[Warning - Force Long Post in effect]
Hi all:

I finished Elite Force II this past weekend, and given it is the other major franchise license, Q3-based FPS out this year, had some thoughts on the good, bad and ugly of that game and how it might relate to Jedi Academy.

General:
> The game took me just over 11 hours, and that includes finding almost every secret area and secret item, for which I was rewarded (later...). This is at least 3 hours longer than EF took me.
> My review on a line - ~80%. Decent game, excellent use of Star Trek assets. Some of the worst AI and enemies I've played recently. More engaging than Unreal II to me based on Star Trek feel. (in other words, I cared about the EF characters and the game didn't manage to beat that out of me ... I never cared about the Unreal II characters, and ended up not caring about the game)
> The graphics were top-notch. Nice models, environments and textures, cutscenes were also good. Still had the 'typing in space' and 'dying into doors/platforms' problems like other Q3 games. I think the space of 2 CD's allows higher quality cutscenes … let’s hope we see them for JA.
> People here have been extolling the death of JO MP since April of 2002. EFII MP was DOA. I've played bits of MP here and there, and wanted to join in some after I finished the SP game, and counted the number of players on all servers (note - this was ~10PM EST on a Friday) and it was ~35. I didn't have to scroll to see all of the servers. I just checked again ... 17 people on 5 servers. Dead, dead, dead.

Things that were good in Elite Force I would love to see in Jedi Academy:
+ Improved graphics in cutscenes.
+ Secrets and rewards. JK had an excellent secret & reward system (force points), and I thought Deus Ex's was even better (points towards upgrades, and sometimes finding augmentations). Most games now make secret areas with extra powerups and reward you by telling you how many secrets you found (JO, SOFII, MoH), or give you some collectables (thanks for the gold bars, RtCW ... just as useful as the goblets in Wolf 3D :) ). Elite FOrce did something really cool - you collect 'StarShips', and your total gets you access to 'Secret Maps'. These are not connected to the main game, but they are a true reward that makes you want to find the secrets, some of which were cool, others of which were hard to find.
+ Friendly NPC's: good use of known characters, but they were only slightly more helpful than in EF1 (at least I never got shot at in EFII!). Bottom line - they didn't go around getting killed, but the enemies were stupid and the game didn't seem inclined to kill anyone without an 'NPC Bar' (see below).
+ Klingon - Korban was one of my favorite things in the game! Let's hope they make good use of Chewie in JA.
+ Environmental interaction: in general it was typical Q3 - here are two things, one you can destroy the other you can't ... because I say so. (to be fair - how many non-Unreal engine FPS games have more than passing interactions?) EFII gets away with a bit more because you are *supposed* to be using the tricorder. Hopefully JA will weave in more interaction by using the new Force Sense.
+ Environmental Interaction II - 'Physics'. Not ragdoll - EFII didn't have that either. But when you jump on a rock floating in lava, the rock will either sink slowly, or tip based on your location on the rock, according to its' center of gravity. Again very cool - just a nice little touch.

Things that were either better the JO way, or that were lousy in EFII ... and I DON'T want in JA:
- Enemy AI: ever seen a 1-year old go for something? They look, you can see their interest, then they start to move with their hands out - you have quite a bit of time, and it is very predictable. If Ritual employed that AI system for their enemies it would have been refreshing. This was some of the worst AI I've faced since the 2.5D era, and it really took down the joy of the game, almost as much as ...
- Enemies: my least favorite part of JO - by about 2 orders of magnitude - was the mine crabs. Imagine if ~50% of JO was filled with them, different sizes and shapes, most of which shot various things, but all of which had the same basic 'mine crab' intelligence. There was some good variety of enemies in JO, and we already know we'll see more in JA. Cool.
- Sound: JO has the closest to a working dynamic music scheme I've seen. Excellent use of assets. EFII is good, but not nearly as clean and well transitioned.
- Weapons: I liked most of the weapons in Elite Force, and some were definitely better than JO's weapons (except for the #1 weapon in any FPS ever ... JO's lightsaber!). However, you ended up with the usual 15 guns you get in a FPS sharing 5 types of ammo, and you really needed them to drop all of the big final bosses. I'm more interested in what the 'load-out' in JA will yield.

