Star Wars games
A thread about the multitude of Star Wars games out there (both video games, tabletops and others)! Which ones do you like? Which ones deserve to join Alderaan as dust floating in the endless emptiness of space?
My earliest memories of Star Wars games comes from Rebel Assault and Dark Forces in the early 90s. As well as Return of the Jedi on Game boy. Though Jedi Outcast was the first to really impress me, what with the whole lightsaber mechanics in that game.
And then there's Knights of the old republic of course...
My earliest memories of Star Wars games comes from Rebel Assault and Dark Forces in the early 90s. As well as Return of the Jedi on Game boy. Though Jedi Outcast was the first to really impress me, what with the whole lightsaber mechanics in that game.
And then there's Knights of the old republic of course...
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I've got a whole collection of Star Wars games on Steam... Maybe I should go and try and finish some of them.
The only major non video game that comes to mind is the Star Wars trading card game. That was pretty dope but I never really learned to play. I just collected them. It would be great to see another Star Wars card game, digital or otherwise, become popular once more.
Yoda Stories on the Gameboy was surprisingly fun for such a simple game. I played that one when I was a kid, I recently tried the PC version but it just didn't hit that same sweet spot... Nostalgia goggles perhaps.
I also played Pit Droids when I was a kid, that was fun as hell.
Empire at War, along with its sequel, is an amazing RTS. I cannot overstate this, it is the SW RTS. Great and fun gameplay, good campaigns. Please try it if you haven't. Be aware though that the ground gameplay is a bit lackluster, but the space part more than makes up for it.
Galactic Battlegrounds is pretty much Age of Empires with Star Wars skins over it. It's decent enough, but Empire at War blows it away completely.
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is a fun little game. Decent story and gameplay. I only played it once and probably won't ever touch it again, but I don't regret it.
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast never finished this one, got bored. I'm not a fan of FPS so that's not necessarily the games fault.
I currently play Galaxy of Heroes on Android. I'm usually not a fan of mobile games but this one managed to hold my attention. It's a nice game.
Aaaaaand that brings us to... ...the best Star Wars games ever made, and I'd say they're right up there on the list of my favourite games of all time.
But I'll leave my opinion on KOTOR 1 and 2 for later.
The first Star Wars computer games I played were X-Wing and TIE Fighter.
I think I picked up most or all of the LucasArts SW games through various GOG sales, but the ones above are the ones I tend to replay.
What's the name of the game, pretty sure it was SNES where,
First you had to race across the desert to a sandpeople's vehicle
Then have to work your way up, level by level.
You had "power ups" you could collect and get a special light sabre attack.
Loved that game, so hard.
And KOTOR of course.
The dark horse for me is Episode 1 Pod Racer on N64. The N64 was a fantastic console for racing regardless, but I swear to god this game is fantastic. The tracks, planets and characters are all diverse and well-balanced.
OH anyone play Jedi Power Battles on the PS1? That was a lot of fun with a friend.
On the Atari!
I had so much fun with Jedi Knight 2. If you watched 2 people duel, who were really good and knew what they were doing, it did look a lot like the movies. Jedi Academy was fun too, but the dual wielding and double bladed sabers kind of unbalanced things and made the multiplayer less fun for me.
The KOTOR games were loads of fun too. Atton Rand is still one of my favorite star wars characters ever. They set you up to expect he's the Han Solo scoundrel character of the game, but his background is way darker.
The Force Unleashed was great because of the way you could use the force with your environment, which is something I had always missed in Star Wars games before. That system could use a lot of polishing. but it was awesome to be able to rip stuff off walls and throw at your enemies.
As much I hated how they ruined the saber dueling in Academy, I did have a lot of fun with 2 of the multiplayer modes. Siege mode was a lot of fun, and let me be a storm trooper that could slaughter all the Jedi. There was another mode that had 2 weaker jedi battling one more powerful jedi for some interesting 3 person MP.
Did the PC port of Force Unleashed ever get fixed? I don't use WASD, so I remapped all the keys, but the game was still telling me to press the old keys, which since I had remapped them, wouldn't do what it was telling me to do. So I just said nope, and never played it again.
I only played Force unleashed on Xbox and PS2. The PS2 port was interesting in that it was severely limited compared to other versions but tried to compensate by adding several new levels.
