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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies Entertainment Games

History of Star Wars Video Games 241

Posted by CmdrTaco from the use-the-cart-luke dept.
Leafel writes "UGO has posted a feature on the history of Star Wars video games, dividing the timeline into 4 categories: The Golden Age (up to 1990), The Silver Age (1991-1996), The Gaming Renaissance (1996-2000), Modern Age (2001 on). From the article 'December 2004 saw the latest release in a long line of Star Wars related video games. As a sequel to one of 2003's top role playing games, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords has made a lot of Xbox owners and RPG fans very happy. In honor of KOTOR II's release and in anticipation of May's Revenge of the Sith movie event, we take a look at the long history of interactive Star Wars entertainment, complete with all of its highs and lows.'"
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History of Star Wars Video Games More

History of Star Wars Video Games

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  • What age are we in now with the release of KOTOR 2? "The Facsimile Age" has a nice ring to it, or maybe the more laid-back "Same Shit, Different Jedi Age"...

    My quickie review from maybe six hours into the game: The characters and voice acting are decent, but so far I just feel like I've been able to look at each new NPC and say "Oh, you're the replacement for Carth" or whatever. The Jedi mentor person at least seems like she might have deeper motivations, but we'll see.

    Likewise, the game narrative hasn'

    • Ok, when you haven't finished a game...please don't write a review...your opinion, at this point, is really not worth readaing. Maybe after the first 6 hours it gets fantastic, or maybe it totally goes downhill and become the worst gaming experience ever. You don't know that, because you haven't even come close to finishing the game. Never write a review on something you haven't finished, it is a waste of time for you and the people who read it.
    • I've got to agree -- the Dark Side just isn't all that subtle or sinister. It's mostly just rude, sneering, and curiousity as to why the I, the PC, "shouldn't just kill you now and take what I want!"

      Oooooh, sinister.

      Meanwhile, I've got to give George Lucas props: In Phantom Menace he chose to portray Senator Palpatine as a really nice guy with apparently the best of motives. No sneering, no cackling monologues, no winks at the audience. It's only through foreknowledge of events in A New Hope that he
    • KOTOR 2 Review
      40 hour games of which, the first 38 hours are great with intriguing plot, interesting characters, nifty quests. Every bit as brilliant as the first, and in many respects outshining the first. The last 2 hours are WTF!!!
      BTW the Darkside ending wasn't even finished, the LS ending actually presented you with a choice, though it does not have an effect on the ending sequence.
      The best way I can explain the end to people who haven't played. Imagine Empire Strikes back, the scene where Darth V

  • X-Wing & Tie Figher (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ingolfke ( 515826 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @12:47PM (#11106363) Journal
    Those games were excellent... I wish they'd reissue them and update them to work on today's OSes or console systems.

    • Re:X-Wing & Tie Figher (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:51PM (#11107395) Journal
      I practically bought my first PC just to run X-Wing. Sure, I had played things like Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2 before then but X-Wing blew them out of the water: the sights, the sounds and the idea that you could take on the Empire in your very own X-Wing made it the best PC game of its era.

      TIE Fighter, which came along a few years later, was technically superior but it was X-Wing that created the mould. It's definitely up there in my list of the top PC games of all time.
  • Shelby Foote has met his match.

  • X-Wing! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @12:52PM (#11106437) Homepage
    One of the best things about the original Star Wars was the incredible space battles. We actually *cared* about the fighter pilots in the Death Star trenches even though they appeared briefly (in contrast, it's difficult to care about the entire main cast of the prequels). We actually got a sense of hopelessness as they got shot down one by one (Porkins! Noooo!), and we felt the jubilation as the Millenium Falcon swooped in for the rescue. We felt thrilled seeing all those ships dogfight each other, swarming all over in Return of the Jedi. The first X-Wing game really made you feel like one of the Rebel pilots. The subsequent ones just didn't have that feel. Ah well, nostalgia.

    • I don't know why, but i always liked Tie Fighter more...

