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Want to be a Jedi? Play Force Mod

I’ve always been a huge fan of Star Wars and by default, Star Wars games. Although they haven’t always been the most enjoyable, there was always just a certain something about playing a new Star Wars game that excited me. I even played through the horrendously bad Yoda Stories on my Game Boy Color back in the day.

Yesterday we recorded a new Thumbscast which will be posted online shortly. Without getting into the details of what we discussed too much, one of the topics touched upon was the LucasArts layoffs and what that meant for Star Wars video games.

Right now, there’s isn’t much on the horizon for the franchise in terms of its exploitation via the medium of video games. Yes, there is The Force Unleashed. And yes, it has fanboys the world over crossing their legs and crapping their pants in anticipation. Recently revealed screenshots of even the under-powered Wii version look great. Everyone seems to be excited about the prospect of using the Wii Remote to dole out Force punishment and participate in lightsabre battles.

Hrm. Sounds familiar to me. Yes, I think it’s coming back to me now. Wasn’t there already a game just like this, whose multiplayer mode was indeed a balls-out Jedi vs Jedi vs Sith vs Sith assault? Yeah, there was. It was called Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, which was available on Windows, Mac, and Xbox. There was a trivial single-player mission where you learn about Jedi-like stuff but really I couldn’t care less for that. It was all about multiplayer mode.

I have one of those SmartJoy boxes for my computer. Basically you plug it into a USB port and it then allows you to plug PlayStation controllers into it. So I, being used to console gaming, used that to play this game. Many of my friends met online, each night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. to engage in hectic Jedi duels. We picked our species, our lightsabre preferences (single, double-bladed, or two lightsabres (!!)), picked our Force powers, and picked our side (Light or Dark). Then it was off to one of many arenas to battle it out. And yeah, fighting with a PlayStation controller isn’t as fun as swinging a Wii Remote would be but it worked – and it worked well.

I gotta wonder why the game wasn’t too well-received. Everyone’s going bananas for The Force Unleashed and that’s not even out yet. But this game that’s been out for years is relegated to bargain bins, if that, and no one says anything about it. Because my friends and I played the PC version, we were of course privy to the vast assortment of game mods available for it. The modding community really took to it, and at first we started our experimenting with mods by downloading new characters. Fans had contructed models of Yoda, Darth Vader, Boba Fett – you name it. We then branched out to downloading new arenas, which then led to the motherlode of all Jedi Academy mods: Force Mod.

By the time we got into Force Mod, my duties at my day job started demanding more of my time, and I was therefore unable to get into it as much as I would have liked. On top of that, Force Mod demanded a lot of attention to set up (or so I thought, at the time). This wasn’t just a Mod. This was a whole new game. The creators of Force Mod took the excellence that was Jedi Academy and turned up to – nay, past – eleven. With the introduction of new stages, new character classes, and a bevy of additional features not found in the game previously and definitely not found in any LucasArts game since.

In terms of gameplay, Force Mod was an amazing accomplishment. I still love Star Wars Battlefront, but the combat in Force Mod was just so much more “Star Wars” than anything I’ve played since then. They didn’t just slap Star Wars branding elements into an existing game, they friggin’ made the game to be Star Wars.

I’m still looking forward to the Wii version of The Force Unleashed primarily for the lightsabre duels, but I think in the back of my mind I’ll always compare it to the countless hysterical hours I’ve spent playing both Jedi Academy and Force Mod and I know, even now, that The Force Unleashed will likely not top either of those games when I look back on it years from now. It’s just hard to top seeing Lando Calrissian do a jumping backflip to slice Yoda in half.

LINK: Force Mod

Posted in Editorial, PC |