337. STAR WARS: DARK FORCES 3: JEDI KNIGHT 2: JEDI OUTCAST
Jedi Knight II was the first FPS I ever played. And you spend the first third of the game waiting to get a laser sword and stop being a first person shooter. It’s by Raven, Raven makes good stuff. Now they just make Call of Duty maps instead of goofy puzzle adventure games with FPS elements that are still mostly thought of as FPS games for some reason.
Anyway the important part of JK2 here is the multiplayer. There were probably mods for it, I didn’t use any. This was back when games had servers people hosted, and not this shitty matchmaking stuff. You would be THE WORST PERSON on the server, every time. It was good for people. It built character.
But the most popular servers didn’t give a fuck about competing. They all worked the same way: No guns, just laser swords, maximum force powers. So everyone could jump like some kind of fucked up laser sword mario shooting lighting and choking the shit out of each other. It was also a deathmatch. The most important part is that you’d make the ‘points to win’ value like, a hundred. It took hours for people to win, nobody gave a fuck. Nobody was going to win the whole thing, the only thing that mattered was that you laser sworded the dude who laser sworded you. He was probably way better than you and you’d never ever beat him, but you’d kill some shittier player sometime, you’d feel like a god, and keep playing. But it wasn’t about the winning the match, just existing in chaos…mostly.
Chaos like seeing Mon Mothma shoot lighting at a lizard man only to be fucking backstabbed by a ‘Dark Trooper’ who had super speed and could turn invisible because he used the bright side of the force. You could be a ‘swamp trooper’, and still have a laser sword. Your laser sword could be purple or yellow or orange.
Jedi Knight II also had a lot of maps. Unless you were some of the squares playing captured the flag, you didn’t see any of those maps. The only map you saw was Bespin. Bespin was the best map. First of all, it was from Empire Strikes Back, one of the only two star wars movies that are cool. So that rocked. Second, the map was divided into three big areas to fight in. Since this wasn’t a real deathmatch, just a laser sword clusterfuck, you’d pretty much pick one of the areas to hang in. You had a bit of it that was a lot of walkways you’d mario jump around. You had a bit of it that was just a wide open space which is where you went if you just wanting to fucking laser sword chop some people up.
The last place was the best place. It was the place for gentleman. It was a place of honor and courage. In Empire Strikes Back (one of the two cool Star Wars movies) there’s this place that Boba Fett (one of the least cool parts of one of the two cool star wars movies) launched his ship, the “Wage Theft One” from the platform with harrison ford’s cryonically frozen ass on board. In case you’ve never seen it, it’s a big ass circle. In the game, there’s also a doorway, but that doesn’t work it’s just fake because it’s a video game. The doorway has a awning that you can stand on though.
One more thing about JK2 is that during a multiplayer match, you can point your mouse at a person, press a button, and start a ‘Duel’. Dueling means it’s just you two, no one else can get in you way, and you can’t hurt anyone else either. The duel ends when someone is dead. This is how you know prove you’ve got the REAL laser sword skills.
(the author did not have real laser sword skills).
So the first thing that would happen would be someone would get on the space ship landing platform vacated by Boba Fett in the movies. And then someone else would follow them. Then you had a duel. The duel didn’t start just because the game said it did, it only started when you bowed. If you laser sworded the other person while they bowed, you were a dick, and it didn’t count as winning. If you were a dick, like I was because I was twelve, you’d laser sword as soon as the bow was over. Everyone else would hang out on the awning with their laser swords off, and if you killed someone with an off-power laser sword you were a dick and nobody liked you.
While playing JK2 I met a dude who was in clan [YODA]. You put your clan tag after your name, you see. There was no system, you could lie. But people didn’t lie, Jedi Knight II was an honorable game. Anyway I dunno how we got talking. This game just had public chats so everyone saw whatever. We talked about liking redwall. Redwall is like if game of thrones replaced gratuitous normie sex scene with the part of feeder pornography where someone eats a lot of food but never actually get to the part where anyone has sex. (google it, lots of people like reading about captain america feeding thor a cake or something) And also instead of being humans everyone was like, a mouse or a squirrel.
Redwall is better than game of thrones. He had a clan he wanted to start called [LongP] which is a reference to something in redwall which I won’t explain. But I put it in my name and we hung out. It was pretty chill. I never knew his real name, and I can’t remember what his online name was, just the bit about [LongP].
After a while, I never saw him again. This story is supposed to be about how I made a friend in the first online game I played I had forever, but I didn’t. Because people sometimes just evaporate. It’s not an ending anyone likes a story to have because it’s you’re supposed to hate each other or be BFFs forever but that’s not really how it ever is.
What I’m getting at is, Jedi Knight II was about dicking around with a bunch of strangers looking like dumbasses and knowing you suck. It made you realize that you sucked, but it was OK, because Mon Mothma laser sworded the lizard man too, so you had solidarity with the lizard man. The few times you’d win, you felt like a god, but you wouldn’t win nearly enough to pretend you really counted as a good player. You’d turn your laser sword off, and watch two other dumbasses flail at each other with laser swords over a bottomless pit. You’d meet people you have no way of ever meeting again, and none of it would matter. And nobody cared if it mattered. There aren’t charts of high scores or rankings, you couldn’t even really win a match at all. It was just existing. It was a game without purpose except the moment.
I was going to tell you this wasn’t a thing you could experience for yourself. But it turns out that’s a lie. In Jedi Academy (Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy) you can still find some people on there. They’re still dueling, and watching people duel, and you’re still a dick if you attack someone with their laser sword turned off. Sure there’s only like, three people there, but they keep the old ways alive. Nobody ever wins, it’s just existing in the moment. Forever.