      *breathe heavily*

      • Re:X-Wing! (Score:2, Informative)

        by the_maddman ( 801403 )
        So did I, and I just found my old copy and got it to run inside DosBox http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]. It takes a lot of grunt to run it under and emulator, but it's still addictive, I've found I still remember all the shortcuts and cut scenes, but I'm playing everynight anyways. I'd love to find the collectors edition, but they seem to be nearly impossible to get a hold of.

    • Re:X-Wing! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AviLazar ( 741826 )
      Not to demean what you are saying, but I think that our age has a lot to play with it. I sometimes catch reruns of cartoons that I used to watch as a kid (i.e. transformers) and the graphics (while technically the exact same) just doesn't look as good as what I remembered. I think its the same for the games. When we were younger we were more impressed and awe inspired and we have that memory. Now we are older, and harder to impress - so we are basing our current judgements on our memories which tend to
      • I know the feeling. My dad just picked up a he-man tape from the local library that's throwing it out. He mailed it to me and told me to enjoy. My brothers and I used to run home from school to watch this.

        It's not even animated! WTF? I swear it looked like it when I was 5. But instead, there are drawings, then flashes to a picture with two swords hitting each other, then it flashes back to the previous drawing.

        I kinda feel ripped off, knowing that was being taken as a fool. But, then again, if anyone woul
        • And just think how it will be in 10 - 20 years from now. You will be saying thet same statement (including the not listening deal) :D

          Now I know how old people feel when they say "I remember back when....."
    • Does anyone else find it peculiar that Porkins is fat? I mean, he almost looks like a pig. I find it hard not to laugh whenever I hear "porkins" and see his chubby face.
    • X-Wing was the first PC game I ever played. I LOVED it! I would play for hours and hours. I don't think I've played a game since that has captured my attention nearly as well.

  • 1990's golden age? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @12:53PM (#11106444) Journal
    Man I feel old. What are they going to say, the 1990-1995 era was pre-historic age? Come on, can we at least get like 20 years before going golden age? A human generation would be nice...
  • Star Wars... nothing but Star Wars. Nothing but Star Wars. Dumb dumb dumb dumbbbb.
    • Dumb dumb dumb dumbbbb

      more like:

      Dumb dumb dumb dom dee dumb dom dee dumb DUMB DUMB DUMB DAM dumb dumb dom dee dom...
    • Someone mod the parent up.

      It's a reference to a *classic* SNL sketch starring Bill Murray as a (bad and cheesy) lounge singer named "Nick Winters".

      Transcript Here [jt.org]

      Hear it here [blueharvest.net] under 'MP3' at the bottom.

      Nick "Winters": Hey, wait a minute! This is the Nick "Winters" show, and I do the entertaining, thank you! Let's go out with something really hot for these folks, alright? A big hit on the '77. [ singing ] "Ah.. Star Wars! Nothing but Star Wars! Gimme those Star Wars.. don't let them end! Ah.. Star Wars
  • The only Star Wars games that I really got into (even though Im a fan of the original movies), was Shadows of the Empire on the N64, and Jedi Outcast on the PC. Rouge Squadron on the GC is nice. But for some reason, I tire of the games long before finishing. I would have put Outcast up there with Unreal Tournament, put that stupid leg sweep insta kill move killed my enthusiasm for that. Now maybe it is just my age, and I no longer have the patience for adventure games (since I tend to stick to FPS), bu
    • Was that a French game based on the Death Star attack?

      Chef Rouge! Chef Rouge!
    • I would have put Outcast up there with Unreal Tournament, put that stupid leg sweep insta kill move killed my enthusiasm for that.

      Didn't you ever patch your game? The ridiculous backspin sweeping stroke(*) was crippled (as in "damage reduced to reasonable levels") in higher versions, much to the chagrin of a couple of people I know who used to run backwards hoping to land such shot in the middle of crowded rooms while LAN-partying. Lots of moves/force powers were modified during the patch series...

