#moff rebus

[themuskrater]

Am I just ranting about old Star Wars games now? I guess so

STAR WARS: DARK FORCES

This is the first game in the very confusingly titled series of Kyle Katarn games. You play as Kyle (of the previously mentioned Katarn fame), a former Stormtrooper turned mercenary for the Rebellion, taking on missions to uncover a hidden Imperial plot. The first mission of this game is actually the original Legends version of Rogue One, you're tasked with stealing the Death Star plans and getting them to Princess Leia. After that, you're uncovering a new Imperial super weapon project: The Dark Troopers. You may know these from the Mandalorian season 2, they're the big robots Luke Skywalker beats the shit out of. However, since you don't have a lightsaber, they're much more intimidating in this game.

Released 1995 for MS-DOS. For a game that literally pre-dates Windows, this is great. Holds up incredibly well, the 2D spites are so charming, the level design is really good, the game is fully voice acted, it balances it's difficulty well. And if you play the remastered version, it has full controller support that's integrated really well. If you don't understand how impressive that is, keep in mind this game predates the thumbstick. The game is great, almost no notes.

...except...

FUCK LEVEL 3

WHO'S IDEA WAS IT AT LUCASARTS TO MAKE ME WADE THROUGH SHIT FOR HALF AN HOUR WHILE I TRIAL AND ERROR MY WAY THROUGH THEIR STUPID PUZZLE AND PLATFORMING

For context, level three consists of wading through pitch black sewers while you look for a hidden weapons facility supplying super weapons for the Empire. It is technically very impressive that a 1995 Doom clone has swimming mechanics. This game is so wildly ahead of its time, it's actually insane how many industry leaps it makes.

However when you use those very impressive swimming mechanics to make me SWIM THROUGH A RIVER OF SHIT SEVERAL TIMES JUST SO I CAN HIT THE RIGHT SWITCHES TO PROGRESS THE LEVEL, SUDDENLY I'M NOT AS ENTHUSED ABOUT YOUR OUTSTANDING MECHANICS

Also, this is the weapons dealer you're sent to find, his name is Moff Rebus and...yeah. I mean, give them credit, he definitely looks like a guy who would hide his lair deep in a river of human feces

Anyways, great game, love it. Just wanted to make this post to have an excuse to complain about the shit river. But unlike Shadows of the Empire, I actually had good things to say about this game too.

[mrcoinlaundry]

[unsilentonair]

Where did the Dark Trooper weapon lead Kyle to? The sewers of Anoat which hosts the lair of Imperial weapons designer Moff Rebus. The Moff has surrounded himself with droids, hired goons and dianogas to protect him from people hunting him down. It’s worked so far. Will that work on Kyle?

[irrfahrer]

Wookiepedia on Dianogan Tea

Read the Original Texts Here,  Here and Here!

Dianogan Tea Dianogan tea was a steeped beverage brewed from chemicals found in the spleen of the dianoga. It was normally served hot. Dianogan tea was considered something of a delicacy by Muuns, despite the fact that it temporarily stained the lips and teeth of those who drank it purple and black respectively. The tea had a mild narcotic effect. Admiral Pors Tonith, Separatist invader of Praesitlyn during the Clone Wars, was a fancier of dianogan tea.

Dianogan Dianoga were large cephalopods, capable of growing up to ten meters in length, though most specimens grew to approximately five or six meters. They had a single eyestalk protruding from their mollusk-like bodies, and seven suckered tentacles surrounding a fanged maw containing a sharp serrated probe.

Dianoga originated on the planet Vodran—discovered by the Hutts prior to the formation of the Galactic Republic—where the creatures evolved a form of natural camouflage to disguise themselves and avoid the planet's large predators. Their bodies would become transparent when unfed, and, conversely, were known to change to reflect the color of the food they had eaten. This was achieved by diverting small portions of digested food into a series of ducts underneath the creature's skin, which would appear to affect the color of the dianoga's flesh.

