There was a time when the term "Expanded Universe" didn't strike fear into the hearts of mortal men; indeed, it was probably a time when nobody had even thought to coin the term, because there wasn't such a gargantuan pool of thinly-veiled fanfics that it became necessary.

Or maybe there were millions of horrible fanfics; I was hardly paying attention in 1997.

On Monday this week, Jack visited and was kind enough to bring his copy of Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. If that's the order the titles go in; it gets confusing.

Like all old games, installing them is a little bit hairy. True to form, I have a completely empty 4Gb hard drive; but more troubling is the 4033Mhz processor I am apparently in posession of. Follow my logic here -- it's an old game, so it should only know about one core, which on here weighs in at 2.4Ghz. I suppose it did tell me to not move the mouse so I didn't distort the readings, though, so all that not doing anything might have convinced it that I was more powerful than I really was.

The game installed without incident, in about twenty seconds.

Compatibility issues ensued. Lucky the internets had already encountered these problems, and with only massive lag caused by transparent surfaces, it was decided that the game was running adequately. About half-way through the game (after struggling through an entire level with transparent water all over it), I found out that I needed to tick a strange option and suddenly all the lag disappeared. Ho hum.

The thing that makes Jedi Knight Episode VII is its cut-scenes. In the sense that they've got actual actors in them.

Which is quite a boon, considering the character models in game can't be much shy of my target 300 triangles (Milkshape has a Jedi Knight model importer, so I'm fuckin' there as soon as I get into those GOB archives). And it really aggressively cuts their detail down, when they're hardly a meter of in-game distance away from you -- you can watch as Storm Trooper helmets turn from pentagonal prisms to rectangular prisms to trianglular prisms to two crossed planes...

Despite all that, it is true to Star Wars form -- huge vistas await, with giant drops into blackness. From having to escape a crashing ship in under four minutes to throwing yourself around the top of a very tall building (while being strafed by a TIE Bomber)... It might not have the raw polycount or texture resolution (seriously, it's pretty much pixel art -- it's absolutely wonderful), but it really doesn't give a shit.

And you can run around all of this at massive speeds. The young Kyle Katarn (voiced and acted by a different person than in JK2, grumble grumble) is a champion sprinter and jumper, and that's without force enhancement. Not to mention Force Jump is totally imbalanced -- you can jump with such power that you lose a lot of health off low ceilings if you do it wrong, and if you miss a high ledge you'll hear the sickening sound of your legs breaking when you hit the ground.

Sadly, it suffers from the same slightly frustrating puzzles as its sequel. You can indeed run around a room for ages until you spot that switch cunningly disguised as a generic blinking console. The force powers, however, don't come into the puzzle solving like in JK2 -- since you can choose (or not choose) to unlock powers as you earn stars from each mission. The force powers only make life easier for you, they're not essential in any way. I'm not sure if I like this or don't like it. There is a larger selection of powers, but I only used heal, jump, speed and protection (though I get the feeling that if I went to the Dark Side, I'd use Destruction).

Yes, it has two possible endings! You can kill civilians or save them from bad guys. Even though I shot everything that moved (especially in the refueling base level, where those little runty guys have tools that look a lot like guns when they're culled into little more than sprites -- Katarn really needed some glasses), I managed to save enough people to not turn nasty. Really, when you can run as fast as you do, there's no time to ask questions.

And let's face it, the graphics are probably superior to the disastrous fanfic they call Episode I. Yeah, guys, let's make a giant and slightly lumpy green area for our battlefield -- when games from 1997 with a polycount budget that would make even me cry can out-do you, you know that shit is not cash.

I've only just started the expansion pack, which Jack has never witnessed due to compatibility issues (fancy that, Vista running something XP can't). So I'm treading new ground here, ain't that exciting?

Not that exciting, because (so far) Katarn has the wrong voice, the Storm Troopers have the wrong voice, and the cut-scenes are... Pre-rendered... In-game...

Yep. Now, by all means, change your style drastically between sequels. But between a game and its expansion pack? That's poor form. In-game cut-scenes are fine, but when you're used to real people in sumptuous 3D worlds, it kind of jars a bit when you're back to 64x64 un-smoothed textures. And they're not even in-game, they're pre-rendered, so you'd have thought some kind of enhancements could have been wrought (say, swapping the head textures to make the lips move a bit). It's all very well when you're the Unreal Engine 3 and you want to pre-render so you can squeeze even longer draw distances and fancier particle effects, but I somehow don't think bloom and normal mapping were a consideration back then.

So, a fine game and a solid fanfic.

Though the ending was a bit dud; Jerec jumped off the central tower after I knocked him out of regenerating, and this time it was him that hit the ground with that sickening crunch. I was all "wtf lol?" when he didn't stand up and start chopping me to bits.

Regardless, it gave me a horrible fuzzy feeling that I can only associate with wanting to play Quake II again. Eep.