      (*) I

  • Milkin' It (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @12:56PM (#11106491)
    > The Golden Age (up to 1990),
    > The Silver Age (1991-1996),
    > The Gaming Renaissance (1996-2000),
    > Modern Age (2001 on).

    The Failure to Suck Age (1977-1990)
    The Suck Age (1991-1996)
    The Apart From TIE vs. X-Wing, It Pretty Much Sucked Chrome off a Trailer Hitch (1996-2000)
    The Sucked Neutron Stars Through A Straw Age (2001-2002)
    The KOTOR Age, in which somebody at Lucasarts goofed badly by giving a contract to someone who actually gave a shit about storytelling (KOTOR, 2003)
    The Jar Jar Binks Age (Star Wars Galaxies: A Galaxy Milkin' It [homestead.com])

    Move along, nothing to see here, indeed! The goggles, they do NOTHING!

    • The "Golden Age" of video games is known to end with the industry crash of 1984. The best Star Wars game ever was of course the first one - with a vector monitor. 1994 brought the ESB version which sucked rocks in comparison. It's been all fair to crap since.
    • I tend to disagree on one small point...

      X-Wing Alliance is the BEST SW Game Ever. I believe that it was released in 2000.

      KOTOR wins 2nd best.

  • They missed a whole 'era' ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by kclittle ( 625128 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @12:57PM (#11106519)
    The first 'Star Wars' game I played on a computer was an ASCII-art version, in 1980. Using the VT100 control set, a 10x10 grid of single-character symbols was displayed (lots of extra whitespace was used, so the grid way probably 20 colums wide by 10 lines long). The 'interface' was a simple command line parser. The characters in the grid were a '.' for empty space, a '*' for a star, a 'p' for a planet, an 'E' for the Enterprise, a 'K' for a Klingon, and an 'S' for the dreaded 'Super Commander' (oooooo!)

    The command line interface allowed you to move, to shoot photon torpedoes (an 'o' would track across the 10x10 grid as the torpedo moved), call for help, etc.

    This was on a Prime 500. The game was, IIRC, written in Fortran and originally written an a PDP (8 or 11?).

    Sigh! Those were the days! :)

  • My first view of a Star Wars game was not exactly from the Star Wars realm, but rather it was "Star Raiders" for the Atari 2600. I think at that point in time there was huge copyright issues, but Star Raiders had a look and feel like the vector based star-wars game in the arcades (relatively speaking). It had a numeric keypad controller. Sometimes I felt like I was in the gunner room in the Millenium Falcon, shooting tie fighters.

    Man, video games back then allowed a lot of room for imagination. Nowadays I

    • My first view of a Star Wars game was not exactly from the Star Wars realm, but rather it was "Star Raiders" for the Atari 2600. I think at that point in time there was huge copyright issues, but Star Raiders had a look and feel like the vector based star-wars game in the arcades (relatively speaking). It had a numeric keypad controller. Sometimes I felt like I was in the gunner room in the Millenium Falcon, shooting tie fighters.

      The Atari 2600 version of Star Raider (singular, not plural) was a crippled
  • They missed the vector arcade version of Empire Strikes Back.

    I hacked a starwars yoke to my [url=http://ubercade.randomdrivel.com]MAME arcade cabinet[/url] just to play the original vector starwars arcade game.

    rampy
    • They missed the vector arcade version of Empire Strikes Back.

      I hacked a starwars yoke to my MAME arcade cabinet [randomdrivel.com] just to play the original vector starwars arcade game.

      rampy

      PS not sure if my other post made it through -- using too many forums with BBcode I guess...

      PSS I'm retarded, I just noticed ESB was mentioned, it's just they released it AFTER RTJ for some reason... never mind.
    • They missed the vector arcade version of Empire Strikes Back.

      No, it was mentioned, but after they mentioned the Return Of The Jedi raster graphics game, for some reason.