Things I'm not sure about
? NPC 'Health Bars' - Imagine being able to see Lando's life bar, while at the NS_Starpad. You would know you need to keep him alive, and what state he is in ...
? Boss bar - when you spend an entire game running and gunning some of the thickest enemies in a modern game, what do you expect but a vast series of bosses that are just bigger and tougher to kill ... but no smarter.
? RPG 'dialogue selection' elements: nice touch - especially for EF players (well, certainly the onces who chose Alex, anyway). You choose dialog elements that effect the cutscenes and other plot elements. It is always nice to feel like you control something, but sometimes it is not clear if you could have made a wrong choice ... I don't know what JA will do here.

Things EF didn't have that I'm counting Jedi Academy will deliver well:
:) Truly long game - the FPS games that are 20+ hours are few and far between - JK, Deus Ex, HL, and JO are the ones I think of. JA is supposed to be longer. Great!
:) Non-linearity: this is another exciting opportunity for JA - the ability to shape your character development based on your choices and have the ending change based on your progression.
:) RPG 'Character Selection': the ability to not just choose light or dark side of the force, but also what species, and appearance, is very interesting to me.
:) Siege mode of MP: I'm not a big MP player, but still like an occasional match. I admit that I'll miss Jedi Master mode (me and about 20 others it seems), but Siege promises to really deliver something cool.

Just some thoughts ...

Mike

Just to hit on a couple of points in there, going by catagory:

Things that were good in Elite Force I would love to see in Jedi Academy:

- I very much agree with the improved cutscene graphics. Or at the very least, better skins on the characters. Mon Mothma in JO was almost painful to look at. :eek:
- Secrets and rewards, definitely. Other than curiosity or being obsessive, there isn't much fun in finding secrets when there isn't a payoff worth the trouble.

Things I'm not sure about

- Health Bars. I personally don't like the idea behind these. It kills some of the atmosphere in my opinion to have floating bars around people.

Things EF didn't have that I'm counting Jedi Academy will deliver well:

Ditto on everything under this one.

Edit: A couple other things about the secrets and rewards deal. Secret areas should be an extension of the level or integrated in a way so as not to practically scream "Secret Room!" at you when you find it. Deus Ex did this brilliantly. Instead of a room full of goodies behind a hidden panel, it should actually be a part of the level itself but without an overly obvious entrance. Like jumping over some power generators or something to get behind them or finding a way into a seemingly unreachable area of the level. Going along with that, there should be things going on in some of the secret areas. Maybe there's a droid doing something in there or an enemy or two.

Originally posted by JediLurker
- Health Bars. I personally don't like the idea behind these. It kills some of the atmosphere in my opinion to have floating bars around people.

The way Elite Force II did this was to put a small labelled bar (~1cm x 3cm) in the middle left part of the screen with the critical item. In some cases it was the health of an NPC, in others a gas or air, others a certain 'core temperature' (to avoid spoilers), and still others a countdown timer.

I'm still not sure about it, but after you defeat Galak in Doom_Shields, you have infinite time to get out. Now Galak was a challenging fight as it was, but really you should have had a limited time to defeat him AND get out. I'm not sure how I would have felt if there was a time bar representing 'structural integrity' or whatever, which would go to zero and you and Galak would die, or if you should just hear warnings like in JK/MotS.

Mike

Originally posted by JediLurker
I very much agree with the improved cutscene graphics. Or at the very least, better skins on the characters. Mon Mothma in JO was almost painful to look at. :eek:

It was like Austin Powers - OK I get it, I have bad teeth! :D

Yet other parts in JO were very good, it was the mouths that caused problems. The faces in general in Elite FOrce II made a big difference (also true in HL2) and then you don't really notice that the arms and bodies are still the same as all other Q3 games, and the stubby square fingers, and so on.

