Star Wars Video Games

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
It’s hard to believe, but video games have been around as long as Star Wars has. While video games are generally considered more playable than collectable, there’s a long history of games out there. As is often the case with older electronics, sometimes the aesthetic value becomes greater than the play value.

The earliest Star Wars games are the classic arcade games and pinball machines. There were four arcade games produced by Atari: an upright arcade for each movie (SW, ESB, and ROTJ), plus a cockpit-style sit-down version of Star Wars. The ESB also came as an upgrade kit that could be used to replace an existing SW arcade.

Data East produced a Star Wars Pinball machine in the US, while an Australian company (A Hankin and Co) released an ESB pinball game.

Modern games include a Star Wars: Special Edition pinball game (by SEGA), an Episode I pinball machine, and the popular Star Wars Trilogy arcade game. I memory serves, a Podrace game was created an actual sit-in pod, although I’ve only seen a picture. It’s possible this was a promotion to go along with the Nintendo Podracer game.

Vintage and Modern arcades and pinballs are quite expensive, and quite rare to obtain. However, vintage arcade collecting is a surprisingly organized field. If one were interested in tracking down an old arcade game, the first step would be to sign up on one of the online web groups devoted to arcade collecting.
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Atari Games

More readily available are the many cartridge and household video games. Parker Brothers released four games for Atari and Sears systems:

Star Wars: Jedi Arena
Empire Strikes Back
ROTJ: Death Star Battle
SW: The Arcade Game (also for Colecovision)

Used game stores occasionally try to sell these games loose for $15-20 each, but checking local thrift stores can eventually turn them up for 50 cents or less.

According to Tomart’s, there were also two different empty advance release boxes promoting the Revenge of the Jedi game. I would assume this simply became the Return of the Jedi game.
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Nintendo and Sega

Next up are the Nintendo game cartridges. The older releases include:

Star Wars (NES)
ESB (NES)
Star Wars (Game Boy)
ESB (Game Boy)
Super Star Wars (SNES)
Super ESB (SNES)
Super ROTJ (SNES)
Shadows of the Empire (N64)
Podracer (N64)
Rogue Squadron (N64)
Battle of Naboo (N64)

SEGA also produced SW games, including:

Star Wars (Game Gear)
Rebel Assault (Sega CD)
Star Wars Arcade (Genesis)

Countless newer games are available for every system now, and are often available on several systems simultaneously, including computer versions.
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Computer Games

PC Games helped usher in the new age of modern video games. The earlier games include:

Star Wars (by Broderbund, a PC version of the arcade)
X-Wing
Imperial Pursuit
B-Wing
TIE Fighter
Rebel Assault
Rebel Assault 2
Star Wars Chess (The Software Toolworks)
Dark Forces
Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight
Shadows of the Empire
Yoda Stories

Available in England by Domark were computer conversions of the three Atari arcade games. Japan produced Star Wars for its Nintendo, in addition to SW: Attack on the Death Star by Namco for PC’s. In Spain, Walather Miller S.A. produced a Droids game, which I presume was also for the PC.
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Handheld Games

A close cousin of the video are the small electronic handheld games, which most people will know as Tiger Electronic Games. While Tiger has produced numerous games, the earliest SW handheld games were produced by Micro Games of America. These included SW, ESB, and ROTJ games (available either boxed or carded); SW Game Wizard; and SW Intimidator.

In Japan, the SW LCD Handheld Game was produced by Tsukuda Hobby Co.
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This informal article is not all-encompassing, and is meant to be an introduction for collectors. The information comes primarily from my own knowledge, memory, and collection, plus a LOT of careful searching in Tomart’s Price Guide to Worldwide SW Collectibles.
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Attached are pictures of some of the old Atari and Nintendo games.

The first pic also has Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator, both for Atari. Next is ESB for Atari, complete with box and instructions. Last are some of the Nintendo game boxes.
 

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darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
If anyone would like to help out, we could piece together a checklist of all newer games. I don't have the patience to fight my slow connection and research them all, particualarly what game went with what systems. Feel free to e-mail, PM, post or just do it all yourself--easier for me ;) Here's what I do know.