      I'm not confident that the writer got his timeline correct. I remember seeing ads for Jedi Arena before the The Empire Strikes Back Atari 2600 game was released. I also think the first Star Wars vector game was in 1982 or earlier. 1983 seems kind of late; that was just before the video game crash and I remember the game being out for ove

      • No, it was mentioned, but after they mentioned the Return Of The Jedi raster graphics game, for some reason.

        Because it came out after ROTJ.

        Star Wars - 1983 [klov.com]

        ROTJ - 1984 [klov.com]

        ESB - 1985 [klov.com]

        KLOV is an awesome site. I remember when it first came online and thought - this is where the web is great. I mean, there were text lists of stuff like this on rec.games.video.arcade.collecting, but something like this blows that away.

        • KLOV is an awesome site. I remember when it first came online and thought - this is where the web is great. I mean, there were text lists of stuff like this on rec.games.video.arcade.collecting, but something like this blows that away.

          I've been through KLOV a few times, and I'm still not convinced 1985's the correct date for ESB. This would place it after the 1984 game crash, and I'm pretty certain I saw this game just before, either in Findlay, OH or Sandusky at Cedar Point. Hmmm...


  • Good to know that we won't go more than a few days without a "history" lesson here on Slashdot. I mean, it had been several days since I read the history of the iPod article. At least this history spans more than a couple of years...

    Why don't we have a "Star Wars History Month" anyway? I'd get up and celebrate!

  • Why did X-Wing die? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:02PM (#11106607) Homepage Journal
    I want to know why there isn't a modern day version of "X-Wing vs TIE Fighter"? Think about it. Imagine setting up 4 squadrons of Rebel ships, and 6 squadrons of Imperial ships, and capital ships on both sides....

    Now put in a different person in each ship (multiple people to man guns on capital ships), and use the web.

    Who wouldn't want to play that?!?!
    • X-Wing Alliance. For some reason they didn't pump the title, but it was pretty good. A little old - it was made circa Quake 3, but a solid DirectX game. Let me tell you, 2 teams of TIE-interceptors and TIE-bombers each defending a Corellian Corvette is wicked-cool.

      No piloted-gunners though, except on the Falcon.
      • That and it REQUIRED a joystick. You COULD NOT use a mouse for piloting, and for that reason I really never could get into that game. Every other space/flight sim I'd played previous allowed mouse piloting, and I simply couldn't make the adjustment.

        In all other regards, it was a rather pretty game. Just that fundamental flaw killed it for me.

        • Re:Why did X-Wing die? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Pxtl ( 151020 )
          Hm. You can get a pretty good joystick at Radio Shack for $15 if you don't care about a hat or throttle (not really needed for Alliance). Why don't you pick one up and give it another shot? All the best underdogs of the late '90s were passed over because of joystick oriented play (HardWar, Pysgnosis Lander, many car-based games, etc.).
    • Not exactly sure why X-Wing specifically died, but if you look at the industry there haven't been many great flight sim games in the last few years. Compare that to the time when X-wing came out and flight sims were huge. The current market is now mostly RPG/RTS/FPS
      Jump to lightspeed actually has alot of the feel of X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. There are some large battles, and its fun, though you have to do alot of unfun stuff to get enough credits for a nice ship to really fight.

  • Die, die, die! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:02PM (#11106612) Homepage
    Will somebody kill off that stupid "franchise"? Now that Lucas has made two movies which are generally agreed to suck, it's time to give this thing a decent burial. It's getting to be like "Beverly Hills Cop". "Beverly Hills Cop I" was funny. It went downhill from there. #3 was bad. #5 was so bad it went direct to video. Fortunately, at that point the studio pulled the plug. Better late than never.

    Even Speilberg sometimes blows it. "Jurassic Park III", anyone? That effectively went direct to video, although there was some brief, minimal theatrical release. He had the sense to stop at that point.

    At some point in the sequel business, it's time to give it up.

    Although we'll probably have to endure "Ocean's 13".

    • Re:Die, die, die! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SamSeaborn ( 724276 )
      Even Speilberg sometimes blows it. "Jurassic Park III", anyone? That effectively went direct to video

      No, no! I'll not have that!