People made a joke about the Kyle/Jan kiss - the one with Munro was much worse. Much worse ...

Originally posted by JediLurker
[B]Edit: A couple other things about the secrets and rewards deal. Secret areas should be an extension of the level or integrated in a way so as not to practically scream "Secret Room!" at you when you find it. Deus Ex did this brilliantly. It did indeed. You would get exploration bonuses ... In Elite Force II some of the items weren't really hidden, just off the main path. And I have no problem with having to use primary force powers to get at them, either.

Mike

Originally posted by txa1265

> People here have been extolling the death of JO MP since April of 2002. EFII MP was DOA. I've played bits of MP here and there, and wanted to join in some after I finished the SP game, and counted the number of players on all servers (note - this was ~10PM EST on a Friday) and it was ~35. I didn't have to scroll to see all of the servers. I just checked again ... 17 people on 5 servers. Dead, dead, dead.

Another interesting MP thought ... people over on the official Elite Force II boards lament that Raven didn't do ELite Force II - especially the multiplayer!

Quite a contrast to what is said here ... oh, well, the grass is always greener ...

Mike

Originally posted by txa1265
The way Elite Force II did this was to put a small labelled bar (~1cm x 3cm) in the middle left part of the screen with the critical item. In some cases it was the health of an NPC, in others a gas or air, others a certain 'core temperature' (to avoid spoilers), and still others a countdown timer.

That might not be too bad. I hadn't thought of an interface popup. That's what they're going to do with vehicles after all.

Good post - I'd ditto pretty much everything. I liked having the bar so you knew when to stop screwin' around and DO SOMETHING!

One thing you left out that I really liked in EFII which was non-existent in JO - NPC's chatting with each other. I really liked listening in on conversations, butting in sometimes - usually they evolved with the story - and on at least one or two occasions they helped with something coming up in the game. It really added to the atmosphere. Also - I liked choosing different options in dialogues - there was one in particular with a prisoner that was pretty cool.

Originally posted by Reprehence
One thing you left out that I really liked in EFII which was non-existent in JO - NPC's chatting with each other. I really liked listening in on conversations, butting in sometimes - usually they evolved with the story - and on at least one or two occasions they helped with something coming up in the game. It really added to the atmosphere. Also - I liked choosing different options in dialogues - there was one in particular with a prisoner that was pretty cool.

Yes, but it was a positive and negative - the conversations were good, but they were there in JO - but only between Stormies, and I thought they were even better than EFII. Though the plant lady didn't like Munro much it seemed. Also, there were ttoo many 'empty' dialogues - you walk by and they should be talking but are just waving their hands ... that took away from it ...

I also liked the dialogue choices, including the prisoner, but am not sure if there was a 'wrong' path ... it just seemed like empty fun.

Mike

Um, yeah. JA = Raven, EFII = Ritual...

Originally posted by Emon
Um, yeah. JA = Raven, EFII = Ritual... I'm not sure I understand ... my point was that numerous people here have said that LA should have given the 'next' JK game to someone else - anyone but Raven, and people in the Elite Force boards wish Raven had done EFII rather than someone else (Ritual) - it is just the cross-community irony that struck me. Of course, I am very pleased with Raven's work in all of the games of theirs I've played (though I also like EFII SP)

Mike

ok, i only played the demo of EF1 (ok, terrible MP) but i did find several bits of JO to be a bit TOO star treky (disruptor).

I did play DS9 THe Fallen after playing JO and, although the graphics were looking a bit dated, i did like a few things about it (especially the use of the tricorder on shield frequencies). However im not sure things like that would fit into JO. ST always had tricorders and shield frequencies, SW has never really had anything like that.

