07-Oct-2006 21:02
This thread may include a lot of nitpicking, but honestly I think it's possible to "update" JK/MotS and yet still retain the spirit and feel of the original game, even while enhancing it. The last thing I want to do is drive anyone away from this project, so please bear with me and take this as contrustive!
JK is a unique and awesome game in its own right. It's not Dark Forces, and it's not Jedi Outcast. So while it can take pointers from those games, it should not seek to simply copy them.
Okay I really love how .07 is compatible with vanilla JK (and Mots, once you rename it to a goo!), but I noticed a few things:
The team skins are a bit goofed.
In JK/MotS the Jedi team Skin (Katarn in a colored/black uniform) is not quite up to snuff in JKE.
For starters, up close you can see big pink dots along the colored marking of the uniform team indicators. This looks ugly.
Second, despite what some people might think, each team color (and the same holds true for the purple and orange variants which are not team skins really) for Katarn are all unique.
I notice in JKE now they all just have the same generic "V" symbol. In the original game they appeared to be numbers or characters, which were all different, and made the skins a bit easier to tell apart (at least from the back). So they've been overgenericized.
As to the new models... they look great! However, did the Stormtrooper "Commander" (based on the Sandtroopers from Star Wars Episode IV) really have that huge of a paudlon and backpack? The things are GIGANTIC!
Somebody ought to check the scale against the film (especially the SE has some good added views of the backpack and shoulder patch).
Also, is it just me or is "Dark Kyle" just regular Kyle with his shirt and stuff colored black/dark gray in places? Because in reality, Dark Kyle (and also "Old Kyle" in MotS, the character you play as in SP, a hidden skin in MP) has a different outfit entirely. It almost looks like padded armor or a uniform, not his "bantha herder" clothes covered in suit and ash.
Again, not to criticize what obviously was hard work, but I think some shortcuts were taken this time which makes JKE more inaccurate to the spirit of JK.
Macrobinoculars as IR Goggles? No. I realize the Macros look cool, but that's not what this is!
The "medical cross" symbol on the Revive backpacks needs to be bigger, and give it a metallic face around the "back" of the backpack (the part that sticks out if you were "wearing" it). Right now it looks too generic, like a regular backpack with an icon of a medical symbol just stamped on.
Also, is it just me or are the Personal Shield Generators from Jedi Outcast suddenly very tiny, compared to the large shield belts from the original JK? (The shield pickups)
The new explosions are neat, but I'm sorry to say, amost more cartoonish than the old ones! (they're just sharp now instead of blurry). This is especially true of the water splashes. Can they be made semi-transparent or blurred or something so they don't look quite so cardboard cut-outish? Just a suggestion, again no offense for the hard work that went into those.
The force boosts actually look a lot better than I thought from the screenshots. The surges too I thought looked silly having those transperent domes around them (why? to look more like Quake3?), but in game they don't look so bad. I can probably live with that change.
The Super Shield is very disappointing. The thing GLOWED IN THE DARK and was very bright and colorful. It looked like it was made of gold in the original. Now it just looks like a shield vest that somebody started to paint orange but didn't get finished. It looks really bland now, please fix it! That was a hated and feared powerup and you felt awesome finding and grabbing it. This somewhat diminishes that feeling now, sorry to say.
One thing to bear in mind.. the "armor" in JK is really a type of device that projects the energy shields that protect you from damage. They're not just straight physical "armor" like a flak jacket or kevlar suit. So something to help denote this "futuristic electronic" armor would help. The original Armor Vest pickup had a little light blue indicator light on it for example. These look more like the physical armor Kyle had on under his trench coat in the original Dark Forces (Presumably a type of armor vest in use back then, not turned on).
About fists... why, in first person view, does Kyle have bare arms? That shouldn't be. This isn't Doom! He never had bare arms in any of the games (unless you count the "Trainer Kyle" that you can only play as in Multiplayer). He never wore those black gloves either (except in Dark Forces, and even then they had metal plates on the backs of the hands). In JK he had brown sleeves, and NO GLOVES. As is, it looks like you turn into some boxer when you have fists out in first person!
Glad for the compatability in this version, I can run it on my server now. I also love the new models! (even if they only work with people running JKE).
I'm sure you're aware of the fact that R2D2 has no walking sounds (just give him the droid movement sounds he had in SP), and sinks into the floor when he dies. He's actually a small model and some might consider him a "cheat" (he has an advantage in being harder to hit, since you have to aim down, plus he's shorter, like somebody crouching). However since only people with JKE can use him online, that's probably for the best.
Very funny model!
Also with his punching, he has only one robot arm, so the left punches are invisible. R2's head also vanishes as he falls a long distance (and re-appears when he lands).
The ST Rifle spoke has parts of its model disappear or become transparent when you fire (especially noticable when firing continuously with the Power Boost).
The bacta tanks: in game they have a little metal fastener/handle thing on the side. The new ones lack this feature, so they appear to be just glasses of water (?). I realize that this is the "look" they had in Jedi Outcast, but again, that was a different game. Please give the container more of the look they had in JK. The blue liquid (it was clear in the original game) I can live with, but the container is too generic now. It looks like you unscrew the cap and drink it down (blue milk energy drink?) rather than some medical device that fits into a droid and injects you with the bacta (as it does with the medical droid). I realize we don't see how all of these devices look, but with all the changes made just because the Rail Detonator (which I still don't like the new design for) "didn't seem logical" and these other things get left aside... just seems a little inconsistent.
Thermal Detonators. The TD belt pickups look great!
Only problem is, they always give you 3 TD's, yet the belt pickup clearly shows SIX TD's on the model. Not very accurate. The original one only showed 3, since that's what you got from the pickup.
The Sequencer charge (mine) multi-pickup looks great. However, and this is similar to the bacta issue, one detail was missing. The original had a little metal clamp that held them together. Right now it looks like they are just balancing on top of each other (a dangerous way to store explosives!) like a stack of pancakes. This should be simple to fix.
All in all a very good update. Keep up the great work! And please read my suggestions. I'm, as you know, a huge JK/MotS fan, and I notice these little details that can sometimes make all the difference in making or breaking the experience!
. didnt test it in sp yet. Love 8t88 and OneEye models. 