      Jurassic Park 3 is a very under-rated movie; an excellent little short and sweet picture.

      The director courageously did a great job with the pteridactyl sequences (which Spielberg didn't include in the first movie because he said they were too hard to film).

      BTW, Spielberg wasn't involved in JP3. But he has ideas of JP4.

      Sam

    • Uh... JP 3 made $181M in the US [imdb.com] alone. Hardly "direct to video."
    • That reminds me, there has never been a movie that dissapointed me more than JP2 did. Sure the editing and cutting down in the LOTR was significant, but it didn't utterly arse up the storyline by removing a number of the significant encounters.

      The kid rolling along the ground inside the safety cage outta the treehouse, i *SO* wanted to see that *AUGH*
    • Huh? I must have missed that. I can't find anything I'd deem a reliable reference to Beverly Hills Cop 4 or 5 being made. (Is this a reference towards Leathal Weapon? That did get 4 flicks made, I would have missed the direct to video 5). IMDB doesn't have any reference to anything past three of Beverly Hills Cop. The only thing I can find via google in reference to it, is circa 2002 a lot of people denying that 4 was going to happen (specifically Eddie Murphy).

      Kirby

  • Where's the 'x-wing' of today? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SamSeaborn ( 724276 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:03PM (#11106620)
    I loved 'x-wing' when it first came out, and I liked 'x-wing vs tie fighter' too (except that the sequel had too many non-movie related ships). I liked that it was a "simulation" rather than an arcade shoot-em -up. Really felt like I was flying a real ship from the movie.

    I'd love an updated version of X-Wing with state-of-the-art graphics and game-play. What is the closest thing to X-Wing out there today?

    Also, I love Call Of Duty. Is there a "Call Of Duty"-type game set in the Star Wars universe?

    Sam

    • For a time, the Descent: Freespace and Freespace 2 filled a gap that the failure of XvT left in me. I was very disappointed that they didn't continue the Freespace series. They really were fun, and had some top-notch graphics for their time!

      I assume Volition, Inc. simply got gobbled up.
      • For a time, the Descent: Freespace and Freespace 2 filled a gap that the failure of XvT left in me. I was very disappointed that they didn't continue the Freespace series. They really were fun, and had some top-notch graphics for their time!

        Freespace II r0xx0rs.

        It was obviously written by someone who practically worshipped X-Wing and Tie Fighter, because the game mechanics are identical. Completely. Oh, everything has different names, but when you get presented with a new weapon that fires fat blue bol

        • The reason I am surprised they never made a Freespace 3 is that there seemed to be an implied story about re-establishing contact with Earth. In the game, the discovery of the alien-made jump node specifically addressed the possibility of building one to return to Earth.

          FS2 ended with the Terran-Vasudan alliance clearly on the defensive. I don't know about you, but to me that tells me that the story is unfinished. There was very little in the way of closure, and in fact, the first thing I thought after
    • That would be Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed - a massive multiplayer game you pay 15 bucks a month to play alone.

    • Re:Where's the 'x-wing' of today? (Score:4, Informative)

      by neurojab ( 15737 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @02:11PM (#11107731)
      I'd love an updated version of X-Wing with state-of-the-art graphics and game-play. What is the closest thing to X-Wing out there today?

      They tried. "Totally games" produced an updated Windows version of Tie Fighter and X-Wing... unfortunately, they "updated" the gameplay a bit too much, and as a result, it totally sucked.

      The DOS version of Tie Fighter may have lacked a bit in the graphics department, but the gameplay was just about perfect. .. Excellent MIDI music that changed according to what was happening on the screen, great controls, a smooth, space-like feeling.

      Honestly, if you liked X-Wing, but haven't played TIE Fighter, I highly recommend you pick up the DOS "Collector's CD-ROM" edition of TIE Fighter. It's an excellent game, and you'll never notice that the graphics aren't that great. I've sucessfully run it under Windows 2000 (with a bit of help from Google). It may work under DosBox in Linux, but I haven't tried lately.