I hope tey don't make it so you have to turn on Force Sense EVERYTIME you go into a room, just to check there isn't something hidden.
That sort of thing got very annoying with the Identifying Criminals in Bounty Hunter and the Targetting Computer in Rogue Leader. YOu should at least be given visual clues as to when you need to look for hidden doors or whatever.

Health bars.... not keen, no hud to justify it. But if they were there i'd want them to be at the top or side, not around the character.

However, pain/damage skins would be awesome. These were so handy in Q2 so tell how much damage you had inflicted.... but they don't seem to be in most games now.

---

Secrets/Rewards: I liked the exploration from JK, but some people don't like that sort of thing.

The other option i'd suggest is a kind of Bond Moves like in Agent under Fire. In that there were set "cool" moves you could do that caused the bond theme to play. (such as blowing up tanks, setting off jet engines to blast baddies, grappling-hooking up to vents, using stealth etc...)

These sort of functioned like secrets, with you getting rewards if you got all of them in a level. If, and it is a big if, they have implemented lots of OPTIONAL Force and Lightsaber interactivity into the levels then i would prefer this sort of system.

So, pushing boxes into people, throwing your saber through pillers and chandeliers to drop them on people, pulling switches from afar to open sheilds and suck them into space, finding air vents to jump to, etc... would all cause a stiring Sw theme to play. Secret areas could also be incorporated into this to provide a nice mix. Maybe with NPCs telling you where they are if you save them, or at least don't go around killing them.

Originally posted by toms
ok, i only played the demo of EF1 (ok, terrible MP) but i did find several bits of JO to be a bit TOO star treky (disruptor).

Elite Force 1? That was supposed to have pretty good MP, especially CTF ... not that I played. As a SP game it was very good, but also very short.

I find the word Disruptor to be Trekkie, but the JO implementation to be OK. The gun itself I found useless except for sniping ... to bad they didn't make it nice and overpowered like SoFII's shotgun ;)

That was the only thing that reminded me of Trek ... although the mine crabs reminded me of Elite Force (not Trek the TV show)

I did play DS9 THe Fallen after playing JO and, although the graphics were looking a bit dated) i did like a few things about it (especially the use of the tricorder on shield frequencies). However im not sure things like that would fit into JO. ST always had tricorders and shield frequencies, SW has never really had anything like that.

The Tricorder is VERY trekkie ... but really good in EFII.

I hope tey don't make it so you have to turn on Force Sense EVERYTIME you go into a room, just to check there isn't something hidden. That sort of thing got very annoying with the Identifying Criminals in Bounty Hunter and the Targetting Computer in Rogue Leader. YOu should at least be given visual clues as to when you need to look for hidden doors or whatever.

I'm not sure how sense will work, but I also don't like doing things ONLY to find secrets, even though I do like the challenge - pressing every door, blasting every texture inconsistency ... gets old. The tricorder showing the ONE ROCK that has problems ... uh, I get it ...

Health bars.... not keen, no hud to justify it. But if they were there i'd want them to be at the top or side, not around the character.

Agree - that is actually how it is in EFII, the bar is not on the NPC, it is at the side of the screen.

However, pain/damage skins would be awesome. These were so handy in Q2 so tell how much damage you had inflicted.... but they don't seem to be in most games not.


Secrets/Rewards: I liked the exploration from JK, but some people don't like that sort of thing.

I didn't think that the secrets in JK were any better/worse than JO or some others ... just stuff. Of course you did get a Star for finding all of them. Deus Ex rewarded you well, but it wasn't an all or nothing deal, and the secrets were integrated into the levels well.

The other option i'd suggest is a kind of Bond Moves like in Agent under Fire. ... would all cause a stiring Sw theme to play. Secret areas could also be incorporated into this to provide a nice mix. Mybe with NPCs telling you where they are if you save them, or at least don't go around killing them.

Sounds interesting as a gimmick - select what type of music is played according to the move done. Kinda like getting your own theme ... :) (sorry ... that just made me think of the movie 'I'm Gonna Git You Sucka' ...)

