Ex Games: My Lifelong Quest For The Perfect Star Wars Game

It was 1983. My downstairs neighbor had an Atari 2600 and I experienced my first Star Wars console video game: The Empire Strikes Back, which was based solely on The Battle of Hoth sequence from the movie of the same name. You got to control a little five pixel Snowspeeder in which you had to shoot a small flashing spot on the back of an ATAT until (47 shots later) it exploded. And then you got to do that again until you got bored. Hey, it was better than that E.T. game.

How we rolled in the '80's.

The video game market crashed shortly after that. And Star Wars didn't make another home video game appearance until the Nintendo Entertainment System. I missed it on the NES but in the early '90's, I got into Super Star Wars and it's sequels on the Super Nintendo. These games were a much more fully realized Star Wars experience. Like many SNES games, the Super Star Wars games had incredible stereo sound. Who can forget the first time hearing the opening Star Wars theme blaring out at your from a frakkin' video game.


The games were fun, although fiendishly difficult. And being video games, they stray from the plots of the movies to make them more action-packed. Who knew a giant lava monster lived inside the Jawa Sandcrawler?

From Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

In the mid 1990's Star Wars was gearing up for a major comeback with the re-release of the movies and the eventual start of the new trilogy. All of that began, however, with a major multimedia project called Shadows of the Empire, an interquel that took place between Empire and Return of the Jedi. While there was no Shadows of the Empire movie, there were action figures, a sound track, comics, a novel and a video game on Nintendo's snazzy new console, the Nintendo 64. Shadows promised the most immersive Star Wars video game experience to date, and it was the full reason I bought a Nintendo 64 console. And it was the first 3D video game that did not make me want to puke.

First Level of Shadow of the Empire.

Shadows of the Empire was primarily a 3rd person shooter that allowed you to run around and play in several famous Star Wars environments, such as Hoth's Echo Base. Dash Rendar? Is that your boy? No? Okay

You even had run ins with several infamous characters such as Boba Fett and IG-88, as well as Luke, Leia and Lando. The game also ,featured aerial and space battles that paved the way for games like the Rogue Squadron series and ultimately, the Battlefront games. In the late 90's and 2000's, Star Wars video games diversified into every imaginable genre: first-person shooters, role playing games, racing games, real time strategy games. There was even this thing:




But one thing was sorely missing: Jedi.

As much fun as it was to shoot Stormtroopers and fly around in ships and endlessly replay the Battle of Hoth in different games, the Holy Grail of the Star Wars gaming is to play as a Jedi. With the release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace and its emphasis on the Jedi characters, more and more games tried to serve up an authentic Jedi experience. But most of these weren't very good. Jedi Power Battles for the Playstation was a fun adaptation of The Phantom Manace but it was very much a throwback to the side scrolling arcade-style games of the '80's.

Jedi Power Battles. Fun two-person co-op.

Star Wars: Obi Wan for the Xbox was a noble effort and let you swing your lightsaber around and use some force powers but ultimately was not a very good game. The really goofy Ewan MacGregor impression did not help either. See video below.



The Dark Forces I and Jedi Knight games evolved from the PC and made their way toe the Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube in 2001 in the form of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, arguably one of the greatest Star Wars games ever released. It has a great story, and gameplay that lets you use a whole suite of force powers as well as your trusty lightsaber. There is very little in this world that is more fun than force-pushing Stormtroopers off a ledge. It was followed by Jedi Academy which had a less satisfying single player game but robust multiplayer that allowed customization and play on Xbox Live.

Kyle Katarn in Jedi Outcast. I was happy to be able to play a character named Kyle in a game.

The ultimate Star Wars video game experience was released last year in the form of The Force Unleashed, which featured an amazing original Star Wars story set between the trilogies, fantastic graphics and fun gameplay. The protagonist, Starkiller, uses wildly over-the-top force powers in secret service to his master, Darth Vader.




The game is set to be rereleased on November 3rd, with bonus content such as a few continuity defying missions set in a Vader-less Star Wars and Empire timeframe.

Starkiller, fryin some suckas up in The Force Unleashed.