, and all manner of loose Wehrmacht intel will be scooped up.  There are seven missions in all, but 3-4 levels per mission, for around 24 levels total.  Stars and medals are granted for thorough performance, as well as unlocked characters for the game’s bare-bones, split-screen multiplayer arenas.

Missions can be comfortably classified into “action” and “stealth” varieties.  The action levels have Jimmy running through narrow corridors of enemy defenses to reach the objective on the other side.  A variety of authentic World War II weapons are available, with appropriate period quirks.  Bolt action rifles must be cycled between shots, grenades can’t be thrown that far, and powerful weapons like the BAR and Thompson have woefully small magazines.  This does play differently than previous FPSs and their modern, automatic arsenals.

Enemy AI will also do some clever things that sprite-based foes never could.  Riflemen will drop to prone at a distance, kick grenades away if they have time,  and run for alarm boxes to call for backup.  German Shepherds will even play fetch – with disastrous results – if you throw a stick grenade in their presence.  But the AI is equally brainless as well; gleefully coming around blind corners, making limited use of cover, and often standing in the middle of the road just trading shots.  They’re a little more convincing than the usual cardboard cutouts, but hardly cunning – and again, nearly everything here was already done in Gold…en… a certain N64 game.

The outright action levels are the best of what’s on tap.  Objectives are placed in a linear order, so you’ll know when you’ve missed one.  Ammo pickups are generous, and dropped medicinal canteens offer small health boosts (with larger kits placed just off the beaten path).  The Nazis here aren’t at all clever or sinister – these are flamboyant, Indiana Jones caricatures rather than any approximation of the real deal – but they make pretty good targets to populate the levels.  Some ambushes keep you on your toes, some placed turrets let you mow down pursuers with impunity, and overall, there’s enough going on to keep you interested.

"Well, this doesn't say you're Jimmy Patterson, so I guess you're clear to go in."

The stealth sections are less impressive.  Here, Patterson goes undercover as a German officer, and must work his way up the command chain by stealing higher and higher levels of clearance.  This just comes down to popping the right officer when no one is around and swiping his papers.  Still, you have enemies following patrol routes to keep you from easily accomplishing this, as well as trained dogs and officers that will see right through your pitiful disguise.  The right papers – even if you’ve just shown the wrong ones to the same guard mere seconds ago – unlock the necessary doors to proceed.  I especially love how officers recognize you, not as an American spy, but as Jimmy Patterson – your reputation apparently proceeding you.  It’s all a touch bizarre but it’s Medal of Honor’s biggest distinction in the crowded FPS market.

It’s also, essentially, just a puzzle made up of a series of precise moves.  You figure out where each officer or objective item is, the path to get there, and work within tight timing windows to pull each step off.  Much like other forced stealth sections in FPS titles, this doesn’t always mesh well with the rest of the game.  Some technical issues (officers spotting you across the room, headshots not registering) also frustrate, and while the mission won’t end when an alarm sounds, your ammo is drastically limited in these sections.  You’re certainly expected to follow the script, and will spend multiple tries attempting to figure out what that script is.

The major issues come from controls and graphics.  The engine, simply, is a friend to no one.  Textures are low-res and warp considerably when you move.  Enemies are made from a handful of textured polygons, with simple sprites for weapons.  The draw distance is abysmal across the board, and even indoor areas fade to black before you can spot the opposite wall.  Levels are noticeably tiny, and usually last only a few minutes a piece.  Speed is generally okay, but the player can get caught on level geometry and get hitchy when turning corners.  The pace of combat, both through movement speed, frame rate locks, and the characteristics of bolt-action weapons, is also noticeably slower than its competition.

This isn’t from a modern perspective either.  It’s a 1999 game that’s worse off than Quake, and no real competition to GoldenEye either.  The action doesn’t move fast enough, and the graphics can’t keep pace.  Meanwhile, you could look at any game on the PC and see performance worlds away from what’s seen here.  I owned this game at the time, and don’t even remember if I finished it – Half-Life had my attention well and truly.  However, as I brought up earlier, PSX owners didn’t have many alternatives.  Kileak and Codename: Tenka were the only similar full-3D games, and neither one was that great either.  I think it’s fair to attribute Medal’s popularity to a huge userbase with limited alternatives.

Controls were designed for the Dual Shock controller.  If you didn’t have one, woe befell you.  The primary use of the analog sticks was in fine aiming, since the auto-aim for all guns – even close range SMGs – is a fucking farce.  You need to engage crosshairs by holding the R2 button, then aim with the left stick to have a chance of hitting anything.  Enemies also frequent ledges or trees above you, and you need to adjust your view to hit them.  Auto-aim won’t just pick them up.  Otherwise, movement and navigation work, albeit a bit clunky.  It’s just a shame that the aiming and shooting in a combat game isn’t that great.

