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History of Star Wars Video Games
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.'"
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.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
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 find it difficult to find something original.
just a web application developer and instructor in Toronto, ON Canada
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.
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?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I know! The original Star Wars vector arcade game was loads of fun for its time, but the trilogy game actually made you feel like you were in the movie! How could you *NOT* get goosebumps when you are flying through the trench trying to destroy the death star?
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
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.
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.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
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 as a Jedi before I can play. I've never been watching a movie's training montage (gonna need a montage) and thought "wow, all of that grueling, mundane training-- it would be so great if I could go through that!"
Obi-Wan for Xbox had a training section, but it was just to teach you how to play the game-- if you know the controls, you can sit down and your character is already powered-up and able to do everything. This is more useful to me. I'd play Obi-Wan 2, 3, or 4-- but they're not coming.
I'm not an RPG guy. I don't get off on the KOTOR (or FF, etc) "attack, wait 5 seconds, see if it worked, use special item, attack" method. I want more games where you move the thumbstick and the lightsaber either kills the guy or you have to start over again. The strategy and complex plot make up for my distaste for this interface.
Obi-Wan was pretty buggy in some places, (I remember doing Jedi acrobatics halfway through a poorly-rendered wall just to crack up my housemate), and it didn't have half as many levels as I expected at the time, but it offered what I look for in video games-- and it wasn't well-received. It was basically Star Wars Mario Jedi, or Obi-Bandicoot, with platforms and forced paths through most levels. I haven't seen anything like it in the Star Wars games since, starting out at the high level of power and once you learn how to control the character, being challenged by levels and villains instead of game mechanics and building up powers & items. I just want to sit down for a half-hour, and be able to come back and have a little fun next week too.
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.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
But the levels in Jedi Knight were absolutely epic in scope. It remains to date a paragon of excellent level design. Using a comparatively primitive engine, LA did a lot with a little--and it showed on every level. The dialogue and Kyle's wise-cracking comments (cinematics for instance were actually done using real actors) made for a totally abosrbing Star Wars experience, moreover with a completely original plot, not just a rehashed first person shooter with a lightsaber and a brand name stuck on.
One of the earliest games where you actually got to play a Jedi and use a lightsaber, (holy cow! this is so cool, cried out all my SW fan genes) it really embodied the sort of standards LA set for itself with other games like Grim Fandango or X-wing / TIE Fighter or any of the other titles that had previously made the name "Lucasarts" synonymous with quality. Sorry about the rant, but for anyone who thinks JO or, god forbid, JA is the pinnacle of Star Wars FPSing, do yourself a favor and pick up Jedi Knight for $10, it's worth it.
P.S. -- came out during the dark age of the mid nineties. it wasn't all bad.