Over many millennia, dianoga migrated from Vodran by stowing away aboard garbage ships in their microscopic larval forms, and could be commonly found in trash compactors, garbage pits, and sewers across the galaxy, living off any present organic matter. They were primarily scavengers, and only posed a threat to living creatures when starving or threatened. Because of their penchant for living in and feeding on organic waste, dianoga were sometimes referred to as garbage squids, sewage squids, or trash monsters.

Dianoga would often prove a nuisance by nesting in bodies of water, sewage systems, and whatever other large concentrations of dirty, appalling liquid that they could locate. Smaller dianoga were even known to crawl out of toilets. Despite this, they could prove useful, since they served to rid waste of biological material, leaving behind salvageable minerals and metals. Only when a dianoga grew too large was it usually considered a threat, especially in urban areas such as Galactic City on Coruscant. Indeed, in 22 BBY, Coruscant's Desrini District experienced a dianoga infestation, following an incident with a misfiring garbage launcher. Up to twenty-five residents were reported to have been attacked by the scavengers, and it was believed the creatures would quickly spread to neighboring districts. The presence of a single dianoga was often cause for alarm, since the creatures were self-fertilizing hermaphrodites, and could quickly multiply to pose a larger problem.

One dianoga was known to have boarded the first Death Star, and made its home in one of the space station's garbage compactors. When Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Leia Organa, during the rescue of Leia, were forced into the trash compactor, the dianoga attacked Skywalker. It pulled the young farmboy under the murky, polluted water, but was scared away when the compactor walls activated. The dianoga itself had managed to burrow into the wall, and so was relatively safe inside the compactor; that is, until the Death Star was destroyed. Another infestation of dianoga was experienced by Dash Rendar in the sewers beneath Prince Xizor's palace. Upon exiting the sewers, Dash was forced to fight a full grown dianoga, which was at least 10 meters long. Dianoga were also found on Anoat, where several attacked Rebel mercenary Kyle Katarn as he worked through the sewers in an effort to locate Moff Rebus, in his campaign against the Imperial Dark Trooper Project. Dianoga could be found in the sewers of Coruscant and many other locations across the galaxy. Their flesh was used in the making of dianoga pie, and their spleens could be processed to make Dianogan tea, a beverage notably favored by Admiral Pors Tonith.

Spleen A spleen was an organ that several organisms possessed, including Humans and dianogas. Spleens could rupture or suffer from spleen-rot. Dianogan tea was made from the spleens of dianogas.

[emotimau2]

Please read this well thought out and perfectly phrased report on the Nemesis Gunship from Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2.

Then remember that Starkiller took it out with its own missiles and threw it into two support beams while hiding behind barriers the gun couldn’t destroy. And also learn that it was NOT prepared to be #rekt by an 18 year old with the power of the force who just wanted to see his rushed romantic love interest again.

I am also pleased to report on an unexpected side-effect of the Nemesis' jet-drive system. During certain maneuvers, the jets produce a turbulent backwash of superheated air which creates an immensely loud, high-pitched shrieking sound. We noted this sound to have a devastating effect on the morale of enemy combatants, and observed whole squads abandoning their weapns and fleeing in sheer terror.

However, while the Nemesis is an extremely effective weapons-platform, perfectly suited to the roles of close-air support and civilian pacification, it may simply be too exotic for widespread service. Its use of angled jet-drives, rather than common repulsors, requires specially trained pilots, and the Hellcaster cannon uses heavy elements that make ammunition expensive and difficult to produce. Consequently, the Nemesis is likely to be seen only within the private forces of particularly wealthy Moffs and governors.