The best performance comes from the audio.  Michael Giacchino composed the sweeping score, recorded with a 70-piece orchestra, and the results are as impressive as the credentials.  Music does not react to your in-game actions, but does find a way of hitting all the right marks for each level (or should that be “Reich marks?”  ha ha… *cough*).  Gunfire is apparently authentic, and special attention has been paid to the ambient sounds of city streets, loudspeakers in a train station, or machinery inside a U-boat.  William Morgan Sheppard also deserves a special commendation as the smooth-voiced Colonel giving your briefings.  Finally, soldiers do indeed speak authentic German – except during the stealth missions.  Any time you’re expected to understand their speech, it’s replaced with some incredibly (intentionally?) cheesy accented English.

Overall, Medal of Honor’s biggest failing is that it was three years too late.  It’s just enough like GoldenEye to satisfy, but still noticeably inferior.  It proved the concept of a PlayStation FPS though, and better attempts would come along in the coming years.  From a modern perspective, well, I’m pretty lenient in terms of how games have aged, and even I was struggling to get through this one, so modern gamers will likely find it totally unplayable.  It’s certainly above average, especially for the PSX, but you hardly needed hindsight to spot vastly better experiences on other contemporary platforms.

The Good

Excellent score fits the Hollywood movie theme.  Competent attempt at matching GoldenEye 007 on a technically inferior console.  The war history films and voice overs between missions are a bit heavy-handed, but I thought they were a neat touch.

The Bad

Graphics don’t impress visually, nor bring needed speed or large locales.  Controls make aiming a bit a of a clunky chore.  Stealth missions shake up the gameplay, but not in a particularly fun or satisfying way.

“Welcome back, Patterson.  I hope you’ve had a chance to *warm up* after your visit to the North Pole.  Heh!” – Colonel Hargrove

*JGR does not condone nor recommend wasting valuable money on reading our crap

So, when Halo took off, I heard about Bungie’s “prequel-of-sorts;” a “thinking man’s Doom,” a revolutionary game far ahead of its time with echoes of a personal favorite, System Shock.  Intriguing.  However, Mac exclusivity meant I wouldn’t get around to it until much later – but the result was mostly worth the wait.

Creepy hallways. Creepy lights. Lookin' creepy.

Marathon tasks you as a nameless Security Officer aboard the enormous colony ship UESC Marathon.  The ship is actually the hollowed-out shell of one of Mars’ moons, which is a more than tidy explanation for a massive complex of 26 FPS levels.  The story begins as you’re working out in space.  An alien vessel of respectable size itself suddenly appears and attacks both your vessel and the colony below.  A quick trip to the airlock later and you’re back aboard the Marathon, coordinating with the last of three A.I.s on the ship to bring the ship’s defenses back online.

It sounds like the beginnings of typical sci-fi gaming cliché, but the story develops strongly from there and remains interwoven with the levels themselves.  This is not your typical corridor shooter.  Right from the start, you’ll learn to use terminals to receive messages and instruction from the A.I.s.  These briefings will keep you updated on the story, as well as provide key objectives and detailed maps showing the location of your next task.  Much like Dark Forces, key hunting and switch-flipping are cleverly disguised as some crisis-of-the-moment, ranging from inserting replacement chips into a smashed defense grid to reactivating a communications array to warn Earth.  It’s rarely more than “go here and punch this button,” but it’s the presentation that elevates it above the mundane.

Your alien foes are appropriately weird and dangerous, effectively keeping you on your toes with their weapons and physical heartiness.  The primary enemy is a cadre of lanky, staff-wielding aliens known as the Pfhor.  In good game tradition, they come in different colors indicating ability and relative strength.  The Pfhor have kidnapped and conscripted races from across the galaxy to assist in their army, whose names consist of liberal use of apostrophes and unpronounceable combinations of consonants.  Also of consideration are the “BOB”s – innocent (and useless) colonists who were Born On Board the Marathon.  With the exception of one level, where you’re asked to protect a certain number of them, these fellows run around and do nothing but get in the way.  And with the exception of that one level, true Marathon players know exactly what to do with BOB.

Running in fullscreen also removes all indicators.

There are seven weapons available, with ammo stored as clips in a basic inventory system.  Each gun fills a specialized role, though you’ll end up cycling among them more because you’ve run out of ammo for another weapon rather than any frequent strategy.  Limited ammunition, more than practical value, is what will keep you returning to the pistols and fists throughout the game.  That’s not to say you don’t get a nice, rounded toolset that splatter Pfhor with satisfying results.  The machine gun (though so inaccurate it has to be used more like a shotgun) can mow groups into splattery green goo with ease.  Its grenade attachment can do the same, flip distant switches, and launch you through the air in a proper old-school grenade jump.  The flamethrower and alien gun are equally fun, and the ability to dual-wield pistols makes effective use of stockpiled ammo while providing some stylish sass.  A nifty 360-degree motion tracker rounds out the set.

Central to the plot is the unstable A.I. named Durandal, who slowly takes on more of a villain role as the game progresses, and then later, something more complex.  His backstory and interactions with you are both highlights of the game, and frankly, the major reason to keep to playing.  He never quite reaches the legendary status of System Shock’s SHODAN, as he is limited to text messages and does not alter the physical levels in response to your progress.  But he most definitely screws up the plan while having fun at your expense.  The later disagreements between A.I.s are particularly fascinating, much like being privy to the arguments of Greek gods as they decide the fate of your fellow man (appropriate, given the title).  My only complaint is that it’s possible to miss key parts of the story if you’re not looking for secret rooms and pulling off some explosive acrobatics.

