back to article Ten... Star Wars videogame classics

Star Wars - there was no 'A New Hope' or 'Episode IV' back then - shot onto cinema screens on 25 May 1977, which means the franchise celebrates its 35th birthday today. A day for celebration, then, that might be enough of an excuse for you to revisit our Star Wars gift guide and snap up some Tatooine tat, much to the dismay of …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Llyander
    FAIL

    No love for SW: Knights of the Old Republic?

    1. Glyn 2
      Angel

      Indeed

      This is still the best FPS ever, level design, story, weapon progression, great protagonist, everything you want from a game.

      The Mandolorian add on was awesome fun too

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Devil

      Screw the knights

      No Love for:

      1. Tie Fighter - with all due respect the Imperial incarnation of the original X-wing classic was way better than the rebel one. You should not underestimate the power of the dark side (especially if you manage 60k point scores from some of the more complex missions). In fact, after the original Tie Fighter the Tie Fighter vs X-wing installment came as "downer" (though in a hindsight I simply did not have a proper machine to play it).

      2. Rebellion. One of the most complex RTS-es ever (if played properly at max complexity or human against human). I still play it from time to time in a virtualbox on an XP which I keep only for that purpose (Tactical mode unfortunately breaks under Wine). Compared to that Galactic Battlegrounds was an outright joke.

      1. leexgx

        Episode I: pod Racer

        Episode I: pod Racer

        i loved that game how you could go at full speed around corners side ways and some big jumps as well but plenty ways to mess up and only end up with one engine if you clipped an wall or corner

        to bad the lame coders locked it so you can only play it on an video card below Nvidia MX4 card (something like that )and drivers that are 2 numbers long did not work with the 100 Nvidia drivers

      2. Spotfist
        WTF?

        Re: Screw the knights

        Total agree, Tie Fighter was far better than X-wing. X-wing always made it feel like it was you and your co-pilot against an entire army of Tie's whilest in Tie Fighter that was you!

        Also no mention of Battlefront???? Battlefront 2 was the best starwars game ever! It had everything!!! There is nothing better than taking out an entire army with an AT-AT walker!

  2. Chad H.

    Shadows of the Empire

    Why no Shadows of the Empire, if only for being able to play the Battle of Hoth in a snowspeeder...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Shadows of the Empire

      > if only for being able to play the Battle of Hoth in a snowspeeder...

      Unfortunately that was the only good bit....

  3. Richard 81

    Battlegrounds was rubbish. It was just an unimaginative mod for Age of Empires, which was already 4 years old. For goodness sake, Homeworld came out two years before Battlegrounds.

  4. Paul Read

    TIE Fighter turned me to the Dark Side

    X-Wing was cool, but flying a TIE Fighter was an epiphany. It turned me to the Emperor's side. Long Live Palpatine (and his clones)

    1. regadpellagru
      Thumb Up

      Re: TIE Fighter turned me to the Dark Side

      Yeah, indeed, Tie Fighter >> X-Wing.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > X-Wing was one of the more exciting games out there for Star Wars fans and often ranks as the finest.

    X-Wing better than Tie Fighter? Surely some mistake....

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. fandom

      Nope, not a mistake.

      Definitely not.

  6. ArmyCrow
    Unhappy

    Never understood...

    why there were never any further outings for the space flight sim Star Wars games after, I think, Rebel Alliance. I used to love the dogfights in X-Wing and Tie Fighter games and the stories were usually pretty solid, too. Definitely a place for them in the marketplace these days.

    1. regadpellagru
      Facepalm

      Re: Never understood...

      > why there were never any further outings for the space flight sim Star Wars games after, I think, > Rebel Alliance. I used to love the dogfights in X-Wing and Tie Fighter games and the stories

      > were usually pretty solid, too. Definitely a place for them in the marketplace these days.

      Because, I think, rebel Alliance is where Lucas Arts began to screw up very badly.

      It was full of bugs and missions that couldn't complete, geez, what a load of bollocks,

      even after the last patch. I still have it, but this was the last Lucas Arts product I ever purchased.

      Company went straight to the toilet drain as far as I'm concerned, after that terrible game.

      Tie Fighter was the last one really good from Lucas Arts, indeed superior to X-Wing.

      Lucas Arts is history now, good history, but history.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Never understood...

        There were missions which would not complete in both Tie Fighter and X-wing.

        If you were good enough to knock out some of the key mainline ships (IIRC the STD Invincible in X-Wing) on one of the recon or early missions there was no way to complete the campaign because the ship was not there for the key mission against it. Ditto for one of the frigates.

        If memory serves me right there was a calamari cruiser annoyance somewhere in Tie Fighter that had the same problem.

        Now what level of skill, patience and crazyness it takes to take out an escorted imperial star destroyer all alone in a X-Wing (or god forbid Y-Wing) to trigger the bug.... That is another story...