  • Stale Franchises? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by delta_avi_delta ( 813412 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (yhprum.evad)> on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:04PM (#11106643)
    I think part of the problems with games like these is the franchise is now a little stale. The first time I saw the films, I wanted to be an X-wing pilot with all my heart. I read the paperbacks, I payed close attention to the dogfights. When I played X-Wing I was ecstatic - this was a dream come true!

    Similarly the first time I read LOTR, I wanted to be one of the Fellowship, and had there been a game around back then, it would have been great. Likewise with Star Trek.

    But all of these have been flogged to death, there's no magic left, the initial urge has been fulfilled long ago, and that's why it feels like something is missing.
  • I wish there'd be a stretch of at least a year before I see another Star Wars game. Frankly, I'm getting sick of LucasArts pasting the Star Wars license on every genre under the sun...it's getting pathetic. Then they go and cancel the other games they had that weren't Star Wars licenses: Full Throttle 2 and Sam and Max 2. I mean Nintendo milks their Mario franchise too, but they still churn out other really great games at the same time!
    • Frankly, I'm getting sick of LucasArts pasting the Star Wars license on every genre under the sun.

      Note EVERY genre.

      Ewoc-Mon (or Poke-Ewok) -- Gotta catch'em all!
  • The seem to have forgotten a PC game from back in '95 or so. It was Yoda stories. It was a desktop adventure game that never really caught on. They made an Indiana Jones game that was nearly identical.
  • Not all Star Wars computer games were video games. I remember two text-based games in particular. The first, you had a grid that was something like 20x20 and you had to guess where the Death Star would appear on it next, firing on that square. It got tiresome after a while, but it was better than some of the other games around at the time.

    Another Star Wars game was a text-based X-Wing "flight simulator". You got a description and a grid location, and you responded with how you wanted to set the controls.

  • Anyone remember a kid-friendly rinky-dink top-down view game where you played as Luke and went from square screen to square screen picking up things, talking to people, etc?

    I forgot the name of the game. Was it Yoda's stories or something? Couldn't find a mention of it in the story. It's amazing just how many games Star Wars has spawned over the decades.
    • Yoda' Stories was a great game. All the adventures were randomly generated, and they really only took about an hour to complete. Naturally, each adventure tended to repeat variations on particular types of puzzles, so once you stumbled your way through a type of puzzle once, it was a lot easier to take on that type of puzzle the next time. But that was part of the beauty of the game: it wasn't twitch-oriented, it required at least a small modicum of thinking, and, at 45-minutes to an hour per adventure, it

  • X-wing vs Tie Fighter best of all mentioned IMO (Score:4, Interesting)

    by B5_geek ( 638928 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:22PM (#11106933)
    In this era of online-capable = must-have feature, why don't they create an up-to-date version of XvsT ?

    I still play the original, even though it is a crash-tastic and bug-ridden experience on a modern OS, it is still fun when it works.

    OR is this what the MMORPG star-trek world is moving towards? Might that be the end-all/be-all climax to the ST:Galaxies world?

  • They forgot one... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:37PM (#11107177)
    In the silver age timeframe, 1993, they didn't mention "Star Wars Chess" for WIN 3.1. ..oh OK "The Software Toolworks Star Wars Chess" (lucasarts lamely made us use that title because they regretted licensing out the rights...grumble....)
    http://mobygames.com/game/sheet/p,5/gameId,2033/

    It was a damn good 'Battle Chess' beater..52 unique capture animations and shipped on 14 High-Density floppy disks!! Wheeeee
    - ExToolworker

  • I remember.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by huie ( 148646 ) <mhuie@netcom . c om> on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:51PM (#11107392)
    Back at the Second West Coast Computer Faire in San Jose (in 1978 if the web is to be trusted) there was a company making a graphics card for S-100 bus CP/M machines. They had a Star Wars game to demo their product.