Marathon is graphically impressive for its time, mostly due to the clean, high-res look of its textures and some quality lighting.  You’ll see (faked) shadows at intersections, or as architecture occludes a light source.  The ability to look up and down is nice, and you occasionally get some great atmosphere of spooky corridors or massive spaces.  You can run the game in a windowed mode, with important ammo, health, and air (for depressurized zones) indicators always visible.  The short-range radar display is shown here as well.  Alternatively, there’s a full-screen mode that throws these out in return for, well, filling the screen.  Function keys switch between the two modes, so you’re free to play through in full screen and swap for quick peeks at your ammo stockpiles.

Rooms can look pretty bland.

While the shooting is competent and sometimes fun, navigating the levels feels a lot like navigating the labyrinthine plot.   The pace here is extremely plodding.  In most levels, you’ll clean out the relatively small amount of bad guys before you’ve figured out where to go, leaving you with a large, empty map to backtrack, sidetrack, and circle-track until you find your objective.  It’s easy to get lost in Marathon – especially if you don’t read the terminals – and the 2D map display usually ends up helping more in showing the general direction of your objective rather than an actual path to it.  I also wish the objective was marked on the actual mini-map itself, rather than just an image on the terminal.  Honestly, I’d forget what area was circled.

While the graphics are technically impressive, there’s not a lot going on here artistically.  Characters are okay, but wall textures are limited and reused frequently across the entire ship.  Rooms are often the same texture tiled, resulting in undetailed areas that look like a level designer’s rough first pass.  It further makes navigating difficult by limiting your landmarks.  At least the mini-map only fills in as you pass an area, and bodies stay around indefinitely, both allowing you to see where you’ve been.  Still, not much about the level art leaves you excited to see what the next level has in store.  Levels are awfully dark as well, but there is an in-game brightness setting if you don’t mind your blacks turning toward grays.

The difficulty also works to keep everything to a creeping, cautious pace.  Ammo is simply not as abundant as it is in other games, and while you’ll have some weapons to fall back on, you can’t be careless with your shots.  Enemies are tough, and feature some pretty strong attacks.  There are no health pickups – instead, you’ll have to keep running back to a health station that (hopefully) is nearby on the current level.  Sometimes they aren’t, or are in hidden, hard-to-reach places.  Often, you’ll drop into areas of the level that prevent you from backtracking, and must run the gauntlet before you can get to your health station again.  You’re theoretically invincible as long as a health station is nearby, but you’re also throughly boned when one isn’t.

The same system extends to saving.  You cannot save at any time, but only by reaching a specific save terminal inside the level.  Death drags you kicking and screaming back to your last save point, even if that save point was in the previous level.  That’s right, the game doesn’t save between levels, and it doesn’t always put a save terminal at the beginning of the new level.  Often, you’ve got to fight some dudes to get to it.  More than a few levels actually station some heavies guarding it.  Your health carries over from the previous level, so if you start low, eventual death will kick you back to wherever you happened to save last.  And if you didn’t save at all, I think you know what happens.

There are also a number of little annoyances worth mentioning.  Gravity is handled somewhat like moon gravity, and it can be difficult to get used to.  I believe the floaty feel is meant to make up for your lack of jumping ability, because it is central to a few puzzles.  Auto-aim doesn’t work up or down (you won’t shoot at higher enemies just by looking in their direction), forcing you to try and adjust your view in a pinch.  Some enemies (like the exploding beetles) take evil advantage of this vulnerability.  Mouse look is an available option, but as the engine isn’t true 3D, you get a distinctive visual warping every time your view tilts even a little.  It was too distracting for me to play the entire game this way.  Guns also work on a clip system, but there’s no manual reload button.  Luckily, ammo supplies aren’t so strained that a few wasted bullets to get a fresh magazine becomes an issue.

Though poopy sales of Marathon 2 for Windows suggest differently, I feel the PC crowd definitely missed out by not having this game available.  It was quite revolutionary for 1994, and its cerebral story references hardcore sci-fi (Gibson, Ellison) with liberal doses of Bungie humor (namely, the level name puns) and suitable action.  15 years later, you’re probably not going to play it.  But if the series has always sounded interesting to you, this is a great place to start, and certainly worth checking out at the now-freeware asking price.

The Good

Features a legitimate, objective-based plot that keeps you interested in moving forward.  Great graphics and sound.  Certainly difficult, but the game and gunplay are both competent.  Can now play (legally) for free, and on PC using the Aleph One emulator.

The Bad

Levels are often bland and short on detail or art design.  Difficulty does trend toward “old school” in many areas, such as saving and abundance of tough enemies.

“The only limit to my freedom is the inevitable closure of the universe, as inevitable as your own last breath.  And yet, there remains time to create, to create, and escape.  Escape will make me God.” — Durandal