The LucasArts comeback wagon just keeps on rolling. It is a wagon laden with wondrous games both old and new, designed to trick us into falling in love with the computeryvideotasticgames arm of the George Lucas Empire all over again, even though it used to keep us locked in the cellar and whipped us with the metal end of its belt on a daily basis. It’s a deception few will grumble about, however. The revisiting of its back catalogue on download services (specifically, Steam and Direct2Drive) continues with the announcement that the Jedi Knight shooter/lightsaber series will fetch up on said services soon. That’s ‘soon’ as in ‘tomorrow’. Wootini!



No word on price, but LucasArt’s ever-excitable Twitter feed assures us “we have been good in the past, right?” [Polite cough]. I, ah, think they mean the very recent past, rather than most of the last decade. What is confirmed is that it’s the entire Jedi Knight series – so not simply Jedi Knight 1 &2, but also Jediless predecessor Dark Forces (which I played through a frightening number of times back in the day), divisive and arguably underrated sequel Jedi Academy and JK1’s Mara Jade-centric (a fan-favourite expanded universe character who, I believe, eventually ended up getting hitched to Luke Skywalker once he finally stopped having dirty thoughts about his sister) expansion Mysteries of the Sith.

I find the completism fascinating. We really are gradually headed towards a time when any and every major PC game is available near-instantly. That said, I’d love to see sales figures on these kinds of re-releases: do they purely have niche appeal, or are they genuinely reaching a new audience who isn’t running screaming from the olden graphics and lack of Achievements?

Still, o happy day. Trad. response, just to head you off at the pass: yes, but what about TIE Fighter/X-Wing? I’m sure they’re coming, but they probably need a little more technical skullduggery to play nice with XP/Vista/7. Patience, younglings. Oh, and I also want to see Shadows of the Empire re-released – but just the marvellous opening Snowspeeder vs AT-AT level, and not the ‘orrible rest of it.