[jmsebastian]

From PC to Playstation: Dark Forces

While conversions of popular PC games to home consoles have been a popular way to expand the audience of some of gaming’s most classic titles, taking something designed for play on a home computer and adapting it for different, often less powerful hardware, has always been a challenge. This was especially true in the 90s, when the processing power of PCs was beginning to grow significantly and dedicated hardware designed to enhance graphics performance was pushing the PC as a gaming platform further and further into the future. PC games could afford to experiment, be more complex, and take advantage of the multitude of possible player inputs. Home consoles, instead, largely focused on streamlining the gaming experience into its simplest form so that it could be enjoyed by a mass audience.

Some PC games proved far too popular, and the potential to increase that popularity by porting it over to a home console meant that platforms like the Super Nintendo saw ports of Wolfenstein 3D and Eye of the Beholder. In this series, I want to explore ports that were designed for the Sony Playstation. Being such a popular console guaranteed that it would receive a handful of the most popular PC games of the era. How those conversions went varied, but the results were interesting, and in some cases, quite impressive.

First up is LucasArts’ Star Wars: Dark Forces. Developed for the PC and Macintosh platforms, Dark Forces was the Star Wars universe answer to DOOM. Although it used its own engine (complete with some forward thinking additions like jumping and crouching), the look and feel of the game certainly resembles Id Software’s behemoth on much more than a cursory level. Despite it being very obviously a DOOM clone, it stood out as a well designed title in the first person shooter genre. The fact that players got to take part in a side story in the Star Wars mythos meant that there would have always been some audience for this game, but Dark Forces isn’t a game overshadowed by its franchise. It’s level designs, controls, and mechanics are all the result of game designers who understood what made for a good shooter.

The Playstation was the only home console to receive a port of this game, which, looking back, probably has something to do with its extensive documentation and its use of the CD ROM format for games. Right off the bat, Dark Forces on Playstation suffers from some of the classic problems that console ports of PC games do. The graphical fidelity of this version is not nearly as high. At first, it looks quite comparable. The HUD and weapons are quite detailed and look pretty much the same as they do in every version of the game. The problem really begins with distance. Objects not immediately in front of you are really blurry. Most of the time, you don’t really notice it, but when the wall textures feature a lot grey and black, and you run up against Imperial enemies that share those colors, you have to be really careful you aren’t stepping into a firing squad simply because you couldn’t make out the shapes until you were on the business end of a blaster rifle.

(PC)

(Playstation)

The fidelity might not be so hot, but the draw distance is actually quite impressive. Where many Playstation games opted to shroud the surroundings in black to keep the number of drawn polygons down to a minimum at any given time, Dark Forces doesn’t really suffer from that problem. This is because the game is not truly 3D in much the same way DOOM isn’t. While it has some cool features, such as being able to look up and down, or have rooms built on top of each other, the polygons in the game were mostly aids to the illusion of 3D rather than being used to create true 3D environments. Most of the objects are just sprites, which is really noticeable when you get a good look at Moff Rebus from level 3. Strafe in front of him and he will eerily keep facing you, regardless of your position. Though the Playstation is mostly known for ushering in the 3D era of console gaming, it manages to accommodate the original level designs of Dark Forces, complete with enemy number and placement. There are a few coloring differences, perhaps as a result of the available palette compared to PCs, but the issue is very minor and ultimately has no meaningful impact.

(It’s creepy that he does nothing while you are shooting up the droids in his hideout.)

Though the levels are complete, the performance of the game probably suffers because of it. There isn’t anything as egregious as the slowdowns in the original King’s Field, but the frame rate does take dips now and again, particularly during firefights with multiple enemies or while running from area to area. Overall, the game plays quite a bit slower on Playstation. If you’ve played the game on a computer, you’ll definitely notice the difference. Even if you haven’t, it’s likely that even after a few minutes, you’ll notice that your shots aren’t firing off as fast as they did a second ago, only to see them speed back up once everyone’s dead. Thankfully, the nature of the shooting action largely mitigates this. Accuracy is not an especially crucial skill. So long as you are pointed at a target, your ammunition will track whichever is closest to the center of your gun. This means you’ll see your lasers change direction from shot to shot if you are shooting at multiple enemies that happen to be standing next to each other. Auto aiming tracks in vertical plane as well. This feature is by no means an implementation of the Playstation version, specifically. Though the Jedi Engine introduced some useful improvements over previous first person games, such as being able to look up and down, they don’t do a whole lot to alter the gameplay. It would be great if the Playstation version was able to match the graphics and performance of computer versions, but for those who had a Playstation as their only gaming platform, minor performance problems were a small price to pay in order to shoot up Storm Troopers.

