This is the second entry in my "Old Games Nostalgia" series... a few weeks ago I talked about TIE Fighter, and today it's Mysteries of the Sith.

Mysteries of the Sith, or MotS, was officially a stand-alone add-on for the first-person-shooter game Jedi Knight (which was a sequel to Dark Forces). But it had improved graphics, new weapons, a completely new singleplayer storyline, and other good stuff - it was really a separate game in its own rite, even though you needed to own Jedi Knight to install it. My brother played both games singleplayer, but MotS was THE multiplayer game. JK just wasn't as fun multiplayer, so we didn't. This was at the point where we were starting to get a LAN in our house (with two or three computers), so playing games over the network was amazing (as opposed to now, when it's normal).

MotS was the first FPS game I ever played. And it's still one of the few I ever touched - FPS games and me generally don't mix, for many reasons, most notably the fact that I suck at them. But I played MotS a lot, Jedi Knight II a fair bit, and Republic Commando... a lot. And I played the demo of Battlefield 1942 briefly and I played Battlefront at one LAN party. Other than those, haven't even tried 'em.

I never played the singleplayer campaigns in MotS. My brother did, and I watched him play a bit, but I don't remember a whole lot. Most of this entry, therefore, will be dedicated to reminiscing about multiplayer. But I wanted to mention a couple cool things about the singleplayer. Firstly - you can play as Mara! I thought that was very very cool indeed, as I was all about the Thrawn Trilogy back then. And secondly, the way you win the very last battle - Mara vs. Dark!Kyle - is by turning off your lightsaber and refusing to fight. I thought that was awesome. In his game, my brother fought with Kyle for maybe an hour or so... and then he realised it. He suddenly knew what he had to do. No cheating, no help from online sources - he just figured out that he needed to deactivate his lightsaber. I think that was really neat. The only other thing I remember about the singleplayer was the battle with the rancor - I remember the little mini-cutscene of getting eaten. That happened a lot to my brother.

Alright, now on to multiplayer!

Random facts I remember:
- That there were four classes of characters. My main character was a light Jedi named Tera Altiri. My Scout character was a TIE Pilot whom I called Dev. (Scouts were awesome because they have the main Force powers (Jump, especially) but run quickly and they come with the rifle scope!) I had a dark Jedi character named EvilDarkJedi (hehe). The other two classes were Bounty Hunter (who came with the uber-cheap carbonite gun, and only had Force Push) and Soldier (who had no Force powers but started with the rail gun!). I had characters for all the classes, but I didn't use the Bounty Hunter or Soldier much.
- You had to hold down F5 to Force Jump. This was very annoying because you were already holding 'w' to move forward and it was hard to press both those keys with the same hand. So sometimes you had to take your hand off the mouse when using Force powers, which sucked because then you couldn't 'steer'. The controls of FPS games in general and the JK games in particular have got MUCH easier since.
- Lightsaber battles were extremely random. There were only two basic attacks - left and right mouse-click. Battles consisted of trying to stay facing your opponent and smashing as many mouse buttons as you could! And jumping around like an idiot.
- My most-used Force power was Force Heal. But I loved Force Pull like nothing else. I was too lazy to go get items, so I pulled them to me... hehe.
- The Force Sight music! I can still sing it to myself.
- The game mode "Kill the Fool with the Ysalamiri". It consisted of one person getting the "ysalamiri" (which made a weird red blob form around them... on good computers this blob was translucent but on bad computers the blob looked completely polygonal and ridiculous) and trying to keep it for as long as they could to get points. When they died, another person could pick it up, or it was returned to its original spot. The twist was when you have the ysalamiri or you're beside the person who does, you cannot use any Force powers. So you can't use Force Seeing to find where the person is... they can hide and if no one can find them, they win. The only clue you get is a clicking sound when the ysalamiri is near (and you can't use Force powers). This game mode was very very fun to play.
- You can Force Pull the switch in the carbon freezing chamber on the "Cloud City" level to activate it (like Vader did in ESB!) and we'd always say or type "All too easy!" when we did. Hehe. In fact, that reminds me... we also at point figured out how to send voice 'taunts' to other players in multiplayer games, as long as they had the same sound files on their computer. So my siblings and I recorded ourselves saying a lot of things (mostly SW lines, like "All too easy!" and "Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete!" and "You're a feisty little one, but you'll soon learn some respect" and "I'll never join you!") and then set up the game to send those to play for the other players when we pressed a key. Ah, good times.

