My History With Star Wars Games May 5, 2017

May the Fourth be with you all. This year, to celebrate Star Wars Day, I’ve been sharing some very personal stories about the beginning of my love for this iconic franchise.  I’ve already told you about my first exposure to the franchise in the form of the Star Tours ride and the first time I watched the films, so let’s talk about the first time I played the video games.

I got my first real computer as an early Christmas present in 1996 and I was able to get the most out of it almost immediately.  My friends recommended I check out games like Quake, 3D action titles that really took advantage of a computer’s hardware.  A year later, my dad was in the process of doing some Christmas shopping and new PC games were at the top of my wish list. While shopping he happened to come across a boxed set of Star Wars PC games called the Lucasarts Archives Volume 4.  He knew I was into Star Wars and thought I would like the gift.  He was not wrong.

Christmas morning, I opened my presents to find a boxed set of some of the finest games Lucasarts ever produced. The bundle included games like Dark Forces, X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, Yoda Stories, and a whole lot more.  I installed all of the games to my Windows 95 PC and played them as much as I could.

I completed every single permutation of Yoda Stories the game could generate for me, and I enjoyed it so much I wish Lucasarts would have released a patch for it so it could have been played on Windows XP and later machines.  As for the flight sims, I could never beat the first mission in X-Wing, but I was able to make it through most of Tie-Fighter.  Dark Forces had great graphics that reminded me of DOOM, but navigating the levels without a walkthrough or map was nearly impossible past the game’s second level.

The archive also included some detailed demos for the most recent Star Wars games at the time. My father mistakenly believed they were not demos when he bought them, but given the low price he paid for the archive I couldn’t blame him for being mistaken.  The archive included a demo for the multiplayer game X-Wing Vs Tie-Fighter, a limited look at the Star Wars Behind the Magic interactive reference, and 2 CD-ROMs including the first three levels of Jedi Knight and its expansion pack Mysteries of the Sith.

If you asked me, nothing could compare to Jedi Knight.  While the special demo only included the first three levels of the game, it included everything from those three levels including the first three FMV sequences.  I can still remember the night I played the hell out of that demo, waiting by the edge of my seat to see what happened to Kyle as he followed in his father’s footsteps to find an ancient Jedi burial ground. When I completed level three, I felt like I only had seen the first part of an epic story, and I had to know how it ended.  I ended up ordering a bundled version of the game with its expansion pack for my birthday the next year.  While the first three levels of Jedi Knight gave players no access to Force powers, the full version of the game gave the player access to The Force gradually, which actually made the game feel more realistic. I know a lot of fans watched Star Wars and wished to become a Jedi, Jedi Knight felt like the first game that actually granted that wish.  To this day it remains one of my favorite games of all time.

Great things don’t last forever and I’m sad to say that the Episode I titles were some of the last games Lucasarts produced directly for the PC.  As the early 2000s ticked away, most of Lucasarts’s game development shifted to games for the home consoles including PS2, GameCube and Xbox.  Sometimes Lucasarts would be forward thinking enough to offer some of their more popular titles on PC, but there was no guarantee of that happening.  Obi-Wan would be released exclusively on the Xbox, even thought it was initially announced as a PC title.  Games like Jedi Starfighter would also never get a release on the PC, despite the popularity of the original Starfighter.

At E3, Lucasarts announced Raven Software, developers of the incredible Star Trek: Elite Force, would be taking one of the best graphic engines available, the Quake III Arena Engine, and making a sequel to my favorite Star Wars game, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.  When it finally released, Jedi Outcast became my favorite Star Wars game of all time. The graphics were beautiful, the gameplay was solid and fluid, and the story continued the incredible tale that began with Jedi Knight. It had a satisfying conclusion that didn’t need a sequel but could merit one if possible.  It’s sequel, Jedi Academy, was a decent game with fun new mechanics like the double-bladed and dual-wielding lightsaber. However, the fact you can’t play as Kyle Katarn made it feel like more of an expansion pack than a true sequel. Sadly we would never have any more adventures with Kyle, but I’m grateful for all the time we did get to spend with him.