PC:
Dark Forces: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
Droid Works
SW Insider's Guide
Episode I Insider's Guide
KOTOR
KOTOR2 (full titles?)
Galaxies
Galactic Battlegrounds (& Clone Campaigns)
 

Buzz Bumble

Furry Ewok
That list of Windows PC games is obviously nowhere near complete and there's probably a complete checklist already somewhere on TheForce.net and elsewhere, but here's a few more:
  • Rebellion
  • X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
  • X-Wing Alliance
  • Rogue Squadron 3D
  • Starfighter
  • Force Commander
  • Battle for Naboo
  • Obi-Wan
  • Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight 2 - Jedi Outcast
  • Episode I: Racer
  • Battlefront
  • Star Warped (parody CD-ROM)

And, not to be outdone, here's an incomplete list of the Apple Macintosh games
  • Star Wars (a conversion of the vector graphic arcade game)
  • Rebel Assault
  • Rebel Assault II
  • Dark Forces
  • Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight 2 - Jedi Outcast
  • Knights of the Old Republic
  • X-Wing (includes expansion packs)
  • TIE Fighter (includes expansion packs)
  • Episode I: Racer
  • Galactic Battlegrounds (plus expansion pack)
  • Star Wars Screen Entertainment (screen saver pack)
  • Star Warped (parody CD-ROM)
  • Episode I Insiders Guide (reference CD-ROM)
There's also a pile of games produced by LucasLearning for both Windows and Apple Macintosh. Most are "Edutainment" titles, but they did also produce a few proper games, including:
  • Pit Droids
  • Gungan Frontier
  • Droidworks
Another LucasLearning game was doing was "Bombad Racing" (a Mario Kart style racing game) which I think did get released for the PlayStation, but the company closed down it's games department before releasing the previously announced PC and Mac versions. :(


Plus a few other games from various formats:
  • Bounty Hunter (various)
  • Pod Racer (various)
  • Rogue Squadron 2 (various)
  • Star Wars: Demolition (PlayStation)
  • Episode II (Gameboy Advance)
  • Flight of the Falcon (Gameboy Advance)
  • Jedi Power Battles (Gameboy Advance)
  • The New Droid Army (Gameboy Advance)
  • Star Wars: Original Trilogy (Gameboy Advance)
  • Star Wars (Gameboy)
  • Super Return of the Jedi (Gameboy)
  • The Empire Strikes Back (Gameboy)
  • Star Wars: Episode I - Obi-Wan's Adventures (Gameboy)
  • Star Wars: Episode I - Racer (Gameboy)
  • Star Wars (Amiga - a conversion of the vector graphic arcade game)
  • The Empire Strikes Back (Amiga - a conversion of the vector graphic arcade game)
  • Return of the Jedi (Amiga - a conversion of the arcade game)
:)
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Many thanks Buzz! :worship: That's more than I could have come up with in a month ;)

I remembered a couple more:
Masters of Teras Kasi (Playstation)
Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike (I think)
 

Buzz Bumble

Furry Ewok
Yep, Rebel Strike on the Nintendo GameCube and possibly PlayStation2.

It's not hard to come up with that list - I've got most of the ones mentioned here sitting on the shelf above my computer, on the computer's hard drive with an emulator or stored in a box in my "Star Wars cupboard / wardrobe". :D

The missing ones are on my "must get list", but after buying a couple of Windoze games and then they announce a Mac version. :banghead: I've been putting off buying the newer games so I don't have any more expensive double-ups.

But that list is still nowhere near complete.
 

JediSearch

S.C.A.L.P. Special Ops
Playstation 2

Battlefront
Bounty Hunter
The Clone Wars
Jedi Starfighter
Racer Revenge
Starfighter
 

JediSearch

S.C.A.L.P. Special Ops
XBox

Battlefront
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Knights of the Old Republic
Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Republic Commando
The Clone Wars
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outkast
Jedi Starfighter
Obi-wan
Starfighter - Special Edition
 

JediSearch

S.C.A.L.P. Special Ops
Gamecube

Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
Bounty Hunter
The Clone Wars
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outkast
Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
 

JediSearch

S.C.A.L.P. Special Ops
PC Windows

Current
  • Battlefront
  • Galaxies: An Empire Divided
  • Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed
  • Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
  • Knights of the Old Republic
  • Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
  • Republic Commando
Classics
  • Battle For Naboo
  • Dark Forces
  • Episode I Racer
  • Episode I The Phantom Menace
  • Force Commander
  • Galactic Battlegrounds
  • Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns (My Favorite, I love this game!)
  • Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
  • Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
  • Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
  • Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire
  • Star Wars Rebellion
  • Rogue Squadron
  • Shadows of the Empire
  • Starfighter
  • X-Wing Alliance
 

JediSearch

S.C.A.L.P. Special Ops
Macintosh

  • Dark Forces
  • Galactic Battlegrounds
  • Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns
  • Episode I Racer
  • Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
  • Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire
  • Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
 

darthskellington

Dark Lord of the Typos
Hey, that's harder and smarter than I would have searched :D Many thanks, JediSearch :)


Hmmm.....I'm noticing a connection between your ID and your talent. Are you a search engine in disguise? ;)
 

JediSearch

S.C.A.L.P. Special Ops
Haha! I guess I see the connection, but No... I'm quite human. I just liked the Jedi Academy books, and started using the title of the first book as my online name. Thanks for the compliment though!
 
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