Mysteries of the Sith is Jedi Knight’s Expansion Pack. It contains 14 more levels, new weapons, new engine features, and
Mysteries of the Sith is Jedi Knight’s Expansion Pack. It contains 14 more levels, new weapons, new engine features, and a new multiplayer mode. This is one of the best network game I have ever played.
Story
Mysteries of the Sith is a series of missions based on Mara Jade becoming Kyle Katarn’s Apprentice. For those of you who don’t know, Mara later married Luke Skywalker, but that doesn’t come up in this game. The first 4 missions you play as Kyle and destroy an asteroid base, and then he goes off on a mission. You play as Mara for the remaining 10 missions, raiding a hutt palace, and dealing with pirates. Eventually, you go after Kyle, and those last three levels take place in an abandoned Sith Temple.
Graphics
Mysteries of the Sith can support colored lighting, which makes the atmosphere more interesting. Other than that new feature, the graphics are the same blocky models as in Jedi Knight. It cannot compare to the other games of the period, even the original Unreal has better graphics than this.
The ingame cutscenes are no longer FMV, instead they are rendered by the engine. They are no doubt the WORST cutscenes that I have ever seen; they are even worse than the cutscenes in Wing Commander 2. Remember though, graphics don’t make a game, the Gameplay makes a game.
Gameplay
Single Player
The single player campaign, while the levels are not as big as in Jedi Knight, is very good. The levels range from an Asteroid Base to a Hutt’s Palace to an ancient Sith temple. There are some new enemies, like Rebel Soldiers, wampas, scout troopers, and some others I will let you discover on your own. The dianoga from Dark Forces 1 makes a comeback, but it is now a lethal creature. The Temple was very well done, and very creepy, the vornskrs redefine “greased lightening”. Also, in the temple there are Sith soldiers that use lightsabers. They attack in groups, making it much harder to take them out.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is good also. The maps range from Jabba the Hutt’s palace to Luke’s home to a Carbonite Chamber. The maps tend to focus on scenes from the movie, and are very well done. The new game mode is KFS. In KFS, you must hold onto a little slug-like creature and get points as long as you are holding it. The object of the other players is to stop you, and get it for themselves. There is no capture the flag mode anymore, which is somewhat of a disappointment, since I always liked capture the flag.
Weapons
The weapons are good, with new ones since Jedi Knight. You can use a carbonite gun to freeze them, a sniper scope for your rifle, flash bombs to blind them and others. The lightsaber blocks better than in the original game, but there are no new moves for it without using mods. The sequencer charges now have a manual mode that makes them work like satchel charges. The seeker rails are like very good guided missiles. I find it very difficult to evade them.
Sound/Music
The music is the typical, well-done Star Wars Music. The sound is the typical Star Wars sound. Voice acting is rather good, though I think that the Civvies start to sound rather pathetic J.
Stability
Mysteries of the Sith is very stable. The only times it ever crashed were when I made my own level/mod and it had bugs in it, or when I enabled 3D acceleration on my GeForce4 MX or TNT2 graphics card. It will work on the GeForce4 MX after you get the latest drivers. It doesn’t support 3D at all on TNT2.
Conclusion
Mysteries of the Sith is a very fun game. I would recommend it to anyone who likes Star Wars FPSs. You need Jedi Knight 1 to play it, so eBay is the best way to get this. There are many mods out there for this, I would recommend Saber Battle X.