        1. tfewster

          Re: Never understood...

          Never hit that bug - I must have destroyed the so-called Invincible half a dozen times in the same storyline.

          The STD Badi Dea was a bit tougher - Relentless waves of TFs, TDs & TBs. If you destroyed 5 out the 6 of each squad, the last would suicide so a new wave could spawn.

          And one STD would hyperspace out once you knocked its shield generators down. Tried it with a Y-Wing, but never had time to disable it with Ions

          Still, 16 out of 18 (I think) ain't bad.

          But Tie Fighter bored me. Too much defending stupid allies, useless wingmen, not enough shooting everything that moves.

    2. wheel

      Re: Never understood...

      Starfighter and Jedi Starfighter were released subsequently. Jedi Starfighter was good fun, as you could blow up enemies with force lightning. (Of course, both were set during the prequels.)

  7. Gordon861

    SWG

    What no Star Wars Galaxies, that was actually a great game before Sony/Lucas screwed us all over?

    Good timing though as the SWG Emulator Project is just launching it's Alpha phase of the code, most of the basic game is back, a few professions are still missing and balance is being tweaked. But the game is still very playable and getting 1000 people online most nights now.

    Visit swgemu.com to come back to the game again.

    1. Neil B
      FAIL

      Re: SWG

      Yeah, good luck not getting sued out of existence on *that* one.

      1. Gordon861

        Re: SWG

        There have already been discussions with Sony/LA about that and they truth is that as long as they are not charging for it or making money from it they will be left alone.

        The server code has been all rewritten from the ground up and you need your own set of disks to install the game.

  8. Jason Hindle

    Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600

    The simplicity of this title actually made it quite addictive. As for the pod racing game being based on events in the film, I think you will find the events in the film were actually designed around making money from a racing game. Loves money, the Lucas does!

    1. Hoagiebot
      Thumb Up

      Re: Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600

      I second your praise for "Empire Strikes Back" on the Atari VCS (2600). I still distinctly remember begging my mother to buy me that game when I first saw it on a "clearance" shelf at a Sears outlet store back in the 1980's. To my father's dismay my mother caved in and bought it for me, and it became one of my all-time favorite games for that console. Man, I played the heck out of that game while I was growing up! Some of my friends and I were also extremely addicted to X-Wing for MS-DOS and its two expansion packs, "Imperial Pursuit" and "B-Wing." And I can't even tell you how many quarters I pumped into the Atari Star Wars arcade game over the years, especially once I discovered that there was one that was located at the local late-night Mexican restaurant that was a couple blocks from my college dorm room!

      Yeah, Star Wars was the best, at least until the late 1990's came and George Lucas decided that he was going to create "special" editions, prequels, and generally just screw with everything to drain the pockets of us fans. I wouldn't have minded so much if he had created some *good* movies from which to do it with, but alas we got Greedo shooting first and Episodes I through III. *sigh*

      1. Irongut

        Re: Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600

        Yup one of the best titles for the Atari 2600. I spent many an hour playing it as a child and still get it out of the back of the cupboard and play it occasionally.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600

          Great game and it also inspired Jeff Minter to produce 'Attack of the Mutant Camels' which was even better.

          1. Perspyro
            Thumb Up

            Re: Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 2600

            Attack of the Mutant Camels was brilliant!

  9. Keller Drozdick
    Thumb Up

    Another

    I definitely want to second (sixth?) the comments on Tie Fighter, whihc improved on the already good X-Wing, but what about Dark Forces: Jedi Knight? admittedly not the first FPS for Star Wars, but a terriffic game, goof FPS, getting to properly wield a lightsaber AND force powers for the first time, choice of light and dark paths throughout the game, etc. etc.

  10. Caff

    Shocked that lucas hasn't brought out a pod racer sequal yet, waiting on the 3D re-release of the film I would guess?

    1. CADmonkey
      Unhappy

      C'mon, c'mon....it's working!

      My biggest gripe about XP & Win 7 x64 is no more podracing for me. Could not get it to work, NMWID.

      1. Durdy

        Re: C'mon, c'mon....it's working!

        I'm pretty sure it will work under newer OS's.

        I absolutely loved this game back in the day, I seem to remember abyss being a particular PITA...

        And I think there was a sequel, but it was only available on PS2. It was called racer revenge.

  11. breakfast Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    In Dark Forces 2 you had a light sabre...

    The automatic blocking of enemy blasts with the lightsabre was supercool- one of the only games I went back and played through again. I always wanted to try the dark side but the moment I got my light sabre I knew it was time to be a hero.

  12. Avatar of They
    Thumb Up

    Some good names missed.

    Lego Star Was is just awesome and I am 36. Has had me buy every lego game going and there are now a lot, can't wait for LOTR.

    But Empires at War? Knights of the Old Republic.