Mike

I think having an unobtrusive bar for a friendly NPC's health would be a nice idea. Either that or have main characters display damage decals on their bodies for 60% and 30% health.

We didn't really need a health bar for Galak in JO because defeating him involved two stages: overwhelm his shield and destory and shield generator; and then kill him. Effort-wise you were pretty much half way when you got rid of the shield.

Originally posted by praenuntius
I think having an unobtrusive bar for a friendly NPC's health would be a nice idea. Either that or have main characters display damage decals on their bodies for 60% and 30% health.

We didn't really need a health bar for Galak in JO because defeating him involved two stages: overwhelm his shield and destory and shield generator; and then kill him. Effort-wise you were pretty much half way when you got rid of the shield.

I do like the idea of friendly NPC health - especially if you could use the force to heal them up.

I think 'boss bars' belong in places where you are just going to have to hit tthem with 1000 shells or whatever ... Galak required thought - more thought than any enemy in EFII, by far ...

Mike

love the post mate, gotta agree with most of ur points, JO's secret areas was pointless because it involves blindly exploring a map for rewards that was mostly useless (finding ammos when u only fight with lightsabers was pretty lame....), Deus Ex was brilliant in this part because the secrets are usually throwing into ur face, but come in a form of a puzzle (eg seeing a vent and using it, seeing an item first b4 tracing a path to get to it etc), in which the puzzle doesn't help progressing thru the game but it give u extra points and items for solving it. this would work great for JA if raven wants the game to be focus on the combat; killing every1 in a map before spending and hr looking for secerts areas get boring real quick.....

health bar on npc would not work very well because star wars is more of a visual world than a technical one, instead how bout extra animation for them like limping or holding a injured arm, which can be implemented into the AI eg the more damage the npc has taken the less aggrressive he/she becomes, hiding behind covers (or u) instead of storming ahead etc

i see what you mean about health bars for allies, hadn't thought of that. I'd still rather have Pain Skins (66% and 33% like in Q2), but if they had it then just little ones at the side would be fine.


Maybe even moving round the edge of the screen to indicate position... not sure about that.


never really felt the accomplishment with finding sectret in JO that i did in JK or Doom for example. Maybe because they weren't obviously secrets, more just slightly hidden areas with a few items. Or maybe because it didn't pop up and say "Secret".


Galak was almost consoley in the way he played (with tricks and stages rather than just needing lots of damage). Sort of reminded me of the boss battles in Goldeneye or Zelda. Which isn't a bad thing btw.

Originally posted by kusanagi
love the post mate, gotta agree with most of ur points, JO's secret areas was pointless because it involves blindly exploring a map for rewards that was mostly useless (finding ammos when u only fight with lightsabers was pretty lame....), Deus Ex was brilliant in this part because the secrets are usually throwing into ur face, but come in a form of a puzzle (eg seeing a vent and using it, seeing an item first b4 tracing a path to get to it etc), in which the puzzle doesn't help progressing thru the game but it give u extra points and items for solving it. this would work great for JA if raven wants the game to be focus on the combat; killing every1 in a map before spending and hr looking for secerts areas get boring real quick.....

Yes - I definitely think Deus Ex is the model for FPS in that regard. JO wasn't really different than JK - except that JK rewarded you with a star. DF was the same, but occasionally you got a free life! Most FPS are pretty lousy in this regard ... yet many of us hunt out the secrets anyway ... :)

health bar on npc would not work very well because star wars is more of a visual world than a technical one, instead how bout extra animation for them like limping or holding a injured arm, which can be implemented into the AI eg the more damage the npc has taken the less aggrressive he/she becomes, hiding behind covers (or u) instead of storming ahead etc

toms had a great idea he posted above. Here it is ...

Originally posted by toms
However, pain/damage skins would be awesome. These were so handy in Q2 so tell how much damage you had inflicted.... but they don't seem to be in most games now.


I would love to see that - some indication of NPC health status, and definitely think personal indicators are better than 'health bars'.

Mike