It also required rebooting the machine because it was programmed in Apple's Integer Basic instead of the Applesoft (Microsoft) BASIC that shipped in the Apple ][+ ROMs.
I also played the original West End Games Star Wars RPG in high school. That was a lot of fun.
http://www.starwarstimeline.net/Westendgames.htm
Best flightsim is the old Tie Fighter. Back then I didn't have a comp, but played it on my brothers and on friends PCs. I loved it, all of it. The atmosphere was amazing, taking the missions also from the "hooded man" but still beinng part of a pretty regular military force was really cool. The battles was intense and the fleet of vessels you could fly was cool. I still remember when you finally got the fly the prototype Tie Defender with its massive shields, engine and storage for torpedos! The predecessor and successor games were not as good IMHO, but being the "bad guy" might have influenced my judgement tho. As you can see, there's a "red line" for me when playing SW games, I'm always Empire/Sith, hehe.. which of course brings me to..
Best RPG is KOTOR. I know most think KOTOR2 is better, but I don't. For me, KOTOR 2 is extravaganza galore, exactly what I don't like with may RPGs, where the story takes on gigantic proportions. Comparing the antagonists on KOTOR1 to 2, the sith in 1 feels much, much more "real" than the rather puerile counter-parts in KOTOR2. I mean, a sith that can devour entire planets? Who the hell came up with that idea, sigh.. KOTOR one had cool NPCs (though evil wookie > good wookie!), story and was more balanced overall. KOTOR 2 is better on many accounts when it comes to gameplay and mechanics (graphics etc), but for me it never came close with regards to "the feels" in the first game. Kotor 1 is one of the top 5 best RPG experiences in my life ever, up there with BG1 and 2, Fallout 2 etc.
Other games that was good?
Don't remember what it was called, or even the platform I played it on (NES64 perhaps?) but I remember a game where you flew the speeders and defended the base, just as in Empire Strikes back, and you few around the AT-AT walkers, shooting the cable and spinning their legs. I remember me and a friend used to play that mission several times over.
Yeah, and the music from Pit droids was amazing. Just saying. Never really played the game, but listened to the music a lot, hehe..
I wish for a new Jedi Academy but modern and remaining fairly mature (compared to the more "teeny" Force Unleashed which felt more consolified). That would be a dread come true! Modern graphics and intense saber combat *drools*.
He's my favourite. It's a shame the actual boss fight was way easier than expected. I wish they would've had time and budget to flesh it out more.
The Sith in 2 are much more interesting for me. Nihilus is a ghost that's literally being consumed by his own power. He doesn't devour planets because he's evil, he devours planets because he has to. And if he hadn't been stopped he would've destroyed everything, the jedi, the sith, everything. The only reason why you defeat him is because you're a wound in the force, so his powers don't actually work on you. If you happened to be a normal jedi you would be dead in seconds.
Sion is a walking corpse. He cannot die, unless he decides he wants to die. That's the only way you can actually defeat him, by making him realise he has to let go.
And Traya? Well Traya is a better villain than the ones we got in the actual movies. She deconstructs everything you think you know about the force and makes you realise that both the jedi and sith are flawed. She's apparently the only character in the whole franchise that's actually aware of this.
Compare that to the Sith from KOTOR1. Malak is a copy-pasted Vader. Revan was good, then bad, then good again. *yawn*.
Now, that's not to say KOTOR1 is bad, it's not, I love that game. I just think 2 is better in pretty much every way.
1 does have the best plot twist I've ever seen in my life though. You know the one I'm talking about.
Malaks resolve has been weakened, his stats have lowered.
I LOVE taht KotOR2 lets you have idealogical battles with the major oppoents.
That was the most mature MP environment I have ever played in and I get goose bumps now just thinking about it. Now that I think about it, I believe the MP community was actually better in Jedi Outcast than Academy.. but my memory, as said above, is a bit fuzzy after 15 years.
Couldn't find many good videos, but this one was kinda cool
The sabre-only servers seemed to attract gamers who were mature and respectful, and in it for the sake of having fun duels, and it was a nice environment to play in... I actually miss it now, lol! Jedi Academy never did anything for me, for some reason... tbh I think the inclusion of dual-wielding, and the double-sided lightglaive, took away some of the technical aspects of the sabre duels.
Oh man.. I have no idea where my old hard-copies are, I've moved like 5-6 times since 2003, but now I'm getting an urge to replay both Outcast and Academy!