    Battlefront as well was okay - bit odd at times. Republic commando was a much better (if shorter game)

    And I am glad you didn't mention force commander. That was awful.

    And there was that planet busting one which was vastly too complicated but awesome called start wars supremacy (rebellion in the states)

    1. TakeTheSkyRoad

      Re: Some good names missed.

      I still dabble with Star Wars Supremacy sometimes, runs fine on my windows 7 tablet pc though it needs the mouse really. Epic and insanely complicated strategy ? Yes please :)

  13. Justin 9
    WTF?

    NO BAttlefront

    Star wars battle front gameplay was awesome.

  14. Daz555

    Original 83 arcade is the number 1. After that it has to be TIE Fighter for me - much better than X-Wing.

  15. Tom 38
    Unhappy

    No space for Jedi Knight 2?

  16. James 51

    Knights of the old republic is fantastic. It wasn't till mass effect that I played a game that came close.

    As amazing as x-wing was, tie fighter was the better game.

  17. Neil B
    Thumb Up

    And... another vote for TIE Fighter over X-Wing, but I guess the original deserves most of the credit. TIE Fighter was just an *incredible* experience, and Lucasarts would do very well to create another game in that genre.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Tie Fighter?

      I *loved* X-Wing!

      Does TF run on Win7 by any chance...? Find on eBay I think I might...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Tie Fighter?

        A bit of a faff, but the instructions here seem to work fine.

        1. stucs201

          No Joy...

          ...stick. Dammit, I'm sure you used to be able to play the DOS version using the keyboard (badly). Only joystick I have is a gameport one, which doesn't fit anymore. I suppose I could get the old Athlon out of the loft and plug it into that instead.

  18. Tom_

    Super Star Wars

    I loved Super Star Wars on the SNES. It looked great and sounded amazing.

  19. graeme leggett Silver badge

    No Tie Fighter?

    Same type of gameplay as X-wing but with better graphics, and you fly the TIE fighters and be evil.

    Thumbs up to Lego Star Wars - Classic trilogy very good.

    My son (7) enjoys Battlegrounds, he's not completing scenarios but he is enjoying it.

  20. Jediben
    Thumb Up

    Multiplayer!

    I preferred X-Wing Vs TIE Fighter - all the joy of X-Wing and TIE Fighter, but with a friend to fly in formation and inspect freighters with. I remember firing up XVTED when I was a nipper and constructing massive battles to play. Given that it only allowed 64 ships in the map at once, some were so large that they would always play randomly depnding on which ships died first. Plus the Balance of Power introduced the Super Star Destroyer...

  21. Irongut
    Thumb Down

    So many great games missing

    Dark Forces 2, Jedi Knight, Kedi Academy, Empire at War, KOTR, etc yet you include crap like Galactic Battlegrounds and Rebel Assault?!?!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Return of the Jedi

    Wasn't there an Arcade "cabinet" version of this game, where you say straddled a speeder bike. Or did I imagine that from my youth?

    1. Stuart Elliott

      Re: Return of the Jedi

      Nope, you're right, and it was bloody impossible. :)

      1. wheel

        Re: Return of the Jedi

        Yes. And in the last level you piloted the Millennium Falcon through the Death Star. Same mechanics as the speeder bike, though. And still bloody impossible.

  23. phil mcracken
    Alert

    X-Wing Alliance seems to have been left out as well...

    The very best of X-Wing and TIE Fighter Collectors CDs, albeit with a massive graphical facelift and a pretty good story of it's own..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: X-Wing Alliance seems to have been left out as well...

      Damn! You beat me by seconds!

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I always loved X-Wing: Alliance... The story was pretty good, but being able to fly so many different craft in multiplayer, including the Millenium Falcon, was awesome... Plus there were a lot of mods and add-ons created, including better textures etc...

  25. jacobbe
    Thumb Up

    X-Wing (1993)

    Best £30 I ever spent on a set of floppy disks!

  26. Pahhh

    Good round up

    Thinks its a pretty good round up. I do think KoTR should have made the list as a lot of you commented.

    Pleased to see a mention of Star Wars Galaxy (SWG) by another poster which actually was a fantastic game until they decided to dumb it down and make it like WOW. It had a few issues (like medic + anything was too powerful) but it really didnt matter.

    My son is a Star Wars fan from early years. At the age of around 6 he was playing Battleground which to this day still brings a smile on my face.

    Empire Strikes back also brings back fond memories. Not that actual game but Jeff Minter's parody game, "Revenge of the Mutant Camels" on the C64.

    I see they omitted the other Star Wars arcade game, "Return of the Jedi". Actually its fine they left it out as it was pants.

  27. Stuart Elliott

    XWing.. Hmm

    Nope, whilst XWing was good, and Tiefighter was great, I still preferred Xwing vs Tiefighter.

