Star Wars Chronicles Duels Pack 1

Description
Wow, just... wow. It's been quite a while since I was so thoroughly surprised and impressed by a mod, especially a Single Player one. This is the Chronicles Duel Pack I, featuring the 'Duel of the Fates' from Episode I and the Duel between Dooku, Anakin, Obi-Wan and finally Yoda from Episode II.

For anyone not familiar with the Chronicles Mod you should check out their website, [url=http://www.swchroniclesmod.com]here[/url].

The first thing you see in any Single Player mod, is of course the menu screens and these are rather clever! Available from the 'Start New Game' option are the two duels, but what is clever is that the button for each duel, when moused over, is actually a small video of the duel itself! Not something that is hugely important to the gameplay, but it’s a nice touch nonetheless!

First off, let's have a look at:

[b]Duel of the Fates.[/b]

This is probably one of the most famous bits of any of the Star Wars films, not least because of that amazing 'hairs on the back of your neck' soundtrack by John Williams. Its also just an incredibly choreographed duel and is always enjoyable to watch. Here we get our chance to play as Obi-Wan and duel Darth Maul ourselves.

Believe me, this is not easy, it takes skill and perseverance to complete these duels and I died several times on each. Out of the two though I would definitely say that Duel of the Fates is the most difficult, primarily because old Qui-Gon isn't really very helpful. :P That is one of the few issues I found with this mod; Qui-Gon often just stops behind pillars or sometimes just walks around casually while Darth Maul continues attacking you, which makes things rather more difficult.

The cutscenes in both duels are fantastic however. They are on par, if not better than the cutscenes made for JKA by Raven and include characters that move their mouths and are lip synched to the speech and full sound from the movies, which adds a really nice level of realism to everything. The camera angles and character movements are also unbelievably similar to the actual shots the film, which is quite an accomplishment considering the limitations of JKA.

The Duel of the Fates map is also very impressive and accurate to the film. Along with the excellent skins this rounded this half of the mod off nicely. It really does feel very cinematic!

[b]Geonosis Duel[/b]

This is of course the duel that was at the end of Episode 2 featuring Count Dooku, Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda. You start out as Obi Wan and fight until the scene where Dooku disarms Obi-Wan and Anakin saves him just in time before Dooku cuts poor Obi in half. You then switch over to controlling Anakin and then when Anakin gets his arm chopped off you finally get to play as Yoda! The cutscenes and character changes occur when you get Dooku's health down to a certain amount.

Again the cutscenes are fantastic and contain full music and speech from the film along with lip synching characters. The thing I was impressed with most though is the map. It really does have a Geonosis feel and is the best recreation of the Geonosis duel area that I have ever seen. The sky outside especially looked fantastic; somehow the author of the map has been able to make the skybox sort of 'glowy'. There is a screenshot below where you can see what I mean, it's very difficult to describe since it doesn't look quite the same as the glow from a light. In any case I haven't a clue how it was done, although I would very much like to find out!

As for bugs on this half of the mod, I only noticed one. It was however most bizarre... Instead of Padme appearing at the end and running into the hangar as she does in the film, it was actually a Stormtrooper. How this happened I have no idea, I also don't know whether this problem was unique to me, e.g. caused by a file conflict, but in any case the Padme model was replaced by a Stormtrooper. Weird, and a little amusing but nothing too serious!

Overall; fantastic work here and well worth a download! Keep up the good work guys, I look forward to seeing Duel Pack 2! :D

~Nozyspy~

And now a message from the Chronicles Team:

[quote] Star Wars Chronicles is a Jedi Academy Modification that is being developed by the Chronicles Team since August 17th 2007. The idea is creating singleplayer missions that resembles to the six movies of the saga, something that many dreamt and couldn't do so far. We count with a huge number of members that are working to provide you the best quality and pleasure. MovieBattles Team, responsible for creating the famous MovieBattles II modification is supporting us.

In this Duel Pack Series we have planned to give the fans a taste of our work. The demo was about missions, this is how the duels will be in the full version. You will get to be Obi-Wan in Duel of The Fates and duel against Darth Maul with the help of Qui-Gon. All scenes are exactly as the original movies from the camera point of view to character animations as much as the engine allows us. It is of great importance to us that you feel like in the movie.

Moreover in the Geonosis Duel, you will fight as 3 different characters including the little green guy, Yoda! The lightning effect of the Sith lord was supported by shaders to make it more realistic during cinematic's. The Duel might be hard for you new starters, but keep trying, Count Dooku is just another tinny. Both missions are beautifully scripted and mapped, you will surely want to play more after this experience.

We are planning on a second duel pack that will most probably feature Battle Over Coruscant and Emperor's Throne Duel. So keep your heads up for the next update very soon.[/quote]