Random memories of multiplayer:
- The "Spaceport" level. Best multiplayer map ever! It was very big and confusing, but we learned exactly where everything was. I still sorta remember where you can get the rifle scope (and thus snipe people and kill them in one shot). And the seeking rail charges! Those were SO amusing. My brother and me and various other people played this level a LOT.
- Playing the "Cargo Ship" level with my brother for hours. The goal was to get to and control the upper area. There were only two ways in - the elevator, and a floaty tube thing (where you can jump and float up). The upper area had the rail gun, as well as a few switches that let loose grenades in various other places on the level. We'd spend hours fighting over that small area of the map... hehe.
- My sister and I playing the "forest" level (I don't remember its real name, and for some reason I can't find a list of levels anywhere...). We spent 90% of the time mining the entire level with sequencer charges. LOL! The other random things I remember about that map include getting crushed by the elevator, that the carbonite gun was SO cheap, and where to get the repeater gun (in a treehouse-type place).
- Playing "Cloud City Gantry" as Dark Jedi with my brother and a couple friends (2 on 2). We all had Force Destruction, which allows you to send a very powerful Force Push at someone, hurts them if it hits them, and also sends them flying if you Destruction the ground beneath them. Cloud City Gantry is based on the area where Luke and Vader fought in ESB (from when Luke falls out the window onwards) so there was LOTS of fun times Destructioning people and making them fall off. It became a game of who would venture onto the platform to get the Force Surge (and thus be able to Destruction as many times as they want until it ran out), which was where Luke was when Vader cut off his hand, and everyone else Destructioning the platform to knock them off. Hehe. It doesn't sound fun to describe it, but we played this for ages!
- Playing Kill The Fool on "Tibanna Mining Outpost" with my brother and my friend Chris (though he was really just my brother's friend back then). The level is so small and the elevator is so annoying and the noise of it going up and down gets even MORE annoying... but this was one fun game. Andrew won by a lot, but it was still fun. My strategy whenever I got the ysalamiri? Run. Run like there's no tomorrow and hope not to fall off. But it's hard to hide on a small level, especially one that's so open! But that's what made it fun - non-stop action.

The best was shortly after Episode I came out. My brother Andrew found and downloaded a "Duel of the Fates" map for MotS, and after me and him checked it out, we realised it was WAY too big a map for just 2 players. But our computers and internet connection weren't nearly good enough to play it online either. (I don't think Andrew played MotS online much... I know I didn't. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is still the only game I've played ever online for a decent amount of time. I think I've played Starcraft about 3 times, and I remember playing Jedi Knight II once, but other than those three games... I don't think I've played any other online games! Multiplayer, yeah, but not online.) So it wasn't good for a map to play on, and thus we decided to re-enact the saber duel from TPM in the game while we took screenshots. (I at one point had all these on my website-of-the-time, but I eventually lost them in a server crash followed shortly by a computer crash. Fierfek, I wanted to see them. ) Only it was... interesting, because I was Obi-Wan and he was Darth Maul. (We downloaded character skins for them, I think.) There was no Qui-Gon. So for the part where Obi falls off the ledge and then has to run to catch up to the other two... Andrew (as Maul) had to pretend to fight by himself. Hehe. But the part in the pit was awesome. There was a ledge where someone could stand and pretend they were hanging, like Obi was. (Only you couldn't Force push someone onto it, because they'd go too far and fall down the pit and die. They had to slowly walk off the side in order to land on the ledge.) So I (as Obi-Wan) was standing on the ledge looking up, while Andrew (as Maul) was flourishing his saber and sending sparks everywhere... just like in the movie. Then I Force jump out of the pit, activate my saber, and slice him. And then he jumps into the pit... lol. Anyways, the whole experience was golden. So much fun. I only wish I still had the screenshots. (If you want to see what my now-dead website looked like at the time, you can! (Complete with bad graphics and typos!) Just click on "DotF in MotS" and you can read the intro (you'll have to highlight the text to read it, it didn't seem to archive my stylesheet)... unfortunately, archive.org didn't save any of the pictures (or the stylesheet, for that matter... I remember the font was Comic Sans MS, hehe... yes, I was a contributor to the current fact that anyone using Comic Sans MS on a website should fear for their life - because back in the day everyone used it and now everyone hates it ). *looks through more of my old site* Wow, this was only 5 years ago but it seems like ages! My favourite OT character was Luke!? Haha. I was sure I always liked Obi... but I guess not. Well, this is all good and interesting, but it's hardly on-topic. *end tangent*)

If you want to read my cheesy "Review" for MotS from my aforementioned super-old website, go here. Hehe.

And finally, a couple "watching TPM" anecdotes:
- My brother and I grinned at each other when Mace goes "this is the clue we need to unravel the mystery of the sith".
- We SO saw the rail gun in Shmi's house, and we joke to this day that she's a Bounty Hunter.

And one from AotC:
- There's a sound in one of the AotC trailers that sounds exactly like the Force Heal sound. I guess it's supposed to be a speeder engine or something, but it doesn't sound like it. It's Force Heal!

If you like MotS, this and this are must-reads.

And since I have issues sticking to one topic per blog entry.... I got my Republic Commando t-shirt today! It only shipped yesterday - from Cali - so wow, they're fast. I love it! It fits me! I'm wearing it now, but I'm wearing a long-sleeve shirt underneath since it's a bit cold for t-shirts. Pic 1 (sorry about the flash, I was taking the pic into the mirror) & Pic 2.