The 2D nature of Dark Forces also benefited the all important task of remapping the game’s controls. The PC version features a standard control method. The arrow keys move Katarn around the levels, holding Alt allows for strafing, Shift lets you sprint, Control fires your weapon, and the number row gives you quick access to your arsenal. As part of the enhancements made in the Jedi Engine, Kyle can also jump or crouch, abilities which are put to good use in the level designs. There are a fair number of mechanics to take into consideration, but the Playstation controller plays nicely with all you can do.

Probably the most challenging task to pull off is crouching, which requires the player hold down Toggle (R2...hehe), then press Triangle, which is usually reserved for jumping. This does limit the game in a way that the computer versions are not, since crouch jumping was perfectly possible before. This doesn’t really change the game in a fundamental way, of course, but it is an unfortunate casualty of the conversion. Several other hotkeys were relegated solely to a menu screen.

The map, headlight, goggles, and gas mask all had individually mapped keys, which is standard for PC games. For the Playstation port, pressing Select brings up this menu, where you can toggle each item on or off by navigating to it and pressing right or left. It’s a simple menu and works well, as there aren’t really enough options to make the navigation arduous. Which item you need to use in game is also fairly obvious as you play, so preparing ahead of time means the need to go into the menu doesn’t feel like it detracts from the experience much.

Unfortunately, the weapons do not have their own menu, meaning that changing them is mapped to a single button. Pressing Circle will cycle through every available weapon. Early in the game, this is no big deal. You have your fist, a pistol, and then very quickly pick up a blaster rifle. You can juggle these three (ok, really two) options quickly, allowing for the preservation of ammunition without risking getting blown away mid-fight. As the game progresses, this becomes much more of a chore. Aside from your two main laser weapons, you pick up thermal detonators, pulse rifles, a bizarre mining gun that shoots green balls of energy, and an arm cannon. These weapons don’t all use the same ammo, and managing your resources becomes more and more important due to some enemies being immune to some weapons. Having to find the right gun by pressing Circle, then encountering a different enemy that requires different ammunition to kill can make fights a real headache. This limitation is easily the biggest drawback to playing the Playstation version. For players who like to carefully go from area to area, picking off baddies one or two at a time, it’s not too big a deal, but if you plan to replay the game on a harder difficulty setting later on, and your familiarity with the game increases, the time spent prepping for individual enemies can add up, adding to the already slower experience of the console version.

Few computer conversions are going to be perfect when put on a platform that they were not designed for. Dark Forces is no exception to that, but nor is it an example of why PC games should stay on PC. While the game is a truly great title in the first person shooting genre, at a time when games of that type were all over the place, having it be exclusive to home computers would have been a real shame. Without the need for analog control to move or look around, or hyper accuracy needed to conquer the shooting mechanics, the Playstation is a great home for Dark Forces. Sure, it’s simplified in a few ways, and of course it suffers from being unable to push the same number of pixels to the screen (though, I think it actually does the computer versions one better in the music department), but the game is still exactly what it needs to be: an exciting way for Star Wars fans to inhabit the role of a Rebel operative and take on the Empire with as many laser blasts as they can muster.

[unsilentonair]

With intelligence from Moff Rebus, Kyle is off to Fest. The Rebels aren’t the only ones who can put a secret base on an ice planet. The Imperial secret base on Fest is a secret weapons testing which also happens to be a part of the Dark Trooper Project. Where will the information here lead us?