The last great Star Wars game I enjoyed on the PC would have to be Knights of the Old Republic by Bioware.  I know a lot of people consider KOTOR to be the greatest Star Wars game…ever, but I still feel stronger about Jedi Outcast.  I enjoyed KOTOR a lot on the Xbox and on the PC, but its sequel was a massive disappointment.  I remember spending seven hours a day over the course of four consecutive days with the hope the game would tell me anything about what happened to the characters from the last game.  Sadly, KOTOR II‘s abrupt ending would not fulfill that wish.

After the release of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, The Force Unleashed became the last major Star Wars game I considered a disappointment. The game was planned to be a major expansion of the Star Wars expanded universe just like Shadows of the Empire was in the mid-90s, and while it had a fantastic story, its gameplay was buggy and frustrating.  The Force Unleashed II felt like the exact opposite.  It had very polished gameplay, but its incomplete story and abrupt ending upset me, and sadly that short-sighted decision to release the game without a complete story brought a premature end to the once promising franchise expansion.

With the purchase of Lucasfilm came the end of Lucasarts, and with it the cancellation of some extremely anticipated games like Star Wars 1313.  I felt it was the end of an era, because in its heyday, Lucasarts was one of the best PC game publishers in the world. It was truly sad to see it gone.

Hope you all had a wonderful May the Fourth, and we will have all new content for you soon!

Ten Ways to Celebrate Star Wars Day on May The Fourth May 4, 2017

May the Fourth be with you all!  In honor of Star Wars Day, we will be offering some great tips on how to best celebrate your fandom!

1. Watch all of the Star Wars movies in any order you like. I’m sure everyone below will comment on what they feel will be the best way to do it, but I prefer to watch them in the order they were released in theaters.
2. If you can’t get through all the episodes, try watching the movies with a Rifftrax audio commentary track!
3. Play your favorite Star Wars video game. I could devote an entire article to my history with the Star Wars games…in fact I think I just might do that…
4. Rewatch this awesome interview with George Lucas and the cast of Star Wars at Celebration 2017 in Orlando.
5. Create your own fanfilm with friends. I have no idea if Disney is going to continue allowing them now that they have the rights to Star Wars but the old rules were you could only make a serious film with original characters, but parody/comedy films could use familiar characters.
6. If you can’t make a fanfilm, you could always watch some!  Here’s a link to some of our favorites!
7. Watch Tony Goldmark’s Some Jerk with a Camera reviews!  He’s reviewed several different versions of Star Tours as well as other classic theme park rides, and everyone should give them a watch!
8. Watch the GameTrailers Retrospective on the history of Star Wars video games.
9. Read my early history of Star Wars article!
10. Share the film with a friend who never saw it before!

My Early History With Star Wars May 4, 2017

May the Fourth be with you all!  As you may know, today is traditionally known as Star Wars Day!  To celebrate today, we prepared a whole bunch of original articles which we will be publishing over the course of the day. To kick things off, I thought it was time to talk about my first experience with Star Wars and the start of my love of this incredible franchise.

The year was 1994 and I was an honor student at my local elementary school.  I grew up with an interest in science and was always a fan of science-fiction movies like Jurassic Park and Back to the Future.  I was familiar with the original Star Wars Trilogy due to its incredible impact in popular culture but I wasn’t entirely familiar with all of its details.  You have to understand that this was early 1994, the last Star Wars film was released over a decade earlier and while it was groundbreaking for its time, Star Wars had faded a bit from the mainstream. Heck, we didn’t even have decent quality VHS releases of the original trilogy yet.  In short, I knew Star Wars was a thing, but until 1994, I knew nothing about it.

In Spring 1994, my family took me on the first trip to Walt Disney World that I could remember.  One of the parks we visited during that trip was the brand-new Disney/MGM Studios (now called the Disney Hollywood Studios).  At the time, it was my favorite of the Disney parks.  I loved movies and while the Tower of Terror was still a year away from completion, there were plenty of cutting-edge rides and attractions at the park that I absolutely loved.

