The Scorpion Consortium



Written by Adrian Burnett

Some of the nifty special effects going in the levels.

Think back for a second to a time way back. Farther back then sites like Massassi, farther back than even sites like Jediknight.net so before Jedi Knight and into Dark Forces. And for those who weren't in the old DF community missed out. That was a great community, with legendary sites like "The Crow's Nest" and "Bespin" holding the community together. Although, after the release of Jedi Knight, it didn't take long to basically weaken Dark Forces to a critical state. With most people moving on to JK. Of course the odd level or mod will be released, but DF has lost most of it's thunder. There are a couple of things trying to keep it alive, especially one DF project in the works, especially one called "The Scorpion Consortium".

Comments

The Scorpion Consortium, headed by Void Dragon, is a level project consisting of many series of levels. First of all you may be curious to why Void Dragon would stick with Dark Forces and not go with Jedi Knight? Well Void told me basically that he likes Dark Forces better. He gave me some pretty good reasons too. There is no questioning that Jedi Knight has a more powerful engine than DF, being a real 3d one, but there are some things which that doesn't make up for. Most of the reasons are opinion really. One he threw at me was the atmosphere. One more of Star Wars than JK, with more feeling. The level add-ons and plot which were involved with Dark Forces were excellent as well, many say better than JK. Void also said that he finds DF editing more fun than JK editing. And I could see some sense in that. Void basically wants to work on a pack of levels to restimulate the static Dark Forces.

An overhead view from an elevator.
One of the first things that blew me away was the killer group that it has. Such DF add-on legends as Hoerby (author of Harkov's Defection), Mattias Welander (author of Imperial Academy and creator of important DF editing programs), Lionel Fouillen (author of the much praised Archangel series) and Mike Rajotte (author of 2 dark forces levels himself/cutscene wizard). Void still doesn't know how he assembled such a team so full of talent. He basically emailed them or they came to him he said. Although he isn't entirely using all of them to make levels. Void told that most of the bigger names will be helping out like mentors, giving advice and testing levels, while the lesser known names do most of the work, mostly on the story. It would be great if he could convince some of these people to work on levels though.

The plot for the project is an interesting one. You play Kyle Katarn, once again representing the Rebellion in an effort to find out information and expose a secretive powerful agency. As Kyle, you find yourself searching through different Star Wars settings looking for clues on this "Scorpion Consortium". Here's a snippet of the plot from the site.

One of the new weapons in the level pack.
It's divided up into series, 4 of them right now for a grand total of 14 different levels. The plot is still a bit sketchy so that number will most likely end up changing. The conversion will take on many new features. These include a few of the things being; New waxes (many done by Al McDonald), new music (which I have heard and is excellent), new weapons (which I have also seen and look pretty good) and many new textures. Void has promised allot of new tricks to be done with INF. Rain for one, looks excellent, and you'll probably be seeing a whole lot of VUEs. He mentioned some interesting things with Tie Bombers as well. The levels were being designed by Void Dragon and Jonathan Clark. Unfortunately Jonathan Clark has left the community because of some problems with people so this leaves Void Dragon to do all the work, a heavy burden.
A local Cantina from the modified Katarn's Fate level.
The progress of the levels isn't going poorly though. The first prelude level (which will serve more as a demo) is completed. The level Jonathan Clark was working on has a few INF tricks in it, but has a lot to be done. Also Katarn's Fate, a level not quite finished made by Adam Burnett, has been altered to be added to the list. Katarn's Fate has allot done, just allot of bugs to fix as well as some architecture points here and there. Void says he likes working on the levels one at a time and wouldn't give me a potential release date. He says he doesn't want what happened to Dark Tides to happen with him. Dark Tides was a large project for Dark Forces which fell through for various reasons. Void is showing allot of dedication to this project despite some the hectic things of real life. So the progress at this time is the first finished prelude level, Clark's uncompleted level (with a lot of work needed), modified Katarn's Fate and some of the graphics including the gun.
A pic of you and your squad.

Prediction

The worst thing that could happen would be for only a few of the levels to be released. I can say without hesitation that you will see some levels be put out by this group at sometime in the not-so-far future. I couldn't tell you an exact date for release but something will be released soon. I am worried though that this might turn into a partial Dark Tides, with not all the levels being completed. Although Void tries to reassure me, there are some nit-picky things I could suggest. The task of those many levels made by one author is almost unrealistic. Try getting some more level authors (or force some of the better ones already on the staff) to help on the editing. Also, try to take down on the number of levels, leave only the essential ones for the story, getting rid of those filler levels (although easier said than done). What I've seen of this project looks very good and could go on to help add spark to Dark Forces, which is on life support in it's current state. I hope my fears of not total completion of this project will eventually prove to be wrong. If it continues with it's current state of quality, it should be quite good. Although I have not played the first level, I have played the other two, and they are both fun and well done DF levels.
Adrian Burnett really doesn't like these blurbs.

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