    1. david wilkes

      Re: XWing.. Hmm

      You haven't lived until you've notched up 100 hrs of X-Wing vs Predator

  28. 1Rafayal

    Consternation Alert!!!

    No mention of the classic Star Wars Arcade for the Sega 32X???

    Really?

  29. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Devil

    sorry but TIE fighter

    was the best

    Lets face it, being good is ok, but being evil was far more fun

  30. lemmac

    jedi knight 2

    oh yeah!

  31. bofkentucky

    Rebellion/Supremacy

    There was a game.

  32. Mectron

    Remake needed

    they need to remake X-wing. it is the best star wars game EVERY MADE PERIOD. not other game come event close.

    1. Bad Beaver
      Thumb Up

      Re: Remake needed

      I second this. Just imagine what could be done with it today. Wow.

  33. Ian 55
    Trollface

    Most of that list is pretty crap

    But as the same could be said about the films, I suppose that's realism for you.

  34. Bad Beaver
    Go

    Shaking the house with the thump of my ion guns

    I cannot begin to imagine how much of my precious youth I poured into X-Wing and its expansion packs. It must amount to months. Several joysticks were broken in the process. Easily one of the best PC-Games ever. Only Wing Commander Privateer could finally lure us away from it.

    Then you had to scrape together your last pennies to get the fastest CD-ROM you could afford for Rebel Assault – which meant double, triple or quad speed and actually made a hell of a difference.

    I also liked Return of the Jedi for Amiga, although it had shoddy graphics and was ultra repetetive. But: you got to ride a speederbike.

  35. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    Definitely needs some Dark Forces 2 : Jedi Knight loving..

    It's so good a game I've played it numerous times and installed the high resolution models and texture pack.

    At the time Dark Forces was a great game and was one of the last Lucasarts games to feature iMuse (the musical score that adapted to the game action) but Jedi Knight's game design was awesome. It also had a light sabre which emitted light - Jedi Knight Outcast looked an awful lot better, but the engine couldn't support held light sources, and the level design wasn't as good (have never finished it, mind, I fail every time Luke Skywalker shows up).

    KOTOR is also fantastic and should definitely have been included.

    I'm not sure if it merits inclusion, but the Gamecube had a few decent Star Wars games. They're a bit hard though.

  36. WonkoTheSane
    Mushroom

    Original Arcade game protip

    5000 bonus points for NOT shooting whilst flying down the trench.

  37. h3

    The best is Knights of the Old Republic (Not the MMO)

    KOTOR 2 could have been so much better (You can mod it to be mostly finished now) I would have been really happy if they churned out more of the same with the same frequency as stuff like Call of Duty.

    Dark Forces 2 : Jedi Knight / Jedi Academy was allot better than the first one.

    Jedi Power Battles on the Dreamcast was great 2 player.

    The Star Wars game I ever played was :

    Return of the Jedi on the BBC Micro - I think I played it before I had even seen the films.

    (I had not seen the Arcade game either).

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No mention of the Battlefront games?

    OK, so they'd probably have the purists frothing at the knees, but any game that lets you play as an Imperial Sniper and award points for capping Ewoks deserves a mention :-)

  39. A. Lewis
    Thumb Up

    X-wing!

    *nerdgasm*

    I loved that game. I think it was my first proper gaming addiction. Sure, other games had caught my interest and made me play them to death, but x-wing was the first game that occupied my mind whenever I wasn't playing it.

  40. Graham Bartlett

    Yay the original

    I *loved* the Star Wars vector-graphics one. It generally cost more though, bcos it was a booth and not a stand-one. Until it got a bit old though, and then most arcades moved it to somewhere down the back and dropped the price, at which point it became a total bargain.

    Also X-Wing consumed far more time of my time than was sensible when I was at uni.

    Shame they didn't mention any of the Doom WADs/mods though. Some of those were pretty cool.

  41. Outamyhead

    Hmm no mention of Jedi Knight II, methinks this reporter hasn't got a complete SW game collection, although the original RoTJ, and ESB games are almost as rare as rocking horse poo.

    Battlefront II was okay but not that great, Republic Commando was better and didn't require vehicles or classes to get an objective completed (needed a heck of a lot of ammo though).

    X-wing was good and it was my first PC game, but Tie Fighter was better.

  42. ducatis'r us

    update?

    I'd go with Jedi Knight Dark forces II, and its bolt on Mysteries of the Sith. I was off work recovering from a big operation and I spent weeks playing these. I still get nightmares on the MOTS level where you had to swim underwater for what seemed, and usually was, an impossible length of time. Of course it got easier when i found the cheats. One of the best things about it was that you really had to think about how to solve things.

    OTOH Battle for Naboo which no-one has mentioned was absolutely dreadful.

    Dear Lucas Arts I would pay for an updated Dark Forces with modern graphics quality.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like