    It was a 2-player head-to-head game. One side the Empire, the other side the Rebel Alliance. Each person had his own CRT and joystick controller. The Empier player had three TIE fighters and the death star that they could shoot from, switchable via buttons on the joystick controller. The Rebel Alliance player had four X-wing fighters.

    Obviously, the plot was to either destroy the death star or destroy the rebel base (by blowing up the moon). The players would fly through space and fight each other's fighters and the rebel palyer even had to fly through the trench and try to hit the exhaust port.

    It was a really great game for its time. Too bad it required so much special hardware. And the other problem was that it took a while to play especially at a booth at a convention.

    Funny, I don't remember the company that made it nor the name of the game.

  • Goddamn I hate articles like this. They're just fellating Lucasarts. Consider the following three paragraphs:

    Amidst all of the new innovations and continuing franchises, LucasArts was also looking to inject the Star Wars mythos into every major gaming genre, leaving us with many ambitious yet underwhelming game titles, starting with 1997's Masters of Teras Kasi.

    PC gamers saw Star Wars enter the real-time strategy genre with Rebellion and Force Commander, neither of which saw the success of their closest peers. Each of them seemed to break a little bit too far from the mold and never really seemed to catch on. Underwhelming? Masters of Teras Kasi sucked. Rebellion and Force Commander were steaming piles, some of the worst-reviewed games of the years in which they were released. This kind of pussy-footing continues through the entire article. They're kind to the ungodly awful Rebel Assault games. They barely touch upon the uniformly disappointing slate Episode I games, and focus only on the exception, Racer. They don't mention the massive failure of Rogue Squadron III. The huge disappointments of X-Wing Alliance, Obi-Wan, and Bounty Hunter are barely touched upon, the disastrous launch of Galaxies goes unmentioned, and the worst they can say about this year's Battlefront is that it's "slightly unbalanced." The incredibly poor level design of Jedi Knight II goes unmentioned.

    Hey, UGO: Get off your knees, wipe off your face, and show a little dignity. The fact of the matter is, there've been tons of Star Wars licensed titles in the last two decades, and only a dozen or so of these have been any good. Instead of writing some fluff piece advertising the days of yore to generate hype for unreleased product, you had the opportunity to discuss how one of the greatest gaming licenses in history has been consistently squandered on mediocre games.

    • I remember reading an article where the Lucasarts president said something along the lines of Force Commander being too ahead of the times for anyone to like it yet. So, apparently we should all be playing Force Commander...right....about.....NOW.
  • I didn't see mention of Star Wars Arcade [gamefaqs.com] for the Sega Genesis 32X or Star Wars Trilogy Arcade [klov.com], the Sega arcade game. The former was pretty forgettable, but I recall seeing someone playing the latter almost every time I saw it in an arcade. May not have been any good, but people were interested in it, if simply because it had a huge 50" screen and Star Wars music.
  • anybody remember the ROTJ arcade game that you had to pilot the M. Falcon through the second deathstar to beat? I only ever saw it one place, but it was pretty good. -t

  • In defense of Obi-Wan (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BrodeCo ( 155149 ) *
    Obi-Wan gets a cold shoulder in this article, "The former allowed you to play as the title character." I guess that's all they could come up with. The game tends to be dissed by players, as well. I don't get it.

    Personally, I enjoyed the hell out of this game. You start out with a full battery of Jedi powers-- I don't want to pay $60 for a game, sit down, and go through the boring part of the characters' lives. My gamer friends tell me about "Jedi Academy" as if I'm supposed to be excited that I can train

  • Apple ][e Game (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @03:29PM (#11108719) Journal
    I recall playing that old apple ][e text based star wars game where you had to wander around the Death Star trying to deactivate the tractor beam. I had a copy that someone had hacked so that whenever darth vader appeared, he called you a 'faggot'.

    It was pretty special.
  • There was a Battle Chess like DOS game themed with Starwars characters.

    It was StarWars Chess.

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