In fact, one of my favorite rides at the park was the original version of Star Tours.  The ride was great, and the effects held up beautifully even to this day.  If you weren’t able to check it out before it was upgraded in the late 2000s, I recommend checking out Tony Goldmark’s review of the original ride.  He did a great job with his hilarious video review and it really brought me back to help me remember how I felt about it the first time I rode it.

However, while the ride was great, at the time I understood Star Tours as an exciting thrill ride, but I didn’t have a deep connection with it.  I had never seen any of the Star Wars films that the ride was based on and so a lot of concepts the ride featured went right over my head. That would all change later on that year.

Sometime in late 1994, the USA Network decided to host a special three-night event. Over the course of three nights, USA aired all three films in the original, uncut Star Wars trilogy. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow my remote found the channel just as the original Star Wars began its broadcast.  Something about the movie just called out to me to watch it, and watch it I did.  For the next two hours I remained glued to my seat as I was introduced to Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewie, C-3PO, and R2-D2.

After watching Star Wars for the first time I thought the film was a masterpiece well worthy of its impact on popular culture.  I loved the characters, the world they lived in, the effects, but most of all I loved the film’s story.  After getting my first taste of Star Wars I knew I wanted to see more and luckily I wouldn’t have to wait long.

The next night, I made sure to tune in early to catch the broadcast of The Empire Strikes Back.  How much did this movie have an impact on me?  I think I was one of the last people on the planet to be surprised at the big reveal in The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader told Luke Skywalker (*spoilers*) he was in fact Luke’s father.

I remember agonizing over Episode V‘s cliffhanger, and after watching the end of Empire, who could blame me?  Han Solo was in danger, Luke was still recovering from his first battle with Darth Vader, and I had no idea if there was any truth to what Vader told Luke.  How the heck could people stand waiting three years for Episode VI back in the day?  I couldn’t stand waiting 24 hours!

Nothing was going to stop me from watching Return of the Jedi on the third night. I don’t want to repeat the plot point for point but needless to say I loved the movie with all my heart and at the time I never could have imagined a more fulfilling ending to the Star Wars saga.

Conveniently, 20th Century Fox re-released the original unedited Star Wars Trilogy on VHS with THX remaster just before Christmas 1994.  I got my first look at the THX remaster of the film while my dad was buying a new TV for his bedroom that year. I saw the store had set up a computer display to play the original Star Wars, and I think I ended up watching nearly the entire film on one of the monitors as he went shopping.  I thought the THX remaster of the film looked great and I wished I had my own copy.

My parents got me the Star Wars VHS boxed set for Christmas and I can remember it was one of the best Christmases of my life.  I must have rewatched those movies hundreds of times, either alone or with my friends.  I would even watch the ten-minute interview included at the beginning of each tape where Leonard Maltin would interview George Lucas about each of the films. In the years before DVD would offer countless special features, I considered the inclusion of this interview a prototype for that.  I also paid extra special attention to an off the cuff comment Lucas made to Maltin about new movies he was working on.

The next year I went back to Disney World and rode Star Tours again, only this time it would be as a fan.  Re-riding it as a fan was like a whole-new experience.  A year later I rode it again at Disneyland because I was not going to pass up the chance to ride Star Tours and it didn’t matter which coast it was going to be on!  I was happy to find the ride experiences were pretty much identical.

In 1997 I got my first computer and with it, I finally had access to play a cavalcade of incredible Star Wars video games. By this point, Star Wars was back in a big way. The Star Wars Special Editions were getting released in theaters that year and George Lucas had announced there were going to be all-new prequel films starting in 1999…but that’s a story for another time!

Thanks for reading, everyone!  We’ve got more original content on the way to celebrate May 4th, so stay tuned!  Special thanks to Tony Goldmark, who the internet knows better as Some Jerk With a Camera for being nice enough to let me feature his review of Star Tours on this article. If you haven’t seen his work, you should check it out on YouTube.