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Star Wars has spawned over one hundred computer and video games, which comes of no surprise since the theatrical release of the original trilogy nearly coincided with the advent of home consoles. While only a few are based on movie material, the remaining games are heavily influenced by the expanded universe and occasionally linked to the movies.
Early history
The first games based on the franchise were released on the Atari 2600, the very first, The Empire Strikes Back (1982), the player drove a snowspeeder during the Battle of Hoth, destroying AT-AT walkers. While simplistic, the game captured the essence of the movie as well as technology allowed. Several other games appeared, like Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle (1982), where the player controlled the Millennium Falcon in a mission to destroy the second Death Star, and Jedi Arena (1983), the first game to attempt to simulate a lightsaber battle (in this case, clearly inspired by the A New Hope scene, where Luke Skywalker trains with a seeker). More significantly in 1983, Star Wars the arcade game was released by Atari based on A New Hope. In this game, featuring magnificent color vector graphics and the first ever digitized speech from a film, the player enters the seat of Luke's Red Five X-Wing fighter and battles waves of TIE fighters led by Darth Vader, weaves through towers across the surface of the Death Star and plummets through the Battle Station's trench in an attempt to destroy it.
Due to the video game crash of 1983, which temporarily killed the home console market, no further games based on the franchise were released until 1991, when the platformer Star Wars was released for both the NES and Game Boy, and one year later, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back reused the engine with the plotline of the fifth episode of the saga. It would be still in 1992 that Super Star Wars was released for the SNES (the Super prefix was often used to denote remakes of 8-bit games for the 16-bit "Super" Nintendo system.), followed by the remaining games in the trilogy: Super Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back (1993) and Super Star Wars: Return of Jedi (1994).
Expansion of the franchise
At the start of the 1990s, the Star Wars franchise began to move away from the official films and began to focus more on the expanded universe. The first, X-Wing, released in 1992, started the X-wing computer game series, which would prove itself to be one of the most popular space flight/combat simulators series ever. X-Wing was followed by several sequels and expansions. Other titles such as Software Toolworks' Star Wars Chess were published or licensed by LucasArts, who also used the first "multimedia explosion" to release Rebel Assault (1993), which used FMV and photos extensively.
However, the first step towards modern games was done with Dark Forces, a 1995 first-person shooter that put the player in the role of Kyle Katarn. The 1996 Nintendo 64 title Shadows of the Empire (video game) was part of a LucasArts attempt to create a story between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of Jedi, putting the player in control of mercenary Dash Rendar. Shadows of the Empire featured fan-favorite parts from the Super Star Wars line, such as another reanactment of the Battle of Hoth, driving a snowspeeder and tying a cable around AT-ATs legs. After the Special Edition original trilogy re-release in 1997, LucasArts published two other novelty titles, Yoda Stories and Star Wars Monopoly, sequels Dark Forces II and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, and a beat'em up Star Wars themed game, Masters of Teräs Käsi.
As The Phantom Menace release approached, dozens of licensed titles appeared, from the praised expansion to Jedi Knight, Mysteries of the Sith and the first game in the Rogue Squadron and even educational titles, the market was flooded with several games, most of them of questionable quality.
The saga continues
After the release of Episode I in theaters in 1999 an onslaught of games from the prequel trilogy began to be released for most major platforms. The first, Episode I Racer, based on the podracing sequence in movie, managed to sell well due to the hype surrounding the return of one of the most popular movie series ever. Others including Battle for Naboo and Episode I: Jedi Power Battles were released but with little success.the first stratigic game in the star wars expanded universe was tittled Rebellion and broken new ground in that it incorperated ships and planets not found in the original canon. ships like the Rebel Assult Frigate and the Bulwack Cruiser. but for al lit's ground breaking new look it was not as successful as would have been hoped.The second strategic title, Force Commander was also released, but failed to keep up with other RTS games, since it was more focused on battling (no resource gathering) and used a primitive 3D engine.
In 2002, Attack of the Clones premiered in theaters and another wave of Star Wars based games, including The Clone Wars, Racer Revenge, and Bounty Hunter were released this time focusing on events and characters from Attack of the Clones such as bounty hunter Jango Fett and the Clone Wars.
Kotorbox.jpg|right|185px|thumb|right| Knights of the Old Republic is one of the most critically acclaimed Star Wars games, winning top "game of the year" honors in 2003.]] Also in 2002, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast was released, and gave players the first chance to experience advanced lightsaber duels, and it also detached itself from the usual idea of movie tie-ins, however with very limited quality. A third RTS game, with a much more conventional approach to the genre's norms and using the The Age of Kings engine, Galactic Battlegrounds offered a better alternative to those seeking strategy in the Star Wars universe. One year later, the last game in the Jedi Knight series, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy was released as well as Knights of the Old Republic, a BioWare RPG that debuted on the Xbox and PC. Knights was critically acclaimed even winning "Game of the Year" at the Game Developers Choice Awards (along with many other critics ) in 2003. The first MMORPG, titled Galaxies was also released in 2003 and was subsequently followed in 2004 by its first expansion Jump to Lightspeed.
Now that Revenge of the Sith has come to pass, Battlefront, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (both in 2004), Republic Commando, Star Wars Battlefront II, and The Video Game (2005) were released. Three more games, Galaxies#Rage of the Wookiees (a second expansion to Galaxies), and Revenge of the Sith (video game) (action) were also released close to the premiere of the third movie, with various degrees of success.
Empire at War (another RTS), was released on the PC February 16, 2006. A sequel to Lego Star Wars, The Original Trilogy, is also in production.
Star Wars 2007 (Working Title) is a concept (which is being produced as a game) from LucasArts, in which the game uses next-gen technology to let a Jedi really use his powers, by, for instance, using Force Push to push dozens of Stormtroopers. More information on this can be found at this page.
See also
External links
- LucasArts
- Star Wars group in MobyGames
- UGO article on the history of SW games
- Star Wars Games
- GAME CHAMBER: Argentine Star Wars Video Games related site (in Spanish)
"Star Wars computer and video games"