Have You Played… Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast?
Use the force (but also some guns)
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Not only did it allow you to throw your lightsaber across the room and electrocute a bunch of imbecile Stormtroopers until they fell into a big hole, it also spawned one of the most satisfying stories ever written about a videogame. Well done, Jedi Knight II.
It was also pretty forward-thinking. Where other Star Wars games were about tackling AT-ATs with a cable or plodding around Tatooine doing the most mundane fetch quests imaginable, the Jedi Knight series honed in the thing people actually wanted to be: a bloomin’ Jedi, of course.
The powers of hand ‘leccy, mind control, force push and force choke are pretty much standard fare in any power fantasy game today, often given other names to disguise their true Lucasness. What are Corvo Attano and Emily Kaldwin if not steampunky Jedis? Obviously, there’s huge differences, and a litany of prior influences. But remember how fun it was to fling a Stormtrooper halfway across the room with a flick of the mouse hand? Don’t try to tell me that wasn’t influential.